In Fat Tire Flyer, mountain bike pioneer Charlie Kelly tells his story of the birth of mountain biking in Northern California in the 1970s.
It all started with a small crew of bicycle-obsessed hippies bombing the steep dirt trails of Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California. As the friendly competition intensified on the racecourse they called Repack, history’s first mountain bikers began craving an upgrade from the old Schwinn cruisers they had rescued from the junkyard. With the single-minded focus found only among the truly obsessed, this ragtag group sparked a rapid evolution that transformed the castoff Repack klunker into the modern mountain bike, a refined and elegant machine that quickly became the top-selling bicycle in the world.
Charlie Kelly-cofounder with Gary Fisher of the MountainBikes company, organizer of the Repack races, and chronicler of the sport-delivers the true, complete, and often unbelievable history of the rise of mountain biking and its lasting culture as told by those who were there. Rich with firsthand descriptions and bursting with original photographs, drawings, and memorabilia, Fat Tire Flyer is the definitive history of one of the most significant inventions of the 20th century.
Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking is now available in bookstores, bike shops, and online. Preview the book at www.FatTireFlyer.com or www.velopress.com/klunk.
Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking
Charlie Kelly
Foreword by Joe Breeze
Hardcover with jacket. Full-color photographs throughout.
11″ x 9 1/2″, 264 pp., $29.95, 9781937715168
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If anyone is reading this in the Los Angeles/Hollywood area, Charlie Kelly will be doing a book signing this Sunday, Oct. 19th at Orange 20 Bikes on Melrose Ave at Heliotrope at 3:30pm. Charlie’s old partner in the first mountain bike company in the world, Gary Fisher, will be on hand to support. I will be screening Klunkerz after the signing. We’ll have (good) beer and maybe a cool DJ spinning, too! We are working hard to make this a very special event. I look forward to seeing Charlie in SoCal and I hope to see some of you there! #klunkerz #orange20bikes
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