Address: 1966 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Fairfax, CA 94930 - The Museum is open 11am - 5pm, Thursday through Sunday.

Chuck “Bodfish” Elliot

chuck elliot“Some fifteen years ago I embarked on an involving my personal transportation – call it my ‘voluntary carlessness,’ inspired by a dying Mercury and my rediscovery of the bicycle…I was motor-free for thirteen years, no spark plug troubles or rusty mufflers and I only stopped at gas stations to buy maps or use their flush toilets,” Bodfish wrote in a Mountain Biking article in 1989. That same article promoted the many different routes one can take within one’s own state.

Bodfish has been riding logging roads and riding to the ends of unmapped spurs in California since the early 1970s, when he “decided to be time-rich and adventure-wealthy.” He has penned many of his adventures in newspapers, magazines and books, including Butte Country Bicycle Journeys, Cycling in the Shadow of Shasta, Cycling in the California Outback, and California Dream Cycling, the last of which is devoted exclusively to off-road rides. The name “Bodfish” came from a column he wrote for the Kern County Review, under the title “Hiking and Biking from Bodfish.”

“Bodfishin’” has since become a term for getting away from the corporate rat race in the big city and enjoying the fresh air and dirt roads of the mountains and countryside on a bicycle.

The bicycle brought him to the northern end of the Sierra range to live, where his cabin is stuffed with outdoor sporting equipment and none of the modern conveniences of city life.

“Having made the break, I now find it difficult to understand why anyone who’s having a serious affair with a bicycle willingly submits to confinement within a web of high-voltage overhead wires and barbed fences, all the while tight-roping along eroding edges of blacktop teeming with impatient motor-heads. Life is too precious to put up with all that,” he writes.

He and his wife, Lisa Jo Sedlacek, run about one biking/camping tour a month from May to October for other people who want to explore California the way they have come to love it. The third member of Team Bodfish is Colby Joseph Elliot, or “Micro-fish.”

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Explore Other Inductees

Giovanna Bonazzi

When Giovanna Bonazzi traveled to the US in 1992 to compete in World Cup mountain bike events, she was already a role model for Italian women. In the early 1990s mountain biking was still very much centered on US brands, ...

Douglas Bradbury

1951- Born in West Los Angeles 1956- First Sting Ray 1960-Built first “downhill” skateboard 1961- Put a Briggs & Stratton lawn mower engine on a Schwinn Cruiser. 1965- First motorcycle, a Honda 90 1969- Graduate from Hamilton High, Los Angeles. ...

Jenn Dice

Jenn did to the never ending battles and challenges that come with being the lead advocate of the sport of mountain biking without having a personal passion for the sport. That’s Jenn and that passion is evidenced in her 10 ...

Matt Fritzinger

Matt Fritzinger is the founder of the High School Mountain Biking movement in the United States. Matt has seen his efforts result in nearly 10,000 student-athletes and 3,500 coaches participating in interscholastic mountain bike racing in 2016. ...

Sal Ruibal

Sal Ruibal, the cycling reporter at USA Today, was the first prominent journalist to chronicle the sport in the mainstream media. Since he began covering the sport in 1995, he’s introduced mountain biking to a mass audience around the world. ...

Wolfgang Renner

Pure passion is something that cannot be replaced with anything else. Wolfgang Renner has contributed to mountain biking on many levels as a manufacturer, journalist, race organizer, traveler and 3-D photographer. In a nutshell, he is mountain biking's first advocate ...