For some time now, I’ve been converting a Nirve Fifty-Three cruiser into a “Klunker”. This is the result.
Our entire sport was founded upon the Klunkers, which were fashioned from scrounged bits from other bicycles, motorcycles & ice-cream carts. The founders of mountain biking’s scavenging provided fat knobby tires, brakes, handlebars, and most importantly, derailleurs. With their Klunkers thus fitted, Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, Russ Mahon and their friends took to the fireroads of Marin County & Crested Butte. While at first it wasn’t quite what would normally be considered a sport, it didn’t take long for mountain biking’s pioneers to create impromptu races which were anything but organized. But within a short time the Repack Downhill race was brought into being, and modern mountain bike racing was born.
High-technology & mass-production was still years away, and in the beginning each mountain bike in existance was a unique example of mechanical art. Mountain bikes weren’t made to be as light as possible with exotic materials & complex suspension mechanisms, they were made to maximize the fun-potential and to be able to climb steep hills…. which is why I decided to create my own Klunker.
From the first moment I discovered mountain biking, I was a complete technology fiend. This tendency carried over from my previous hobby of upgrading Jeeps & V-8 engines to offroad in rocky, muddy terrain. So with mountain bikes, I wanted suspension…. and lots of it. I wanted speed; I wanted survivability; I wanted stopping power, and because of those desires, I absolutely had to have the latest & greatest components to hit the market.
But there came a time when I realized that even by having a +$5000 bike loaded with high-zoot parts & a high-tech suspension design, there was something lacking in my riding experience. Sure, I could bomb downhills, plow through rockgardens, and loft sizable jumps & drops with ease, but it was almost too easy…. too narrow-minded.
At some point I started researching the history of mountainbiking, the original bikes, and the men who made them. Additionally I became interested in the handmade bikes by Coconino, Ahearne, Hunter, Retrotec, and others. I realized that to have fun mountain biking, it didn’t require six-inches of suspension, hydraulic brakes, carbon-fiber components & frames, and all the other things that I was so fixated on. I could’ve gone singlespeed, but that was just a bit too “hardcore” for me; I could’ve forgone suspension entirely, but that would’ve been too painful. So I decided that in the future I would obtain a dedicated cross-country hardtail, which I could use as a more all-purpose bike and still have fun with on the trails.
But once again, my Wife interveined. She had introduced mountainbiking to me, as she had done with Jeeps & offroading. And this time, she decided to start riding a cruiser bicycle. As she was searching for the right bike, I started noticing how cool some of those cruisers were…. and I wanted one too. Some of my decision to get a cruiser was nostalgia, as I remembered riding an old “fuddy-duddy” bike during summer vacations when I was 10-12yrs old. More of it was because I simply wanted to have a comfortable, easy bike to ride while accompanying my Wife along the smooth riverside bike-paths. But lastly, I remembered the Klunkers.
It was uncomfortable to start tearing apart a nice high-end cruiser, even though I was saving the bits removed to return the bike to it’s previous state. But as the project moved along, and I obtained the parts to make the cruiser more capable offroad, I started to truly feel the spirit & motivation which was behind the very first mountainbikes. And I felt like a bit of a rebel by choosing a steel frame instead of aluminum, foregoing hydraulic brakes for a front drum & rear coaster brake, giving up a plush suspension for a pogo-like springer fork, and sacrificing multiple gears for just three in a geared hub.
But for as primitive as my updated Klunker may seem, it has revealed itself as having a ride & handling ability which results in a huge grin-factor. The bike has a long wheelbase and a slack headtube angle for easy, slow steering while cruising through town. This lends to a stable, secure ride while moving fast downhill. The coaster brake can lock up the rear wheel with very little effort, which works with the long wheelbase & reclined rider position for nice, controllable skids. And the front drum brake helps keep the front wheel tracking during those skids, while the springer fork does an excellent job of mitigating a fireroad’s rough surface.
Then there’s the method to riding a Klunker….. I call it the “Tripod”. Instead of raising up off the saddle & moving my weight back over the rear wheel, I instead lightly stand on the pedals while hanging on the wide, sweeping handlebars. “Tripod” comes from when entering a fast curve; the coaster brake starts a skid, and one leg goes out to the side to maintain balance & control. In this fashion I can keep the Nirve drifting around a corner for as long as I’ve got the momentum. But riding a coaster & drum brake is a lot different than the disc brakes which are de’rigueur in modern mountainbiking. It’s easy to overheat coaster & drum brakes, which makes for some interesting moments at times, and requires knowing how & when to brake while at speed. Just learning how to keep a long skid going is contrary to the way a mountainbike is normally ridden; yet is essential to riding a long-wheelbase, coaster-brake’d Klunker fast on fireroads.
I heartily recommend that any mountainbiking enthusiast take the opportunity to experience the ride that our sport’s founders discovered. The ride doesn’t have to be on a converted high-end cruiser like my Nirve; instead it can be on an old Schwinn, just as was done by Gary himself. Speeding downhill on a disused fireroad, coaster brake smoking, legs extended, hanging on the handlebars, and leaving a plume of dust from drifting around curves is quite a sensation…. easily rivaling the ride found on the best singletrack. Going back to the roots of mountainbiking has a thrill all of it’s own; and with modern mountain bikes having more in common now with aircraft & moto-bikes than bicycles, riding an original mountain bike feels more soulful & natural than any $4k FS rig ever could.
