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Charlie Kelly Home | Fat Tire Flyer | Kelly Moving | APHIDS | Sons of Champlin | Kelly Family | Reprints | Links |
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Charlie Kelly's |
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Welcome to Charlie Kelly's Mountain Bike HubSite. I was fortunate to participate in some of the important recent events in cycling history, and I have assembled some of my library of unique cycling material for your inspection. Because there is too much to put onto one page, there are a lot of other pages, so click the links as you scroll down. Some of the best material is at the end of those links. |
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The posters at left and below are examples of the underground advertising for Repack races.
Poster art by Pete Barrett |
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Click the poster for the story of the legendary Repack Downhill, the race that changed bicycling forever.
A strange bicycling event called "Repack" changed my life, starting in 1976, when the first downhill off-road race took place on a road a few people called "Repack" road, just outside Fairfax, California. I promoted clandestine races there starting in 1976 and ending in 1984, the beginning of what has become a world-wide sport of downhill mountain bike racing. The story of mountain biking is partly about the bike, but that does not explain the phenomenon. Marin County is not the only place where the mountain bike was invented, but it is the birthplace of the sport of mountain biking. People had ridden bikes on dirt long before the first MountainBike went on sale in San Anselmo in 1979. Cyclo-cross riders invented cross country bicycle racing, and millions of kids took their balloon tire bikes off road before I was even born. Earlier tinkerers had come up with the combination of fat tires, flat handlebars, better brakes and multiple gears that separated mountain bikes from all others, and had done so before I learned how to ride a two wheeler. It was the downhill racers in an insane competition on a hill with a unique name who made the invention of the modern mountain bike a necessity. The Repack Downhill initiated the biggest change in cycling of the 20th Century, and helped turn a quaint hobby into an Olympic sport. And that was only the start. |
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Now that downhill racing is a mainstream sport, there will never again be anything remotely like the Repack Downhill, a pivotal event in the development of what we now call mountain biking. |
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Left, Repack 30th Anniversary citation from the Czech Republic
These activities and the associated bicycle engineering efforts started me on a fifteen year odyssey through the bicycle industry as I took part in the development of mountain biking, owned a bike company that named the sport, published a mountain bike magazine, wrote a book, took part in the formation of the National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA), and helped write the worldwide rules for off-road bicycle racing. In 1988 I was inducted as a charter member into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.
Below, a 2009 cover from the Discovery Channel Magazine.
Mount Tamalpais |
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In 1977 a hand-modified, 50-pound, '30s-vintage Schwinn Motorbike frame was the state of the art in off-road bicycles. Although "Excelsior" was only one of several brand names used for bikes sold with the Motorbike frame, that became the common, if somewhat inaccurate descriptor among the klunker set for all frames of this type, which included bikes sold by BF Goodrich, Schwinn and others. Here are five proud "Excelsior" owners after a Repack event, Alan Bonds, Benny Heinricks, Ross Parkerson, Jim Stern, and myself. Alan, Ross and Jim are wearing t-shirts sporting the Excelsior logo, printed by Alan Bonds. A bike like this cost about $400 to put together at the time. You had to find a pair of drum brakes and assemble the wheels, and there was an arcane science to the bending and reshaping of the old frame to accept the wider hubs while remaining straight. A good fork was hard to find, and we used "fork braces" to try to keep them from bending. A bottom bracket conversion kit was necessary to use a modern crankset. Seatposts had quick-releases to lower the saddle because the long seatposts were subject to bending on a rough road. My bike had a distinctive Alan Bonds paint job. I didn't use a pair of thumbshifters on this bike. Instead, I used a cheap ten speed "stem shifter"on the right handlebar, with one shift lever under the bar and one over it, but both shifted by my right hand.
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The somewhat fuzzy image at the left is the only known photograph of the very first attempt to create a modern mountain bike. By the time downhill racing started at Repack in 1976, many of the local off-road riders had already modified their old one-speeds by adding front and rear drum brakes and derailleur gears. We had taken the bikes as far as we could on the frames we were using, and we had run into the problems with using old frames for off-road riding. The supply was limited, they were not very rugged, and they were two or three times as heavy as they needed to be. I broke a frame every few months, and I realized that whatever it cost to have a special frame built, it would be cheaper in the long run if I didn't have to replace it two or three times a year. The price of an undamaged Schwinn Excelsior frame in Marin County was suddenly through the roof, if you could even find one to buy. Craig Mitchell built the frame in the photograph for me in 1976 and I raced it at Repack a couple of times. It was a standard diamond frame made of straight-gauge chrome-moly tubing, and it weighed about the same as a road frame, a saving of four or five pounds and a dramatic improvement in strength. It is remarkably similar to the Ritchey frames that would become the basis for the industry starting three years later. The components are moved straight over from my Excelsior frame, including the drum brakes and motocross bars. Unfortunately for my collection, I wasn't happy with the bike and eventually Craig took it back and sold it to someone else. The frame has long since disappeared, and Craig Mitchell is now deceased, so it is lost to bicycle history except for this photo. Since I still needed a frame, I then asked Joe Breeze to build me one, which is shown further down the page. The oversize jacket was intended as protection from falls, along with the kneepads, boots and work gloves, but it was obvious to me after this run that the speeds were high enough so this aerodynamic disaster slowed you down too much. After that I switched to elbow pads. (Larry Cragg photo) |
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Repack, 1976. Because I was also a skateboarder, I used my skatepark safety gear. Kneepads, elbow pads and thick leather gloves had just saved me from injury in a crash that tore my jeans and left dirt all over my jeans and shirt. Only a few riders wore helmets during any of the early races. Helmets were not required for any Repack races before the 1983 NORBA sanctioned event that was the first sanctioned downhill mountain bike event in the world. (Larry Cragg photo) |
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Fall, 1977.
