Some Interesting Early Off-Road Bikes
Bicycles have been ridden off-road since the very beginning… if “off-road” simply means “off-pavement.” In cycling’s early days, nearly all roads were unpaved dirt, and the closest thing to pavement was bricks or cobblestones. In fact, the bicycle played a major role in ushering in the modern roadways we enjoy today. Starting with the “Good Roads Movement” in the 1870s, cyclists lobbied for paved roads. They got real results.
First Bicycle Ridden Off Road
This depends on one’s definition of bicycle. In 1816 Baron Karl von Drais built what came to be known as a draisine …
First Bike With Pneumatic Tires Ridden Off Road
In 1887, Irish veterinary surgeon John B. Dunlop fitted a piece of rubber hose to his son’s bicycle. The superior air …
First Bike with Fat Tires Ridden Off Road
The “fat tire”; that is one having a cross-sectional diameter of 2″ or more, is what later fired the imagination of so many …
First Mountain Bike East of the Mississippi
First Purpose-Built Mountain Bike with Two Drum Brakes, Derailleurs and a New Frame with All New Parts: And First Mountain …
First Fat-bike with a Derailleur Ridden Off Road
As far as I know it was Russ Mahon of Cupertino, California (75 miles south of Marin County), who came up with …
First Mountain Bike with a Disc Brake and Tankagnlolo
Built in Spokane, Washington in the spring of 1974, for riding in snow, Bob Crispin widened the frame of a Schwinn Varsity …
First Fat-tire Bike with a Derailleur and Good Brakes in Marin
Gary Fisher’s 1938 Schwinn-built B.F. Goodrich (Excelsior-type), Fairfax, California, September ’74 or summer …
First Fat-tire Bike with a New Frame and All New Parts
This was the first of ten original Series 1 Breezers. The frames were built of straight-gauge 4130 large-diameter, thin wall …
First Production Mountain Bike Available
1979 Lawwill Pro Cruiser. One of the bikes that bridged the gap between BMX bikes and mountain bikes. The frame design …
First Fat-tire Custom Built Bike Regularly Available
1979 Ritchey/MountainBikes. In 1979 Tom Ritchey of Redwood City, California (50 miles south of Marin) started building …
First Fat-tire Bikes Widely Available Under $1,000.00
There were two; the 1982 Specialized Stumpjumper, made in Japan for Specialized Bicycle Imports of San Jose …
