Joe Breeze Talks About Making MTB History [Podcast #167]

On this Episode

Joe Breeze practically invented the mountain bike and has accomplished many firsts in our sport. In 1988 he was inducted into the mountain bike hall of fame, and today he’s the curator of the Marin Museum of Bicycling.

In addition to talking about how mountain biking got started, Joe gives some insight into why people feel compelled to ride bikes off road. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the beginnings of our sport, how today’s MTB culture is influenced by those early days, and where mountain biking is headed in the future.

This is the second interview in a series about the past, present, and future of mountain biking. Catch up by listening to our conversation with Charlie Kelly and look for interviews with Tom Ritchey, Gary Fisher, and others coming soon.

This episode is sponsored by Evo.com. Use code “SINGLETRACKS” to take 10% off your next order.

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Automated transcript

Jeff Barber 0:00
Hey everybody, welcome to the Singletracks podcast. My name is Jeff, and today we have a very special guest. Joe Breeze, practically invented the mountain bike, and he’s known for many firsts in our sport. In 1988 he was inducted into the mountain bike Hall of Fame, and today he’s the curator of the Marin Museum of bicycling. Thank you for joining us today, Joe, yeah,

Joe Breeze
Hey, thanks for having me Jeff.

Jeff Barber
So you have a really interesting background that sort of set you up to become one of the pioneers of mountain biking. Your father was a big cycling enthusiast and machinist, and even early on, you were really interested in the history of bicycles. What attracted you to bikes in those early days?

Joe Breeze 1:07
Oh, God, it might have been my dad riding his bike to work to his job as an automotive machinist, way back in the in the early 60s, he was a big fan of bikes. But yeah, you know, it was the freedom machine, as we all knew growing up as kids, and it’s no different for me. I just knowing kind of with my father’s example. I guess I just had this broad spectrum of how big cycling was. It wasn’t just me and my buddies on the sidewalk. It was like we could get places on bikes even beyond our own town, and that’s what we were soon doing. My brother Richard helped out my older brother Peter, that he was riding down to down to the southern California back in the back in the 60s, going to school down there, and it was kind of a legend in the family. And then my brother Richard, my older brother, was helping get me in that direction, or just in our neighborhood, like my friends, Duke mall and Brian argue we would by fifth grade, we were riding outside Mill Valley to go bowling up northern Marin County. And it’s just one thing led to another. And yeah, it’s still today. It’s in more ways than I ever thought, is still the freedom machine for me.

Jeff Barber 2:22
Well, I mean, that makes sense. I guess a lot of kids start out that way because they’re not old enough to drive a car or own a car or anything. But it’s interesting that your father was such a cycling enthusiast, given his occupation, right?

Joe Breeze 2:38
Yeah, right. And I think that it’s kind of interesting that he was into automobiles, into sports cars. In fact, he raced sports cars, and that’s probably why I became such a bicycle guy, because he actually knew our genetic makeup and my of my next, my biological brother, Richard and I, and he said, Okay, he laid down the law. He said, Okay, you you two are not going to be driving until you’re 18 years old. And so, you know that magic moment of 15 or 16 years old came and came and went, and when my friends were getting their car licenses, my brother and I were still riding bikes, and by the time we’re 18, at the time I was 18, it’s like, I don’t need a license. I’m getting everywhere on a bicycle, and I wouldn’t actually get my license, my my driving license, till I was 26 years old, and that was to help drive out to Crested Butte, Colorado, after that pearl pass ride way back in 78 Wow, that’s amazing. Yeah, so little ironic, maybe, but set me on that, that bicycle path for sure.

Jeff Barber 3:40
Yeah, that’s really cool. So in the early 1970s you were racing cycle cross and biking some of the trails around Mount Tam. Was it unusual? Was that unusual to ride bikes off road back then?

Joe Breeze 3:53
Yeah, absolutely. That’s a really good question. You know, today you go out and ride on Mount Tam, and you’ll see so many mountain bikers right out on the trails and all back then zip okay. I mean, I knew people who did ride on the mountain occasionally, but you wouldn’t see them out there, and so few, but yeah, and I would be on cyclocross bikes riding singletrack on Mount tam in the early 1970s and right racing road bikes before that, but off road, yeah, on cyclocross in the early 1970s.

