Want to see what a 70's news crew (sadly, no Ron Burgundy) had to say about early mountain biking? Particularly clunking? Care to learn how "The Fish" got his nickname? There's some great early Repack footage shown in this video. At 0:51, sporting fashionable ski goggles and speaking poetically "Clunking is muddy in the winter and it's dusty in the summer" - miles ahead of the DH curve, you see Jeff McWhinney, who later became a member of Team WTB and currently works at Paragon Machine Works, in Richmond, CA right across the bay from us. McWhinney works alongside also former Team WTB racer, Joey Peterson, who just ordered 27.5" Vigilante tires from us the other day - proof of shredding from 70's to present. While most of the bikes you see in this movie are true clunkers with swooping top tubes looking like old cruisers, there are a few early Breezers that are easily identifiable by the diagonal cross support bar going from the head tube to the rear dropout, these Breezers, mountain bike specific and rad, didn't start showing up until around 1977, which makes this video later than that. Also fun, the Sunshine hat Charlie Kelly is wearing is of course for Sunshine Bicycle Center in Fairfax, CA. Sunshine is still going strong with plenty of WTB tires on the wall.
Throwback Thursdays: Late 1970's Evening Magazine Klunking Expose
Posted by Will Ritchie on