Back when I was an active off-road rider, a lot of ski resorts became mountain-biking meccas during the summer. I rode (and hopped and jumped!) a few in upstate New York, Vermont, Canada, France and Switzerland.
During the mid- and late-90's, much of eastern North America experienced a string of unusually mild winters. So, from what I understand, mountain biking kept some of those upstate and Green Mountain havens in business.
Fast-forward a decade and a half. Now it seems some of those same ski areas aren't waiting for summer to cater to cyclists. Or is it that mountain bikers aren't waiting for summer to make tracks in their favorite trails?
Actually, the new breed of snowbikers is making their mark (pun intended) in Washington state, Oregon and other areas of western North America. However, it wouldn't surprise me to see it come east.
Those riders are sort of like Gary Fisher, Keith Bontrager, Joe Breeze and the other mountain bike pioneers of Marin County four decades ago. Like those early intrepid off-roaders, snowbikers were, until recently, cutting, welding and bolting their super-wide-tired machines together from disused and discarded bikes.
In another paralell with early mountain bike history, a few small custom makers are starting to offer ready-made bikes for the purpose.
And the fat-tired flyers might be the salvation of some of the ski areas in question, particularly those that are the provinces of cross-country skiers. After all, the number of cross-country skiers has never been very large in the US, especially compared to the number of mountain bikers.
Could moonmobiles with 5" wide tires be coming to a bike shop near you?
There's a good chance you've seen one of these bikes:
For a time in my life, I owned and rode one. In fact, I was one of the first people to do so.
Early in 1983, I was working at Highland Park (NJ) Cyclery again. At that time, I had the Columbus-tubed Trek 930 racing bike and Peugeot PX-10 I've mentioned in other posts.
I didn't really want or need another bike. However, at that time, I couldn't help but to notice the then-newfangled mountain bikes that were appearing for the first time outside of northern California and New England.
Two years earlier, the first mass-produced mountain bike came to market: The Specialized Stumpjumper. Up to that time, mountain bikes were made by specialty framebuilders like Joe Breeze and Tom Ritchey and had components that the builders made themselves or adapted from existing parts. Needless to say, those bikes were expensive: even more costly than the best racing bikes available at the time. In spite of the time and effort that went into building them, most early bikes rode and handled like shopping carts, at least compared to today's bikes.
Although the Stumpjumper was "mass market", it wasn't cheap: For its sticker price, one could get a decent racing bike or a good fully-loaded tourer. It, too, is clunky compared to modern mountain bikes, let alone road machines. However, every once in a while I see one outfitted with decent components (some of which are original). Because of their long wheelbases and slack angles, those early Stumpjumpers offer a cushier and even more stable (at slow speeds) ride than some cruisers, which some people love. And, it almost goes without saying, the early Stumpjumpers are collectors' items.
I'm not sure the Ross Force 1 will ever attain such status. Nonetheless, it holds the distinction of being the first mountain bike Ross produced, as well as the first bike with cantilever brakes to be built in the company's Allentown, PA factory. (To my knowledge, no such bikes were ever made in their Rockaway Beach, NY factory.)
Some time in the 1970's, I believe, Ross started to make ten-speed bikes with lugged high-tensile steel frames after a decade or so of importing them from Japan. Until then, Rosses were made like most other American bikes of the time: from welded steel tubes. Not surprisingly, they were about as heavy as most other American bikes.
The Force 1 featured a frame that looked--and rode--the way one of their lugged high-tensile bikes would have ridden if its wheelbase had been stretched a few inches and its angles slackened by about seven degrees. I couldn't complain, though: I knew I wasn't getting a high-performance machine.
So why did I buy it? Well, for one thing, it was cheap: The retail price was about the same as that of the company's mid-level ten-speed and, of course, as an employee, I didn't pay retail. Also, I figured I could beat the stuffin's out of it, which I did. Finally, as I said, I was curious about mountain bikes.
And, oh, I'll admit it: I liked the way the bike looked, with its black frame and gold-anodized wheels.
