Charlie Kelly, Joe Breeze, Tom Ritchey, and Gary Fisher Star in this First-Person History of Repack, MountainBikes, the Grateful Dead, and the World’s First Mountain Bikers
Boulder, CO, USA – October, 2014 – 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, co-founder 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
Charlie Kelly is one of the founding fathers of mountain biking. He’s written for VeloNews and Bicycling and is currently the U.S. mountain bike correspondent for Rouleur and Privateer magazines. He and Gary Fisher founded MountainBikes, selling Tom Ritchey’s first mountain bike frames as complete bikes. Charlie was also the founder and reigning official of the Repack mountain bike races in Marin, California. He was founder, editor, and publisher of Fat Tire Flyer, the first mountain bike magazine. He is the supreme archivist of the origin of the sport of mountain biking. Learn more at www.FatTireFlyer.com or www.facebook.com/FatTireFlyer.
VeloPress publishes books on cycling, triathlon, and running to help beginners and committed athletes build fitness and achieve their goals. VeloPress celebrates the icons of endurance sports through history books, biographies, memoirs, and photography books. VeloPress is a division of Competitor Group, which publishes Velo, Triathlete, Competitor, and Women’s Running magazines and produces the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon series and TriRock triathlon series. For more information, please visit www.velopress.com.
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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!
Ride on,
Billy Savage
Aww Man, why do I have to live in the Midwest! I’d love to meet Gary Fisher and attend this party! I’m so glad Brian from IndustryOutsider.com covered this book! It’s very high on my want list at the moment!
– Ryan