Charlie Cunningham was a pioneer of mountain bikes, an expert builder of illegal trails, and a modifier and tinkerer of all things. After a life of brilliance, he had a bad accident and traumatic brain injury ten years ago that curtailed his work and constrained his life. He passed away in June.
Charlie’s memorial was held on Saturday August 8th, at the Marin Museum of Mountain Biking in Fairfax, or as my friends call it, “The Museum.” August 8 is 38 years to the day from when Charlie married the love of his life, and fellow Hall of Famer, Jacquie Phelan.
A range of Charlie’s friends gave tributes and shared memories, including Chuck Ibis, Mike Sinyard, Steve Potts, and Charlie’s oldest friend, a compact man with a resplendent white beard, who described meeting Charlie in the early 70s, and visiting his house where Charlie was watching motorsports on a small TV, and changing the channels with a 15 foot length of aircraft tubing he’d attached to the knob. “It was all there at the outset, even before the bicycles: racing, aluminum tubing, out of the box thinking, and unfortunately the fear of cathode ray tubes and radiation that would pay him back so poorly later on.” That refers to Charlie refusing an MRI after his accident, which allowed his hematoma to swell unseen and damage his brain.
As a local Mill Valley boy, I loved the story of Charlie racing the Sunday morning motorcycle riders over Mount Tam in his “highly modified” go-kart. What a visual! Charlie and Steve had the infuriating home-court advantage of living right on the mountain. running it hundreds of times, not just dozens of times.
Other friends told stories like “Rufus and Chuckles,” “Velcro Cat,” and why the Tam High Indians mascot was a good thing. Good thing we’re all family here.
Jacquie’s ended with some sweet compliments of Charlie, “I want to finish up by making sure everyone knows what a fantastic lover Charlie was, because he was raised right, to respect women. Just a wonderful gentle lover. Lucky me.”
But enough about Charlie. I got two things finished for the memorial I’d been working on for months. First, a stripped-to-bare-metal Cannondale set up as a period-correct-ish Cunningham tribute bike. Not quite finished, I was using a whole second stem as a spacer on the 1-1/4” steerer. A woman passing by outside Gestalt Haus points them out to her companion, and he says, “Ha that looks like something I would do.” It’s Peter Verdone. Second, the stickers I ordered arrived two days early, on the morning of the memorial. They’re my drawing of Charlie and a Wombat (Jacquie’s totem animal from her Women’s Mountain Bike and Tea Society) riding the Rivendell tandem a bunch of people pulled together so Charlie could get out and ride after his accident. Jacquie and a friend rode it to the memorial.
It really was a beautiful gathering, with vintage movies and interviews of Charlie and Jacquie. I caught up with a grade school friend who’s worked at WTB, met lots of people learned new stuff. Charlie curved his seat post tubes using a big lever and the storm grate in the street outside his house. We should put up a plaque.
