It was the ’70s and California was pregnant with ideas. Skateboarding was on the rise. Bands like the Eagles and Steely Dan were inventing yacht rock. It was, in many ways, both the best of times and the worst of times.
And in Marin County, where you could still afford to buy a modest home and enjoy an outdoor lifestyle and group of misfits invented mountain biking. Watching this news broadcast from the time, you get the sense that there was a sort of willful dopiness that went along with the culture, a dopiness that is, perhaps, the root of bro culture today.
As I said, it was the best of times and also the worst.
Still, there is something beautifully simple in what these folks did, and it makes me wistful for a simpler time, when you didn’t need 150mm of suspension travel to ride a bike in the woods.
This reminds me of what gravel riding was like 7-10 years ago. Just the fun of the adventure and people. No “serious” racing.