Jeff Barber 4:26
Well, what kept other people from doing that? I mean, did were they afraid the equipment wouldn’t hold up? Or did they just not think it was fun?

Joe Breeze 4:35
Yeah, you know. Okay, you got to remember too. The landscape was very different back then that. I mean, number of people riding bikes period was very low. This is like in the in the 60s. Anyway, it’s kind of like a the low point the nature of cycling in America, you know, and and today, we know a lot of our buddies are riding bikes, and there’s a lot of stuff going on to do with bikes now. But then. And not so much. And just the idea of riding your bike off road is like, why? I mean, who, whoever this was, not something you thought about, right? And, and yet, when I saw, you know, I was started riding those bikes in the early 70s. But, yeah, it just, it just it wasn’t apparent at that time. So in 1973 I got my first off road, my first fat tire bike, and that was on the the recommendation of my friend Mark Vendetti. Mark is actually our board president at our museum today, but back then, we were road racers and traveling around together trying to search for old bikes to from the 19th century. You know sophisticated machines, when bikes were being and you know that that golden age, and we’re out looking for these bikes, and one day, struck out, once again, they’re hard to find. We’re down at a bike shop in Santa Cruz, and Mark says, Hey, I really got five bucks for that old Schwinn over there some bike that the Alex la riviere at Branson 40 bikes had rescued from the Santa Cruz dump, and he had this lineup of old Schwinns, etc, now these old fat tire bikes out in back of his shop. And marks points to one of these bikes. And says, Joe, yeah, I’ve only got five bucks for this old twin. And I’m looking at Mark like, wait, what? Why do I want that? Why do I want this old sled? And Mark says, in high school, at Redwood high school, but I used to ride with these guys from Larkspur, Corte Madera down Mount Tam. You might enjoy it. Probably the best five bucks I ever spent. And I took that bike, I hitchhiked up Mount Tam and rode it down the old scenic railway. Used to be a railroad up to the top of tam from 1896 to 1930 or so, and came down the old railroad grade. Just had a ball. Yeah, it was fabulous. So hey, once you try this whole new thing, right? And so you’re talking about, why didn’t we do this? Well, people kind of had this in their mind. In fact, there had been many occurrences of people riding off road all across the country since those balloon tires were available in the 1930s and they were mostly isolated occurrences. They didn’t go on to turn other people onto the sport. People were on to then, you know, something new next year or whatever. But out here in Marin, when I was riding these bikes, you know, occasionally I’d run into a cycling friend or a non cycling friend, and then they’d ask me, Hey, Joe, interesting looking bike. So those big tires and upright the handlebars and and all and and mind if I try it, and I’d let them take it down the block, and they’d come back, and invariably, they’d have a big smile on their face and say, Where has this bike been? They knew what they wanted. They didn’t know exactly what it was, but after they rode this fat tire bike, they knew this is what they wanted.

Jeff Barber 7:58
Well, I mean, I hadn’t intended to go down this path, but what were those bikes originally intended for? I mean, are these bikes that were built before roads were really in the condition that they’re in today, or…?

Joe Breeze 8:12
Not at all, not at all, and they were just the the ubiquitous bike of the day, pretty much designed for children, because that’s how far cycling had fallen in this country. It’s because in 1898 we made a bad mistake in the bike industry. We went with a single tube tire, where the rest of the world went on to the new double tube tire, like we have today, and you can quickly repair it, throw a new tube inside, rather easily. But in America, people controlled the patent for the single tube tire, and they could, you know, they, they controlled the tire.

Jeff Barber 8:41
So by single tube, do you mean basically like a tubeless tire?

