The Road Less Traveled - by Scott Rathburn (page 2)
Affectionately known as Repack, the road had been popular with local ballooners for years. The nickname arose from the fact that the coaster brake hubs of those early bikes would get so hot during the descent that the grease would vaporize. After a run or two, the hubs would have to be re-packed with new grease. As with any activity involving competitive young men (the predominant group, at the time), claims of being fastest were commonplace. But such claims are worthless without proof. To settle the issue once and for all, Repack, The Race, was established . . . and the sport of downhill mountain bike racing was born. Of course, the term “mountain bike” didn't exist at the time. Repack was just a friendly race between local riders on old clunkers, vying for bragging rights.
The first official downhill mountain bike race took place down Repack on October 21, 1976. It was a time-trial format, with riders leaving the start line at 2-minute intervals. Charlie Kelly, armed with a Navy chronometer and an alarm clock with a sweep second hand, handled the timing duties. Of the seven riders who started the race, only one finished. Alan Bonds won by virtue of being the only rider to make it to the bottom without crashing or breaking his bike. His time was a respectable 5 minutes, 12 seconds. As the dust cleared and riders gathered to review their performances, strains of “If only . . .” and “I could have . . .” filled the air. Organizers quickly scheduled another race for the following week . . . and then another. On October 30, 1976, during the third Repack race, Joe Breeze recorded a sub-five-minute time of 4 minutes, 56 seconds to claim victory over 10 other riders – all of them riding hand-modified fat-tire bikes. Riding Repack required a generous mixture of skill, bravado and fearlessness, but above all, it required a bike that would make it to the bottom without breaking. Equipment failures were common, and riders quickly learned which components and modifications worked and which didn't – sometimes with painful consequences. The venerable Schwinn Excelsior was arguably the best platform to start with. According to the logbook kept by Charlie Kelly, there were 24 Repack races in all – 22 between 1976 and 1979, and the final two in 1983 and '84. Gary Fisher recorded the fastest time for the treacherous run on December 5, 1976 – a blazing 4 minutes, 22 seconds that still stands today. Joe Breeze holds the second-fastest time at 4 minutes, 24 seconds, and placed first in 10 of the 24 races. While Breeze's riding skills and familiarity with the course surely played a significant role in his success at Repack, so did the custom fat-tire bike he designed and built for himself in September 1977.
Much of the impetus for that bike, as well as a handful of cash to get the project started, came from Charlie Kelly. By his own admission, Kelly's downhill riding skills were less than stellar. He persuaded Joe to build a lightweight clunker frame for him that would (he hoped) provide a competitive advantage at Repack. An experienced frame builder and skilled machinist, Breeze designed a frame that emulated the proven geometry of the Schwinn Excelsior, but was lighter and stronger. The prototype, Breezer #1, became Joe's personal bike; the second frame went to Kelly. Word of the frames spread quickly, and Joe soon had orders for 8 more. Those 10 Breezers featured lightweight, 4130 chrome-molybdenum frames, and were outfitted with all new components. They were custom-built fat-tire bikes designed specifically for mountain biking. By all accounts, they were the first modern mountain bikes – and the term “clunker” definitely no longer applied. Before long, other frame builders – like Tom Ritchey in Redwood City, about 50 miles south of Marin – were getting into the act. Ritchey provided frames to Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly, who built them up with components and sold them as complete bicycles. In the summer of '79, Fisher and Kelly formed a company called MountainBikes to sell the new creations. This was the first commercial use of the term mountain bike. The Japanese entered the market in 1982, with mass-produced bikes similar to (if not exact copies of) the Fisher/Kelly MountainBikes. These bikes, the Specialized Stumpjumper and the Univega Alpina Pro, brought the price below $800 and introduced mountain biking to the masses. By 1983, every major bicycle manufacturer in the world had jumped on the mountain bike bandwagon. Today, mountain bikes make up more than 50% of the adult bicycle market. They range from inexpensive department store models with rigid frames, to fully suspended titanium and carbon fiber works of art that sell for as much as $8,000 – or more. <<Back to page1