This photograph was taken in Fairfax by Jerry Riboli before the start
of the first cross-country |
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What a difference a couple of years made. By 1978 I was riding a custom-made off-road bike, built by Joe Breeze. In 1977 I had seen Joe out riding on the street, and I had asked him what it would take to get him to build me a frame. He named a reasonable sum of money, and I gave it to him on the spot. Joe spent months designing and then a few more months doing the work, and eventually built ten of these bikes, delivering mine in early 1978. His, of course, was number one, and mine was number two, probably the most collectible and influential bicycle of the twentieth century. This was the first balloon-tire bike designed from scratch and built for high-performance cross-country riding, not just downhill. It had multiple gears and the best brakes we could get, which weren't very effective, and the frame was bullet-proof.
The huge Magura motorcyle levers were vital when trying to use a cantilever brake on the slick steel rims that were all you could find for a 26-inch tire. You needed all the leverage you could get, and riding in very wet conditions was sometimes exciting. The SunTour thumb shifter was originally made for a cheap five-speed touring bike, so it only came in a right hand model. You had to turn one around and use it backward for the left shifter. |
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These Mike Castelli photographs show the state of the art in off road bicycles in mid-1979. On the left, representing the end of its era is Alan Bonds' converted Excelsior with aftermarket forks, motorcycle brake levers and drum brakes. Next is my Breezer as shown further up on the page. Next to that is Mike Castelli's Jeffrey Richman, and Gary Fisher's Ritchey #2. Gary's bike was built before Tom Ritchey began using one-piece "Bullmoose" handlebars, and uses a standard bar and stem. |
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REPACK: THE BIRTH OF THE BRUISE |
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This is the first poster for any modern off-road bicycle event, this one advertising a race held in 1978. As you can see, it shows a diamond frame, fat tire bike with a derailleur, the first advertising image of what became the standard model of mountain bike. The "Repack" Downhill was the first regularly scheduled, organized off-road fat-tire race I know about. The first race was held in 1976, and the last in 1984. This first advertised race was held in the fall of 1978. The posters went up in key locations, and anyone who understood them would be alerted to a race. People who didn't understand the poster didn't matter. All Repack posters were drawn by my roommate, Pete Barrett. For a larger version of this one, click the image. My first magazine sale concerned the race that started it all, at least in my life. I wrote most of it in a motel room in San Diego in 1977 and my roommate Gary Fisher, who was at the time working for Bicycling, helped me submit it to that publication, where it ran in January 1979. A little breathless, it captures a microscopic moment at the birth of a sport. My experience at Repack had a lot to do with my approach to writing the original 1983 NORBA rules for mountain bike racing (with Tom Hillard). Because they represent such a precise record of the absolute beginning of what has become a worldwide sport, I have scanned the original documents of mountain biking, the first Repack results, on this page. Joe Breeze has compiled the complete Repack statistics for mountain bike historians and I have added a lot of graphics and photos for the page. |
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Alan Bonds shared the house on Humbolt Street with Gary Fisher and me. He built the most beautiful "clunkers" ever and does not receive nearly enough credit for his early contributions to mountain biking. I took this photo at dawn on top of Mount Barnaby during a sunrise ride. Click on the image to see a few of Alan's creations. |
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I took this photo because I knew someone would steal this sign. Still it lasted at the top of Repack for quite a while before it disappeared. I hope you're happy, whoever you are. |
This shirt was printed by Steve Boehmke for the last-ever Repack in 1984, attended by 96 riders under a NORBA sanction. The last two Repack races in 1983 and 1984 were the first sanctioned downhill events held for mountain bikes. |
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Click the image above to see the Co-Evolution Quarterly article.
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The first written mention of the new sport of off-road bicycling appeared in the Spring 1978 issue of Co-Evolution Quarterly, published in Marin County. Getting our activity into print legitimized what had been up to that point a silly exercise by immature adults. Click this or click the picture to see the article. Knowing what we know now about what followed this initial recognition, it makes fascinating reading, but even if you don't care to read it all, scroll down through the photos. They're priceless. |
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The Fat Tire Flyer was the first publication for mountain bikers. I wrote, edited, drew, photographed, laid out, published, mailed, and loved it from 1980 until 1987. It is the most artistic statement I'll ever get to make, and it is also the only printed record of that important era of cycling history. Click on the logo for more about the first mountain bike magazine. |
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Between 1979 and 1983 I was part of the first company to make nothing but off-road bicycles when I joined forces with my former roommate, Gary Fisher, and a 22-year old frame builder named Tom Ritchey. At first we just called ourselves "MountainBikes," but everyone else started using that term to describe all off-road bikes. Our ideas turned out to be pretty good, because every major bicycle manufacturer duplicated our design for their first entries into the new field of mountain bikes. This is the logo for Kelly-Fisher MountainBikes, which became Fisher MountainBikes after I left the company in 1983. |
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For a history of the MountainBikes company, early photos and samples of our advertising, click here. |
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For more on the origin of NORBA, click the image |
The National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) grew in part from my experience in p |