Joe Breeze 8:46
Oh, and it’s, it’s, it’s not like a sew up. It’s not like a two beater tire. It’s like a glorified piece of garden hose. And to pass it, you patch it, you got to put a plug into it, and it wasn’t stands or coagulant back then, you know, you had to wait 30 minutes for the glue to dry, and people just got fed up with this and and, and it wasn’t until the 1930s when Schwinn, company, out of Chicago, popularized this new type of tire, which they had been using in Europe that Schwinn Ignat Schwinn had been going back to Europe for since, Well, he grew up there, right? And he was designing high wheel bikes way back when, and and he would go see what the real bicycle culture was doing. And he brought that new double, that double tube tire, no longer new to America, and then it was new to America. And there’s been a trajectory of growth in cycling ever since the 1930s because of that double tube tire. Wow. So anyway, cycling had fallen so far that by the 1930s and 40s, it was pretty much a kids thing. That bike was designed to look like a motorcycle, like maybe their father or, you know, other people rode. And it was not about the any it wasn’t a. Sophisticated machine, like the bikes from the 1890s and it probably weighed north and it did weigh north of 60 pounds. And imagine a kid have to schlep that thing around. But anyway, that happened to have this balloon tire on it. And what I mean is it’s a 26 inch rolling diameter by a two and 1/8 inch carcass, and that’s the tire that we would find. Well, that’s the tire that this bike that I bought for five bucks had on it. And that was where we started with the mountain bike, this bike designed in the 1930s.

Jeff Barber 10:30
Yeah, wow. That’s really great background. So getting back to those first rides down Mount Tam. Could you imagine at that time that mountain biking would become such a phenomenon?

Joe Breeze 10:41
Yeah, no. But you know, you’d see the reaction to, you know, even our, my non cycling friends, our non cycling friends, and you could see that something was up there. This thing was hitting the nerve and but at the same time, who’s to know? And I remember a moment in the mid 1970s my buddy and I, Otis, guy, we’re on the top of the mountain some winter and covered head to toe with mud, maybe. And we’re sitting down at the top of Mount tam looking out over the San Francisco Bay Area. And I remember saying to Otis, wow, this sure is a lot of fun. But who else is going to want to enjoy this, you know? And boy, wow, a lot of people, I guess, but yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s kind of nuts. It’s kind of nuts.

Jeff Barber 11:29
So about three years after buying that, Schwinn, you started competing in the repack races, which I think a lot of people know and have heard about. And you did really well. You won 10 out of the 24 races, is that right?

Joe Breeze 11:43
Yeah, I won 10 of the 24 Gary Fisher had the fastest time, however, for 24 minutes, 22 seconds down, this two mile downhill had dropped 1300 feet, and he will always be 1.7 seconds ahead of me.

Jeff Barber 12:00
Wow, that’s great. So you had a lot of experience before this racing road bikes and cyclocross, and so did that experience translate into sort of this downhill bike racing sport?

Joe Breeze 12:16
Yeah, absolutely, it did. And that that’s, that was, that’s where we cut our teeth was riding, racing, riding the road bikes down Mount Tam. And it’s a there are some wonderful roads on the mountain, paved roads that dropped down either to the Pacific Ocean and Stinson Beach or back down the Mill Valley on the Bayside. And yeah, with my buddies Ronnie Schwartz and Greg Biber, we were seeing how fast we could be going down the mountain and hone that skill and and so when something like this repack race came along, and it’s like, well, Sign me up. Yeah. In fact, some of my favorite races, my road race, favorite road races, were ones that still go on today, like Nevada City, up in the Sierra Nevada had just wonderful course for somebody who was a really good bike handler. Bike handler. It’s changed over the years. It’s not quite that course, but that was my favorite road race course. It was a criterium they had many times to hone in around those, those famous Nevada City corners.

Jeff Barber 13:20
Yeah, that’s really interesting. So keeping with the timeline here, Charlie Kelly asked you to build a bike frame specifically for mountain biking. So what were sort of the characteristics that you wanted that bike to have?

Joe Breeze 13:34
Yeah, so I tried out many of the old sleds, you know, like the Schwinns and the colsons and the hiawathas, and there were hundreds of brands and test out their handling skills riding down Mount Tam and, and we’re up Mount tam for that matter, but owning the trails, etc. And I arrived at that this the wind that I was riding this 1941 Schwinn dx, with that geometry, who’s 7068 degree head, 70 seat. And so I chose that geometry as a starting point, but I used modern tubing, you know, aircraft frame tubing, chromoly tubing, alloyed steel tubing that was much stronger. So you can make the bike lighter and make the frame lighter, and so would hold up, because that was the problem. The biggest guys were busting those old Schwinn frames, etc, until they, you know, many of them that had broken multiple times, and they’re coming to me saying, Hey Joe, because I was building custom road racing frames, right? They’re coming to me saying, Hey Joe, when you’re going to build me a new frame. And, yeah, hey now you want me to get serious, aren’t we just having fun out here was my reaction, really, and really, it was Charlie Kelly who made me do it. He was waving $300 in front of me, and I figured, well, heck, I could buy 10 sets of tubing for that. And so I said, I’ll make 10. And I drew them up very carefully, and that’s when I did. Those first Breezer frames.

