REPACK AND THE BIRTH OF

CHARLIE KELLY Foreword by Copyright © 2014 by Charlie Kelly

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Cover design by Voltage, Ltd. Cover and author photos by Wende Cragg/Rolling Dinosaur Archive Back cover photo by Jerry Riboli Interior photograph credits on page 252 Photo retouching by Andy Castellano Interior design by Vicki Hopewell

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Foreword Epiphany Spidey 21 Singlespeeds Marin Repack A Passion The Most The Dirt Humbolt County for Racing Important Bicycle Klunkers Bicycle Comes of of the 20th Age Century

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Crested Getting The Word The Ritchey The First Widening Mountain- Fat Tire NORBA The 1982 The Butte Organized Gets Out Mountain- Mountain- the View Bikes Flyer Coors Image Bike Bike Classic

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The Ride Mammoth After the Postscript: Appendix Coda Acknowledg- Credits Index of a Kamikaze d’Italia Flyer Some ments Lifetime Conclusions chapter 13

n September 1979 I went back to Crested Butte THE RITCHEY with Joe Breeze, Wende Cragg, , new Ritchey owner James MacWay, and Chris MOUNTAINBIKE McManus, a friend of Joe’s who was mounted Ion a one-speed, coaster brake dinosaur. We trav- eled in two vehicles, a rented station wagon with four people inside and the bikes on top and James’s classic old Porsche with one passenger. Unfortu- nately, within shouting distance of Crested Butte the Porsche blew an oil plug, quickly followed by the engine. James had to leave it in a service station that had never seen a Porsche, and we all crowded into the wagon to finish the drive. In addition to our six riders, another two loads of Marin clunker riders made the trek, including a couple of the Koski brothers with their new bikes made in ’s shop, for a total of 18 from Marin. When we got to Crested Butte, the change that had taken place in a single year was more than amazing. 97 ch13

Right: The Marin County crew stretches after the long drive to Crested Butte, Colorado, for the Fourth Annual Crested Butte to Aspen Pearl Pass Tour, September 1979. Left to right: Gary Fisher, James MacWay, me, Joe Breeze, Wende Cragg. Bottom: Heading up Paradise Divide out of Crested Butte, September 1979. Left to right: Joe, me, Gary, and James. Wende’s Breezer is over to the right.

While the crew that had originated the ride into Aspen had been blue-collar, hard-drinking firefight- ers, the town had another faction, the telemark ski- ers. Telemark skiing is a Nordic technique for skiing downhill that uses only the toe binding from skinny cross-country skis. A cross-country lift ticket was cheaper than a downhill ticket at the Crested Butte ski area; the assumption was that a cross-country skier would not be making a dozen runs in a day. By telemarking, locals saved money with a skinny- ski ticket while getting in just as many runs as the downhillers. In the process, they pioneered that style of telemark skiing in the United States. Mountain biking was a perfect summer sport for the same crowd. After we had introduced it to the town a year earlier, the locals had caught up with us very quickly. The Clunker Tour sponsors at the Grubstake Saloon were ready for us this time, and the crew had more than doubled, although once again half the total riders were from Marin. 99 ch13

