--- description: Off-road biking began with the antics and inventiveness of a rag-tag set of adventurers in the 1970s, fans of the outdoors and The Dead. title: Mountain Biking's Roots in 1970s California Counterculture image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- * [Living](/tag/time-section-living/) ## Living Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # Mountain Biking's Beginnings: Fat Tires, Broken Hubs and the Grateful Dead by [Randy Stearns](/author/randy-w-stearns/) ## Randy Stearns Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 20, 2014 10:26 PM CUT by [Randy Stearns](/author/randy-w-stearns/) ## Randy Stearns Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close May 20, 2014 10:26 PM CUT Long before there were [gutter bunnies](http://www.bikecommuters.com/2010/07/12/gutter-bunnies/ "undefined"), [baby heads](http://bit.ly/1o2VCy7 "undefined") or [WOMBATS](http://www.wombats.org/ "undefined"), there were cyclists eager to push the limits of what their equipment and bodies could take. It began with a group of sporty iconoclasts, wheeling down the hills of northern California, creating a rough-and-tumble style of biking to match their unconventional personalities. They made it up as they went along, modifying their bikes to manage the terrain and enjoying themselves in all the ways that adventurous youth did in that era. Watch [UC Fig. 1](https://www.youtube.com/user/fig1 "undefined")‘s video about the early days of mountain biking. Narrated by UC San Diego’s [Sarah McCullough](http://ridingresearch.com "undefined"), who wrote her PhD thesis on the topic, it tells the history of the sport, the “renegades (including the women) who started it, remade the bikes and helped create a new leisure industry. And it wasn’t just about bikes and terrain in those days, ideas and music played an important part, including a benefit performance by the band that personified the counter-culture. “\[P\]eople were creating the kind of world they wanted to live in,” McCullough [says](//www.youtube.com/channel/UCT4hX0DRGkr2sz3XMaUeemQ "undefined"). “A world with trails that created a flow through the mountains, paths they could follow fast, without braking.” If you want to learn more, check out work from off-road pioneers like William Savage ([_Klunkerz_](http://klunkerz.com/trailer-1.html "undefined")_)_, and Charlie Kelly ([_Fat Tire Flyer_](http://www.velopress.com/books/fat-tire-flyer/ "undefined"), due out later this year). ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/106364/mountain-biking-1970s/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/106364/mountain-biking-1970s/"},"headline":"Mountain Biking's Beginnings: Fat Tires, Broken Hubs and the Grateful Dead","datePublished":"2014-05-20T22:26:42.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:55:20.072Z","description":"Mountain biking took root in the fertile counterculture of the 1970s","url":"https://time.com/106364/mountain-biking-1970s/","keywords":["Living","California","San Francisco","Biking"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Randy Stearns","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/randy-w-stearns/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-living/","name":"Living"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/106364/mountain-biking-1970s/","name":"Mountain Biking's Beginnings: Fat Tires, Broken Hubs and the Grateful Dead"}}]}] ```