Jeff Barber 15:01
I mean, to me, that’s pretty incredible. I talked to 1977 was the year, yeah, I actually asked Charlie that same question, you know about, you know, why was he so serious about getting this bike made? I mean, that seems unusual and expensive to have a custom bike built.

Joe Breeze 15:18
Because he was a big guy busting those old mild steel frames. That’s why.

Jeff Barber 15:23
Yeah, I guess he really wanted to win. So like you said, you went on to build 10 more of those first generation Breezer bikes. Yeah, were those all custom orders for riders that you knew, or were they bikes you’re kind of just building, hoping somebody would be interested in them?

Joe Breeze 15:39
So this was the deal. I said, Okay, I’ll make 10. They’re all going to be the same. And they were mostly for the bigger guys anyway, because those are the guys mostly busting the frames. But I, I built them for, mostly for the people racing at repack who you know knew what we know, knew that you could ride a bicycle off road and and wanted that, that secret weapon. And there were, there were people like Fred Wolfe, who who founded the repack course back in the mid 70s, and Wendy and Larry Cragg, the couple that you know had Nikon’s with them, who really chronicled the birth of the sport. We’re so grateful to them for keeping that that history alive, showing our plaid shirts and Levi’s, etc, denim shirts. And my good friend Otis guy was one and then, but there were others who I didn’t know so well. One of the first owners of those first print 10 Breezers was Fritz Maytag, who is the guy who kind of kick started the micro brew movement in this country back in the 1960s when he he bought Anchor Steam Brewing Company and he lived in Mill Valley, where where I lived, and knew my my older brother and and bought one of my first Breezers, wow. And that, of course, the first one went to Charlie Kelly, because he was the guy who fronted me the money for those 10 frames. So, of course, yeah, he so he has Breezer number two, which is actually the first, essentially the first modern mountain bike ever sold, and that’s on display at our museum.

Jeff Barber 17:16
Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m really fascinated, too. You know, you just mentioned Fritz, right? Who started the craft brewing industry, essentially here in the US, I was going to ask you about that, the culture of mountain biking and and how, I mean, it’s really interesting to me today that you see riders wearing a lot of flannel. You know, that’s still a popular thing. It definitely sets us apart from road riders. And then the craft beer connection too. I’m just incredibly fascinated to know that, that there is a connection there as well.

Joe Breeze 17:50
Well, things go in cycles and flannel. Flannel might be on that track, but I think beer and bikes are going to always go together somehow.

Jeff Barber 17:58
Yeah, that’s that’s really interesting.

Joe Breeze 18:00
A tall cool one tastes pretty good after a long, hot day out on the trail. Right?

Jeff Barber 18:04
Absolutely. So in 1978 you and Charlie Kelly and some others participated in the pearl pass tour in Crested Butte, Colorado. What was that experience like coming from the budding mountain bike scene in the Bay Area?

Joe Breeze 18:19
Yeah. Well, we Charlie. We were being interviewed by CO evolution quarterly. And what was it? December of would have been December of 77 and they told us about these guys in crested, Butte, Colorado, doing the same darn thing, you know? And like I say, it wasn’t anything new that we’re doing. It’s just that repack just projected it to the world if it’s all the 24 repay the repack races. That’s, that’s, you know, repack was really the crucible of mountain biking, but this thing encrusted Butte, yeah, we went out there. They they actually didn’t think we were serious about it. But there we do. We’re in September of 78 we showed up. There are six of us from Marin who showed up there, including Gary Fisher and Charlie Kelly and Wendy Cragg and Mike Castelli. And yeah, it was, it was a beautiful place. Holy cow, the aspens were turning just at their prime came into town. We just fell in love with the place. Just what a beautiful spot on the planet. And we approached those guys out the grubstake saloon, and they were like, Whoa. These guys came out here, and I didn’t think they were even going to do it. The look on their face, the look of surprise and and they said, Well, is she doing it? Pointing to Wendy Craig. And went, Oh, yeah, I’m doing and kind of like their machismo kicked in. And, wow, yeah. And we’re doing it too. So there were 13 of us that went over Pearl pass that year. Quite a quite an event, quite a spectacular time overnight up at Cumberland basin at about 11,000 feet going over this, I don’t almost 13,000 foot pass, Pearl pass.