Richard Nilsen, who had inspired us to come A few months later the photo appeared on the The start line and banner of the Fourth out a year earlier, was back, and this time he was cover of the April 1980 issue of Bicycling magazine. Annual (but third actual) Pearl Pass Tour, outside the Grubstake Saloon on on real fat-tire equipment to replace his touring Since the Porsche was not ready to return to Elk Avenue in Crested Butte, September 1979. bike. Alan Bonds flew into Aspen with his bike California, the six of us jammed ourselves and our and rode it over the Maroon Bells into Crested bikes into and around the station wagon for the Butte. It was a much more demanding ride to trip home. Camping in Austin, Nevada, we were make in one day than he had expected, and he caught in a rainstorm that forced four big men to rolled into Crested Butte late in the afternoon sleep in a two-man tent along with 3 or 4 inches exhausted and shattered. of water. The situation was so ridiculously uncom- The Koskis had brought with them a crowd of fortable that we couldn’t help laughing hysterically Cove Bike Shop regulars equipped with the latest about it all night. advance in clunker technology since the arrival of A few weeks after we returned from Crested aluminum rims. They had gumwall, 26 × 2.125– Butte, Gary called me up and asked me to come inch, Mitsuboshi Cruiser Mitt tires that were half over to his cottage in Fairfax. He told me that Tom the weight of the old Uniroyal Nobby tires we Ritchey had made some more frames like the one were still using. These gumwall tires were made he was riding, and he wanted to show them to me. for street riding and had minimal knobs, so they When I got there, Gary opened the trunk of his didn’t look suitable for rugged, off-road use. The battered BMW and showed me the frames. There Cove riders used the new tires to ride the relatively were nine of them nestled in there, and they were good road to the overnight campsite and then, as beautifully made as my Colnago. Gary explained before the climb to the summit, swapped them for that Tom had become very interested in this new Uniroyal tires like ours, which they had stashed in kind of bike and had made a few more. the gear trucked up to the camp. Although there was an avid crew of off-road rid- Rick Verplank, whose spontaneous adventure ers down in Tom’s area near Palo Alto, led by legend- three years earlier had led to this point, fired a ary local Jobst Brandt, they hit their trails either on shotgun to send us off. At the top of Pearl Pass, we road bikes or similarly set up rugged bikes equipped posed once again for the obligatory group photo. with 650B tires and drop handlebars. Tom hadn’t 100 ch13

been able to sell any of the new style of flat-han- in quality to our road bikes. They could hardly be dlebar, big-tire bikes to anyone in his area. Since he called “clunkers,” but they didn’t yet have a general My first business card, knew Gary had access to riders who wanted bikes name. When I took up cycling, the road bike had designed by Pete Barrett. like Gary’s, he had offered them to Gary on spec to been just “the bike” because there was only one see whether Gary could help get rid of them. kind. Then I had owned a “clunker” as well. Now, Nine bikes were a lot of bikes, and Tom wanted when we had to differentiate in conversations as to about $400 apiece for the frames if Gary was able which we were riding of the two beautiful bikes we to sell them. These frames were not at all cheap, owned, we spoke of our “road bikes” or our “moun- and they only represented a starting point to a tain bikes.” “Mountain Bikes” seemed like a great bike. As we looked at the booty, Gary asked a sim- name for our company. Just to make it clear that it ple question with lifelong consequences. “Do you was a brand name and not just a general term, we want to help me sell these frames?” soon made it one word and used a cute spelling, It was too easy to say yes, and I did. We did MountainBikes. the minimum amount of company organization Gary and I went to Palo Alto so I could meet that was possible and then we were in business. Tom. He had been at my January race and appears We counted the cash that the two of us had on our in photos standing behind me while I was inter- persons at that moment, about $200. We took that viewed by the TV crew, but if we had had a con- money to the nearest bank, and we opened a joint versation back then, I didn’t remember it. He was business account. working in the machine shop in his garage when We had a company name that we wanted to Gary introduced me, and the three of us talked in use. The term had recently entered the most general terms about what would need to our personal lexicon. The bikes had been clunk- happen to get rid of those nine frames and more. ers until Joe had taken them out of that category Tom made frames and forks. He would deliver them with his beautiful nickel-plated frames. Now there to us already painted, with the new “Bullmoose” were several versions of custom off-road bikes: one-piece bar and stem. Gary and I would get the Joe’s, Tom’s, the Lawwill-Knight ProCruiser (from parts, assemble the bikes, find the customers, and a Koski design), and Jeffrey Richman’s, all similar pay Tom for the framesets. What could be simpler?

Fat Tire Flyer • The Ritchey MountainBike 101 ch13 Ritchey number 1, from ’s collection. Tom’s beautiful fillet brazing and no-frills design are on full display. 102 ch13

