- Mountain Biking may be quite a young sport
in a bigger picture but in its short history
has given rise to some incredible characters;
performers and athletes that not only
stand out from the crowd but also
stand out when you compare them to
the best of the very best.
In the sprit of Retro Week we've
put together a little list of legends from
Mountain Biking's past who've made a lasting impact;
whether it's racing attributes or
innovations that have changed the sport,
world of mountain bikes has been affected
in so many good ways by such great people.
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Missy was a all or nothing racer
both on and off the track between '93 and 2003;
she was the most successful and colorful downhill racers.
She was downhill world champion in '94,
took the World Cup overall in '96 and '97
and second every year for the next four
before retiring in 2003.
Missy burst back into the limelight 2009
or rather back into infamy,
when she was arrested for conspiring to possess
and distribute 384 pounds of marijuana.
After pleading guilty she was sentenced to
time served, 6 months house arrest
and she under probation for 5 years.
She had a short and amazing return to downhill
in 2015 when she rode the
Windham World Cup Downhill Race,
which was amazing.
Missy still rides today and
now enjoys a more peaceful life in the
beautiful mountains of North Carolina.
(electronic music)
Anne-Caroline Chausson is one of the most successful
Mountain Bike racers in the history of the sport.
She still holds the record of most world cup wins at 40,
and between '93 and 2005 she won the
Downhill World Cup overall five times
and has 12 Downhill World Championships.
On-top of that she has a Olympic gold medal
for BMX, which she won in 2008.
She went on to win a handful of
Endurable Series in 2013 and '14,
rounding off her incredible career
and winning style.
Unfortunately in 2015 she had to put racing aside
after being diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
After treatment it seemed she was fully recovered
until 2018, a small tumor was discovered in her thorax.
Now thankfully she's recovered from the
treatment required and is starting to
enjoy her life, riding bikes once again.
In terms of racing its very hard to ever imagine
anyone stacking up against Anne-Caroline.
(disco music)
- In his day John Tomac was a
multi-disciplined master on two wheels.
He started off racing a BMX when he was 6,
and became US national champion at 16.
He found his way into professional Road Cycling,
but in '87 he made the move to Mountain Biking.
Took the Cross-Country World Championship title in '91
and was a runner up for the Downhill.
He also got the overall World Cup win
for Cross-Country the same year.
One of things he was most famous for was his
drop-bar Yeti mountain bike with Tioga Disc wheel.
In 1997 John bought his own brand of bikes to the
World Championship Downhill Race in Chateau-D'Oex
and managed to take a Silver Medal.
You can never write John Tomac off and we never will.
Even now despite the fact he is living the
life of a real cowboy on his ranch in Colorado.
Living the simple but hard life.
Tomac is still racing, is never too far out of sight
because he is actually coaching his son
Eli Tomac in Motocross and Supercross.
Eli just happens to be one of the
fastest motorcycle racers of the current era,
so speed seems to definitely run in the Tomac family.
(guitar strums)
- Gary Fisher, another godfather of Mountain Biking.
Gary Fisher started out riding and racing Klunkerz
in the mountains of Marin county, California.
Between him and Charlie Kelly the term
'Mountain Bikes' first came round.
Gary and Charlie Kelly founded MountainBikes,
the first company to manufacture
Mountain Bikes for a larger market;
with Tom Ritchey welding the frames.
That company closed in 1983,
however it was followed in the same year
by the creation of Gary Fisher Bicycle Company.
He was at the forefront of mountain bike design
throughout the 80s and into 1993
decided to sell Gary Fisher Bikes to Trek,
but stayed on to help with the design.
Most recently we've seen him advocating
eBikes quite a bit with Bosch,
saying their the next big thing.
He's still working for Trek and making sure
he's at the front of any new innovation.
(electro-swing music)
No one has seen the likes of Nico
before or since, with his ability
to turn it to 11 on a single race day.
Between '95 and 2002 he won every single
World Championship bar one where
Myles Rockwell took the center stage.
Combine those with his junior world champs titles
and that comes to an incredible 10 times.
He also took the Overall World Cup Series four times.
Nico just had a unbelievable ability
to turn it on when it was most needed,
and thrived under pressure.
In his career he defeated riders such as:
Steve Peat; Shaun Palmer; Greg Minnaar; John Tomac;
all incredible riders at the height of their powers.
However Nico just always seemed to have a little bit more.
He's also got a amazing brain for the
engineering side of the sport;
and many of those bikes he rode,
he help design and develop.
He retired from downhill racing in 2002 aged only 26
and turned his sights on rally car racing;
entering the World Rally Championship
and then the Intercontinental Rally Challenge.
Mountain Biking started to call again and he entered
the inaugural Enduro World Series Championship in 2013,
and continued to race until 2016.
Nowadays while he's still riding for Lapierre,
as he has for many years,
he's helping out with Adrian Daly on the EWS races
and help Lapierre develop mountain bikes and eBikes.
(funk music)
Greg Herbold has a prestigious title of
the first man to be crowned UCI Downhill World Champion,
all the way back in 1990.