Jeff Barber 19:50
Wow. So were you riding clunkers at that time, or did you have some of your Breezer bikes?

Joe Breeze 19:56
Well, I had some of the my first Breezers. So this is September 78 and. I had all 10 of them were now built. And so there were, Charlie had a Breezer, Wendy had a Breezer. I had a Breezer. I guess there were three Breezers, unless I’m forgetting somebody, sorry. But anyway, so we had those modern bikes. And it’s kind of interesting. We’re out in front of the grubstake saloon, and there look those the guys, you know, the beautians, are looking at it, at our new our new, well, you can’t call them clunkers anymore, our new machines. And they’re saying, Well, what are they made out of? And I said, it’s chromium molybdenum steel. And, well, actually, I said Chromoly steel. And they said, Molly, like in as in molybdenum. And I said, Well, yeah. And they said, Well, you see that mountain up yonder, that’s that mountain there a Max wants to mine for molybdenum. And so they weren’t so keen on the idea, actually. And I said, Well, these bikes have such a very small amount of molybdenum in it. And they kind of, oh, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, but true fact, yeah.

Jeff Barber 21:03
Well, was that sort of one of the big first tests of how well the bikes climbed? I mean, was that different coming to Colorado from California, where the climbs bigger, or was it, was it any different from what you guys were used to?

Joe Breeze 21:16
You know, they claimed us of cheating. Not only did we have the latest in mountain bike technology, but, but we trained, I think I might have done a little more training down at the grubstake. And so when Ray state came, yeah, yeah, we, we well, they liked us because, because we were also bike mechanics too, and we knew a few things about how to keep a bike together. So we kept their bikes going. They kept us in in stitches with their entertaining ways up at Cumberland basin and all. And we just had a great time. We were just like two beans in the pod there, and two peas in a pot or or 13 in a pod and and just having a wonderful time making our trek over Pearl pasta to Aspen.

Jeff Barber 22:00
Yeah, that’s cool. It sounds like you found kindred spirits in the mountain bikers there. And that’s just really fascinating, too, that this was happening at the same time, sort of independently.

Joe Breeze 22:11
Absolutely. And the association between Marin County and Crested Butte is long, of course, that’s where they founded the mountain bike Hall of Fame, way back and in 1988 and this will be our 30th induction that we have this year, in fact, at the Marin Museum of bicycling and mountain bike Hall of Fame.

Jeff Barber 22:32
Yeah, that’s really cool. So how did the mountain bike designs progress in those early days? Were there a lot of big changes from one generation to the next, or was it more gradual?

Joe Breeze 22:42
Oh, I suppose. And, and it’s competition really has a way of improving the breed. And there is no stranger to our our doings with these mountain bikes, neither just Well, I mean, this doesn’t sound like any great shakes. But those first bikes I made that a 68 degree head angle or so and and the next ones I would make by 1980 would have a 70 degree head angle that, that whole geometry, geometry thing would be a big talking point in in mountain bikes for years, but, but so many things were changing over the years, better lighter rims, better tires and, and, and, really the the mountain bike racing was improving the bikes.

Jeff Barber 23:31
Yeah, that’s interesting. You mentioned earlier, too that those Schwinns had, what, a 68 degree head tube angle?

Joe Breeze 23:39
67 and a half for the for the, what we called the Excelsior, those pre war Schwinn ballooners.

Jeff Barber 23:45
And, I mean, today’s bikes, you know, 67 and a half degree head tube angle, that’s your, you know, typical trail bike.

Joe Breeze 23:53
Like, it’s to say things, things go in cycles, right? Yeah, yeah. There are reasons for that, of course. And maybe we’ll talk. We’ll talk more about that down the road here maybe.