While the discussion was going on, Tom our first completed bikes in the room where most turned out a couple of small bike parts on his lathe families ate dinner but where we assembled bikes. without appearing to measure anything, then fitted At the time, you could buy a Tour de France them right into place. racing bike for less money than we wanted for a Pete Barrett designed a business card for us, bike with $3 tires. We really needed to charge depicting the rear wheel of a fat-tire bike on top of even more, but we had already pushed the ceiling a snow-capped peak. We needed to be able to get as hard as possible. It took a lot of faith to hand mail, so we rented a post office box. A business card, over that kind of money to two guys with a zero a checking account, and a post office box address do track record. Besides, look at them. Because his not add up to a company, and $200 wasn’t enough hippie appearance was a hindrance for working in to equip even one of the bikes. Yet we were indis- Europe with the bike team coached by Mike Neel, putably in the mountain bike business. Gary had recently chopped off the 2 feet of hair Gary and I stashed the frames at his house and he sported when I met him. I had no need for that went about the business of getting rid of them. On kind of grooming, and I left mine long. I adopted the plus side, we had nine frames and $200. On the the Fu Manchu mustache look, along with Gary, minus side, we had nothing except those things, Joe, and Tom (who to this day has sported the including a business location. We didn’t have any same hirsute look). Few who looked at Gary and place for a phone to ring except our houses, and me would have mistaken us for solid citizens. any of three people answered at mine, so we used Nevertheless, we managed to find a few cus- Gary’s phone number. tomers. My uncle, an engineer who worked on We needed customers who would pay us in oil-drilling sites all over the world, ponied up for advance for the bike, which we determined would a bike and waited a few weeks for it, as did a local

Me hefting Ritchey number 2 up a steep trail cost about $1,200. We would take that money to firefighter who worked with Otis Guy. We weren’t for a MountainBikes promotion shot. the bike shop and buy the parts we needed over making any money, but we were putting bikes the counter. We assembled the first few bikes at the under people and starting to find ways of drawing house I shared with Kent Bostick and Pete on San attention to the bikes and ourselves. I didn’t even Anselmo Avenue, and Gary took photos of one of have a Ritchey myself when I started selling them,

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Head-on toward the camera aboard Ritchey number 2.

and it would be well into the year before I had one of my own. We took photos of Gary’s bike with Gary’s camera, a medium-format Hasselblad left over from the days in the ’60s when he shot images of rock stars. We had one bike to use for the photos, Gary’s, and one camera, also Gary’s. I could ride a bike, but I had never used that kind of camera, so I served as the model on Gary’s bike while he took the photos. One action shot had me toting the bike up a hill on my shoulder; another had me holding it at arm’s length to show how light I could make it look. For my star turn, I wore ordi- nary Levis and a yellow T-shirt that Bob Burrowes had printed up. On the front was a photograph of Bob in action on Repack and the logo “Marin County Klunkers.” On the back it read, “I’d rather be klunking.” When Thanksgiving rolled around, I had Pete draw up another poster for the Appetite Seminar, and the turnout was a couple dozen riders, includ- ing a San Francisco bicyclist named Darryl Skrabak riding a Jack Taylor cyclocross bike. Darryl now and then contributed to a local free tabloid called City Sports. If Darryl hadn’t been there and written about it, I might have forgot- ten that ride by now. It started raining during the 104 ch13

Mert Lawwill’s ProCruiser, based on a design by the Koski brothers, came out in 1979.

ing for months. The miseries visited upon the participants will be dwelt upon at length, and recounted repeatedly, and expanded into tales, and thence into legend. It will be recalled as one of the great ones. Because it was the worst.

Darryl took a photograph of Gary on his Ritchey bike and captioned it “Gary Fisher on his super-low-geared klunker.” This was the first pho- tograph of the Ritchey bike to hit print. Farther down in the piece, Darryl used our company name in print for the first time. “Ritchey is now party to a fledgling Kelly and Fisher concern known as ride, the mud peeling up off the road in sheets on shops based on the expectation that it would run. MountainBikes, which markets Ritchey’s frames our tires. The inclement conditions and the mud- It appeared in the December 1979/January 1980 and other klunker equipment.” clogged machinery turned the ride into a desperate issue of City Sports. It starts with this: That fall we received a visit from Bob Hadley, forced march by hypothermic riders. As the leader, editor of Bicycle Action. We had noth- I was responsible, so I herded the miserable crew There are events that become adventures, and ing remotely to do with BMX and did not count around the loop and then went home, warmed up, adventures that become ordeals, and ordeals it among our influences. It was most likely Mert’s and tried to forget the day. in which things go from bad to worse, and the involvement in framebuilding for the Koskis that Darryl found the adventure charming in retro- worse things become, the better they are. got Hadley’s attention, since even in retirement spect and wrote a paean to the ride that he titled It was that way at the Appetite Seminar Mert was a national hero and icon for motorcy- “Working Up an Appetite.” The City Sports editor held Thanksgiving Day in the Marin hills. clists. Mert had been a national champion motor- at first derided Darryl’s story and planned to spike This unheralded event was plain awful. It cycle racer and had a starring role in a documen- it until members of the advertising department was the worst Seminar ever, and it was the tary film with Steve McQueen,On Any Sunday. mentioned that they had already sold ads to bike Fifth Annual. It will fuel Marin bench rac- By this time, Mert and the Koskis had separated,