You could say he was lucky it happened to be held
in his home town of Durango, Colorado;
but he was already a well renowned racer
in his own right before
the inaugural World Championship.
Greg was integral to the design of the first
mountain bike suspension fork on the market
the Rock Shox RS 1.
Throughout his career Greg was passionate
about product testing and worked at:
Giro; Sun-Ringle; Rock Shox and many others.
He found his home with SRAM however
and spent an incredible 25 years with them as a racer,
product tester and eventually ambassador.
After the quarter century at SRAM, Greg decided
that his time as a product developer
had run its course and his ranch was in need
of a good tidy having collected
a substantial amount of bikes.
(electronic music)
A trails legend that inspired the likes
of our very own Martyn Ashton.
Hans Rey was a pioneering influence to Mountain Biking;
he took the very niche discipline of trails
that he'd learned as a schoolboy in his native Switzerland
and used it to make huge crowds of spectators
and millions of TV viewers
understand what mountain bikes could do.
The visually exciting discipline was perfect
for showcasing this new style of bike in the early 90s
and Hans was to become the pin-up boy for the sport.
Appearing on TV shows not only as stuntman
but even as himself
in the bike version of Baywatch: Pacific Blue.
Hans has worked with GT bikes the entire time;
to this day he still their most famous rider globally.
He's also now recognized as a true
mountain bike adventure rider and has taken his
bike riding to all corners of the globe
including the jungles with Steve Peat,
volcanoes with Thomas Frischknecht or even
summiting Mount Kilimanjaro with Danny Macaskill.
The biggest legacy Hans has created,
which has changed people's lives,
in his charity Wheels4Life.
He runs the charity with his wife
and creates funding for the purchase and delivery
of bikes to parts of the world where
transportation like bikes can make a
huge difference to the life of so many.
(relaxed music)
Dubbed the godfather of Freeride,
Wade Simmons was there at the beginning
of the movement at the North Shore in Canada.
And to this day still continues to send it.
In 2001, Wade was the first winner
of the inaugural Red Bull Rampage.
So after such a hard hitting start
at Mountain Biking perhaps you think
he's relaxed the two wheels a bit.
Well yes and no;
you won't find him hucking to flat anymore
but you will still find him in the woods smashing laps
or going on sick adventures around the world.
He's still very much part of Rocky Mountain Bicycles
as well as Race Face, both of which
were side by side at the beginning
of the Freeride movement.
(casual music)
There's a handful of godfathers of Mountain Biking
but there's one that actually made the first bike,
specifically designed for Mountain Biking.
That man is Joe Breeze.
His first prototype was made in 1977
and was called the Breezer 1.
It was modeled off a old ballon tiered Schwinn bike
from decades earlier and featured
the iconic middle structure even,
that went from the Head Tube all the way to the Dropouts.
He rode it to victory at the legendary Repack race
which also happened to be its maiden voyage.
The first bike is now actually displayed at
the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.
Joe also became one of the founding members of
the National Off Road Bicycle Association or NORBA,
and always at the forefront of mountain bike advocacy.
These days you can find Joe helping out
at the Marin Museum of Mountain Biking
where it all began.
As well as helping out with designing
and engineering at Breeze Bikes.
(rock music)
Tom Ritchey was at the beginning of it all
and was side by side with Joe Breeze and Gary Fisher
making the first mountain bikes in the world.
Tom was the muscle behind the first mountain bike company
with Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly.
As a teenager Tom started out in road racing
and it was during this time where
his dad taught him how to weld and repair frames.
He built his own frames after not too long
and began winning on them.
But mountain bikes where he really left his mark.
In 1979 he went out on his own
making mountain bikes under his own name, Richey designs.
40 years on and he's still building.
Richey has expanded his designs to encompass:
road, gravel and mountain bikes.
Making forks, handlebars, stems, pedals
and a host of other components.
Tom established one of the most
respected companies in Mountain Biking.
Today he's still owner and director of product development
which further highlights his creative ideals.
(smooth music)
Since the beginning of World Cup Cross-Country racing
the Swiss have made their mark
and the first to do so was Thomas Frischnecht.
His off-road cycling career started in cyclo-cross
and moved into mountain biking in the 90s
where he took the World Cup Overall title in '92, 3 and '95;
as well becoming World Champion in '96.
After this he set his sights on longer challenges
and in 2003 and 2005 he was Marathon World Champion.
One of his biggest accomplishments however
was not his own racing career
but that of nurturing others.
He's the team director of the Scott-SRAM cross-country team
and under his guidance has achieved much greatness.
It helps that he has racers like Nino Schurter
and the newly crowned champion Kate Courtney
to work with, but it takes a strong mind
to make these things work and it seems like
Thomas Frischknecht has exactly that.
Okay so there's some legends of Mountain Biking
and what their up to now.
Hopefully you've been enjoying Retro Week,
keep your eyes peeled tomorrow we've got a documentary
about the history of Mountain Biking,
where we visit a few of those names:
Charlie Kelly, Gary Fisher and Joe Breeze
over in Marin county Museum.
If you want to see the retro bike challenge
from earlier in the week click over there for that one,
give us a thumbs up if you like all things retro
and subscribe if you haven't done already.