We’re thrilled to announce that the Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame are heading north to Bellingham next month for this year’s NW Tuneup. We are working with the guys at Freehub Magazine to put together a fun exhibit that traces the evolution of mountain biking from its earliest days to the birth of freeride and beyond. This curated collection spans almost fifty years and features iconic bikes that defined eras, pushed boundaries, and helped shape the sport into what it is today.
The first five bikes that will be on display range from Marin’s pioneering klunkers to the bold, big-hit machines of the 1990s and early 2000s. Check them out below!
1941 Schwinn DX “Texas Special”
Otis Guy rescued this bike from a chicken coop near Chico in 1975. It was a classic pre-war Schwinn DX built in Chicago, the most sought-after type for building up “klunkers” in mountain biking’s early days. The 12-inch-high bottom brackets allowed good clearance on trails. The rear chainstays are “hip stays,” which wrap around the fat tire. Paint is the classic two-tone Schwinn livery with “ram’s head” motif. Otis built up this bike with the most rugged vintage spec available in the day, including a 26-tooth, inch-pitch “have a heart” chainring and a Morrow coaster-brake hub with a mere seven teeth.
1981 Ritchey/MountainBikes
By 1981, demand for off-road bikes was booming. This early production model represents one of the first commercially available mountain bikes—built with a Tom Ritchey frame and sold under the MountainBikes brand founded by Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly. The frame features Ritchey’s signature craftsmanship and innovative “Bullmoose” handlebar. Assembled in San Anselmo, CA, these bikes helped popularize the term “mountain bike” and set the standard for early off-road riding. The company sold 160 MountainBikes for $1400 each in 1980, its first full year of operation. They sold 1,000 the following year.
1990 Klein Attitude
The Klein Attitude was the ultimate aluminum mountain bike of its era—stiff, light, and built with aerospace precision. Featuring Klein’s signature oversized “Power Tubing” and one-piece Mission Control bar/stem combo, the Attitude pushed the limits of performance and color. The frame’s vivid paint fades became iconic, and the internal cable routing, pressed-in bottom bracket, and tight tolerances reflected Gary Klein’s obsessive engineering ethos. At just 23.75 pounds, this bike wasn’t just light—it was loud, fast, and unforgettable. Made in Chehalis, Washington, the Attitude helped define what a high-end mountain bike could be in the early ’90s.
1992 Mountain Cycle San Andreas
Built in San Luis Obispo, the San Andreas was one of the first production mountain bikes to use a monocoque aluminum frame—borrowing design concepts from motocross. Founder Robert Reisinger, a former Kawasaki motocross racer, applied his experience to create suspension forks and frames that pushed MTB innovation forward. The San Andreas featured 2.5 inches of rear travel, which was considered long at the time, and its unique unified design turned heads on and off the trail. Lightweight, stiff, and ahead of its time, this bike helped set the tone for the freeride and downhill movement to come.
2004 Josh Bender’s Secret Weapon
Nicknamed “The Secret Weapon,” Josh Bender’s wild freeride bike was a custom one-off built to survive his massive, visionary drops in the early 2000s. It featured a unique design with overbuilt components, including 9-inch disc rotors, a motorcycle-style linkage system, and immense suspension travel. Built like a tank, it embodied Bender’s belief that freeride meant going big or going home. The frame geometry and drivetrain were radically unconventional, prioritizing brute-force landings over pedaling efficiency. Though criticized at the time, the bike helped push the sport’s limits. Today, it stands as a symbol of Bender’s fearless style and freeride’s early evolution.
Stay tuned for the next set of five bikes!
