Collectors Weekly looks at the birth of mountain biking and the legendary 1976 Repack race in Marin, California:
In France, from 1951 to 1956, a group of 20 or so French cyclists founded Velo Cross Club Parisian, whose members performed jumps and other tricks on off-road bicycles outfitted with modified moped suspension forks to absorb front-end vibrations. In the United States, University of California at Davis professor John Finley Scott created a forerunner of the modern mountain bike in 1953 when he built his first "woodsie," as he called it. In England, beginning in 1955, members of the Rough-Stuff Fellowship rode bicycles outfitted with fat balloon tires through places like the Chiltern Hills. And throughout the 1970s, people in the United States rode bicycles off road for fun in Santa Barbara and Cupertino, as well as in Crested Butte.
"The Hippie Daredevils Who Were Just Crazy Enough to Invent Mountain Biking"