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and each was working on bikes independently of the other. The Koskis would call their next design Trailmaster, and Mert continued producing the original Koski design as the ProCruiser. The BMX magazine sent a photographer to take action shots, and Joe gave them the action they needed for a motor-drive photo sequence of a side- ways pitch. The price of the bikes stunned Hadley; his eventual article was titled “Loaded for Bear and Ungodly Expensive: Full Bore Cruisers.” Despite his thin credentials in mountain biking, Mert got most of Hadley’s attention for his Koski-designed ProCruiser. Mert claimed sales of his first 75 bikes for about $500 apiece, Gary putting his second Ritchey MountainBike with the next 100 on their way. After that new pastime—what they thought these bikes through its paces. Hadley mentioned us: “The only other people should be called. who are producing pure klunkers are Joe Breeze Of all the names that have been applied and Tom Ritchey. Each has built around ten at various times for these bikes—Klunkers, bikes. The Breezer and the Ritchey sell for an Ballooners, Bombers, Downhillers, Mountain incredible $1,200 . . . which gives you an idea of Bikes, Trail Bikes, Tankers, Cruisers, Cow Trail- the quality of the workmanship and components ers, the consensus of opinion is that they should that are put into these bikes.” be called Mountain Bikes. And when you think What to call them? about it, that name fits like a glove.

We asked Mert, Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Charles BMX was being marketed to parents as a “safe” Kelly, and the owners of the Cove Bike Shop in sport for kids, and those kids were the target audi- Tiburon—the people at the heart of this brand- ence for the magazine. Our lack of helmets called 106 ch13

for a scolding in the article. A photograph of Mert MOUNTAIN BIKES sliding a ProCruiser sideways is captioned “Mert The Trail Blazers Lawwill, still hookin’ it on, even without his Harley. 26 × 2.125 18 Speeds 28 lb. But no helmet. Tsk, tsk, tsk, Mert.” Advanced Off-Road A writer named Dean Bradley, who worked Bicycle Technology for the other major BMX publication, BMX Plus!, Custom Framesets—Bikes was the next to notice us, and in the February 1980 Conversion Kits for Beach issue he reviewed what he called the “Richey [sic] Bike to Mountain Cruiser Mountain Bike.” Bradley led off the article with a remarkable prediction. “This month’s 26-inch test Write or Call bike is called a Mountain Bike. Chances are that For FREE Catalog: you’ve never heard of it before, but believe me, you Mountain Bikes will be hearing a lot about this revolutionary bike P.O. Box 405 in the future.” The rest of the article went on in the Fairfax, CA 94930 same vein. Dean loved the bikes and gushed over (415) 456-1898 them in the article. In keeping with magazine tradition, the BMX Really? A free catalog? Plus! advertising department leaned on us to take out an ad since Dean was giving us a lot of posi- tive publicity in the article. This was our first print advertising, and we didn’t have anything prepared. Our MountainBikes ad from 1980. We didn’t have Pete’s graphics as a separate piece of art, so we sent the magazine’s art department a business card and told them what we wanted the ad to say:

Fat Tire Flyer • The Ritchey MountainBike SPORTS • CYCLING

THE TRUE, COMPLETE, AND EXTRAORDINARY TALE OF THE INVENTION OF REPACK AND THE RISE OF MOUNTAIN BIKING

”It’s a cool, clear morning in Northern California, but boards down Everest. They have developed their own the five young men are sweating profusely as they unique athletic challenge, a race which is known only push strangely modified bicycles up the steep hill. to a few dozen locals and is referred to as ‘Repack.’ They are discussing the dirt road surface, which re- The road they are on is the racecourse. sembles a moonscape more than it does a road. ”The sport that is going on here may never catch on ”These young men belong to the same breed that skis with the American public, and its originators couldn’t down cliffs, jumps out of airplanes, or rides skate- care less. They are here to get off.”

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