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 fat-tire frames. From 1980 onward he built hundreds of fat-tire bike frames each year. These were the first bikes sold by Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly, founders of MountainBikes (later the Gary Fisher Bicycle Company). Fisher and Kelly […]

1979 Lawwill Pro Cruiser. One of the bikes that bridged the gap between BMX bikes and mountain bikes. The frame design was based on a frame that Don Koski fabricated from electrical conduit and a Schwinn Varsity frame. Mert Lawwill had Terry Knight of Oakland build the frames. The bikes sold for about $500 new […]