The bike was about what I expected: heavy and sturdy. It was the first bike I used as a messenger, and it served me well. All through slushy, snowy, rainy deliveries, the bike held up nicely. One particular surprise was the Normandy/Maillard five-speed freewheel that came with it. For one thing, it was the only French, let alone European, part on the bike. For another, it was the most impervious part: The cogs barely wore at all, and none of the grit or slush seemed to enter the bearings or other parts of the mechanism. Aside from cleaning the cogs when I degreased the chain, I didn't have to perform any maintenance on it.
Most of the other parts performed well (e.g., Sun Tour derailleurs) or were barely noticeable (cranks, seat post, and others). The handlebars were rock-steady. They should have been: They were the "bull-moose" type, welded to the stem's two extensions. I suspected that, removed from the bike, they'd make good weapons, though I never tested that idea.
It did come with one really weird component, though: the Shimano Admas AX pedals. In those days, Shimano had a reputation for weirdness, but these pedals made some of those early aerodynamic components seem sober. Depending on which Shimano rep you believed, the pedals were more aerodynamic or more ergonomic than any others. As far as I could tell, they simply had less ground clearance than any other pedal, save for one, I've ever ridden. They met an untimely (or, perhaps not, for them) demise from curbs and such.
About a year after acquiring the bike--and a few months into my time as a messenger--I parked the Force I outside Rockefeller Center to make a delivery on a high floor. When I returned, it was gone. All that glitters may not be gold, but it still attracts thieves, I guess.
Note: The bike was eventually renamed the Mount Hood because of trademark issues with the Force 1 name. The Mount Hood remained in production for several more years, first in Allentown and later in Taiwan.
The Trek I recently sold was a "parts bin bike." That is to say, most of the components I hung on the frame were ones I had lying around after being stripped from other bikes--or acquired in swaps, or given to me.
Practically every bike mechanic has put together at least one such bike for him or her self, and possibly for someone else. Sometimes I think a true bike mechanic will not ride any other kind of bike.
Every once in a while, a "parts bin bike" gains some sort of significance beyond its maker's life. Such was the case of this machine:
In the immortal words of Tom Cuthbertson, if you had a grand of cash and dreams of riding the Appalachian Trail on a bicycle, you went to Joe Breeze and he built you a bike like this one.
I have always liked the look of it: an apparent cross between a diamond and French mixte frame. (In fact, his first bikes were usually equipped with mixte bars.) There was a reason for this design: When Breeze, Gary Fisher and others who have claimed (or have had others claim for them) the title of the Inventor of the Mountain Bike were barreling down Marin and Sonoma County fire trails, their frames broke with alarming regularity. The short life-spans of their bikes had to do with the abuse they incurred, to be sure. However, those pioneer mountain bikers were using bikes they picked up in thrift shops and garage and yard sales. Some were not terribly strong bikes to begin with, but others were old bikes that probably had hairline cracks and other damage when the Downhill Dudes bought them. Also, the old Schwinn and Columbia cruisers--which, in those days (late 1960's-mid 1970's) could be found for as little as $2--were made of mild steel. That is why they were so heavy: A lot of metal was used to make up for its lack of strength.
Back to Breeze's bike: The frame was built from tubes and other pieces from wildly differing kinds of bicycles. For example, take a look at the dropouts, fork, cranksets and brakes:
A mountain bike with track dropouts? Or a fork from a newsboy-style bike of the 1950's? How about a crankset and brakes from a tandem or touring bike?
When Joe Breeze built that bike nearly four decades ago, there were, of course, no mountain bike-specific parts. The TA Cyclotouriste was one of the few cranksets available that could handle the kind of gearing needed. And the Mafac cantilevers were, by far, the strongest brakes available at that time. As primitive as those parts may seem to some people today, they were the best Breeze could find for his purposes.
I have to admit that I get a kick out of seeing a Brooks B-72 (which was standard equipment on many English three-speed bikes) on Breeze's rig. What mountain biker rides such a seat today?
Whether or not Joe Breeze "invented" the mountain bikes, many agree that the bike pictured was the first to be built specifically for the nascent sport of mountain biking. If nothing else, it's a parts bin bike (sort of, anyway) that changed the world.
