All-terrain origins hailing from the Bay Area
By SAVANNAH BURGER—arts@theaggie.org
It’s safe to say that the citizens and students of Davis have a passion for everything having to do with biking. The logo for the city itself is a bicycle, and the fact of the matter is that nearly 50% of all students at UC Davis commute to campus via bike. While there are a myriad of different bikes, a common type to see around Davis is the all-terrain mountain bike. However, the mountain bike does not originate from Davis — instead just two hours west in the Bay Area.
Just north of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, the mountain bike was born in Marin County’s Mount Tamalpais. The mountain itself, also commonly referred to as “Mount Tam” for short, is a 2,571-foot behemoth of a mountain that offers miles of trails, multiple campgrounds, outdoor theater and gorgeous views of the California Bay Area.
All around Mount Tam, there are vista points that show off San Francisco, the Pacific Ocean, Marin County, the East Bay, Mount Diablo and, with luck and good weather, the Sierra Nevada Mountains, located more than 150 miles away. Also boasting many different ecosystems — such as open grasslands, coastal redwood forests, oak woodlands, chaparral and a pygmy cypress grove — Mount Tam is the perfect destination for outdoor activities.
The same sentiment was held by a group of Marin-based teenagers known as “The Larkspur Canyon Gang.” This group of teens, among them being mountain bike legends Gary Fisher, Joe Breeze and Tom Ritchey, were busy experimenting with custom bikes specializing in off-roading. They chose the twists and turns of Mount Tam to be their testing field.
The group made their modifications by taking 1930s Schwinn, Colson and Shelby bikes and stripping them of irrelevant parts. They then took salvaged parts from junkyards and other bikes to outfit their models with wide, knobby tires, sturdy frames and flat motorcycle handlebars. The bikes were also retrofitted with the better brakes and gears needed for riding at fast speeds down the face of Mount Tam.
These bikes, markedly the “Breezer #1” made by Joe Breeze in 1977, are thought of as the first prototypes for today’s mountain bike. These bicycles, which were affectionately referred to as “klunkers” or “ballooners,” were used by Larkspur Canyon Gang in the world’s first ever mountain bike races, named the “Repack Downhill.” Starting in 1976, the races were dubbed “Repack” due to the fact that the downhill descent on Mount Tam caused extreme speed — making the coaster brakes red-hot and vaporizing the grease. Thus, after every race, bikers would have to repack their brakes. The course that the Repack followed shoots down 1,300 feet in less than 2.1 miles — talk about extreme!
Naturally, the Repack Races became a hit, attracting riders and spectators from all over the Marin County and greater Bay Area. There was such eagerness around the races, they held the first nine in just one week. The Bay Area, and quickly more distant bike fans, became hooked. Not only was Mount Tam the home of the first modern mountain bike model, but it also played the most pivotal role in making mountain biking a heated, exciting and competitive sport.
Since then, the sport and the mountain bike itself have taken off. Soon after the Larkspur Canyon Gang and Repack Races, the 1980s saw the wide-scale media coverage of major races, which were viewed by millions of people. Companies such as Trek, Specialized and Cannondale hit the mountain biking industry with new innovation and commercialized mountain bikes, driving their rapid evolution.
Once the 1990s came around, mountain biking had proven itself a worldwide phenomenon. In 1996, mountain biking entered the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia as an official sport, almost to the day of the 20th year anniversary of the very first Repack Race.
Today, Mount Tamalpais is still known as one of the best mountain biking destinations in California, with eight trails dedicated to mountain biking in Mount Tamalpais State Park. So, if you’re wondering how far you can push the mountain bike you ride to work or school everyday, take a little trip to Mount Tam and see what it can do on its home turf!
Written by: Savannah Burger—arts@theaggie.org