Jeff Barber 24:07
So Joe, what was it like running the Breezer bike brand for nearly three decades? You know, you started out as kind of a one man shop, and, you know, grew into a multinational corporation. Were there challenges or perks that you found sort of along the way?

Joe Breeze 25:21
Well, certainly challenges. My Ford is more designed than than running a company really building bikes. I love perks Absolutely. Boy riding a bike, it’s a perk every day, every day. It’s like I just learned how to ride a bike. I just love bikes. Always will, but along the way, you know, after building those, those frames in the 80s. You know, I’m the guy welding it together, welding these frames together, and maybe not the fastest bike builder in the world. I’m so focused on other ideas, like coming up with parts. My good buddy Josh Angel, for instance, was one of those guys. Whether you mentioned earlier the high rate, but, but anyhow, so I’m, I’m looking for ways to get more frames out there. And I partnered with a company in St Cloud, St Cloud, Minnesota, in the mid 1980s and we were doing a bike of my design called the American Breezer. It was part of their line, and they were handling the sales to shops, etc. And that that’s, that was a model I would use for a number of years, doing the Breezers. For instance, just after that, I got together with Interjet international company, and they were selling Breezers around the world. My designs, I would be, you know, telling everybody how to weld frames together, etc, but other people actually making the frames. And those are the maybe, for those who have Breezers, these are with the spear point paint jobs like the old Schwinns used to have, that I borrowed, that I lifted from those early 1930s 40s Schwinns with those two tone spearpoint paint job. And that was all during the 90s, mostly, I was doing that project. And then after that, I actually, really since, for the first time, since I had been welding the frames together, I was running the show with another guy. This was in the in the 2000s we started, my buddy, my friend, John Deutch and I started repurposed Breezer. Actually, an interest of mine is the use of bicycles for transportation. Again, something I got from my father, perhaps, but I figured, hey, you know, everybody’s doing mountain bikes, and wouldn’t it be wonderful if people had a bicycle that was all equipped that they could use to get down to the store, as many people were doing with their mountain bikes. In fact. I mean, most of the mountain bikes that were sold, maybe 90% of them, rarely saw the dirt, and they were just upright, comfortable bikes to ride. And people learned that, wow. You know, right in my everyday life, I can use a bicycle to get where I need to go and solve my say, and save myself time. How about that? Yeah, and, and get myself a little healthier too, and maybe the planet at the same time. And, and so, you know, I thought what we need in this country are bikes that are fully equipped, that have racks and fenders and lights right on them, like a car. You know, they’ve got all that stuff, and when you park them and they don’t fall over. And so wouldn’t it be great to just have an all purpose every day getting around bike? And that’s what we did by John Deutch and I repurposed Breezer, and in 2000 what was it? 2000 Well, got together in 2001 figured it was high time here in this country, and and showed up at the show the following year with a with a line of town bikes, and we focused 100% we did not do mountain bikes or road bikes, because everybody else was doing that, and we were really trying to get that thing going. We needed to focus 100% on this new kind of bike. And got it got a foothold selling to people who started bike dealerships, just for that one sole purpose, to get bikes in front of people in ways that they can use them better, more easily in their life. And that’s what we did. And about what was it? 2008 this was getting some traction, and a lot of companies were coming out with fully equipped bikes, and it was getting somewhere, and I figured, well, you know, we’re just going to get trounced by everybody. So I chose to partner with a bigger company, and that was advanced sports back in Philadelphia, and they were the, essentially, they were the company that was building the Fuji bicycles and the Kestrel bicycles and se bicycles and a number of brands now, including Breezer from 2008 and I was held on as designer the part I like, and they got to do all that fun paperwork back there in Philadelphia and move my bikes around the planet. So yeah, and and so. I’ve had these different models over the years, and that’s where we are now, still doing transportation for a healthy planet, but with a little bit more horsepower, where we’re doing mountain bikes. I’ve been doing mountain bikes again since 2010 and some road bikes, like new gravel bikes, adventure bikes, for something in between the road biking and mountain biking, which just seems to be really catching on right now.

Jeff Barber 30:23
Yeah, definitely. And like you said, these things do seem to go in cycles where one thing is hot for a while and then dies down a little bit, and then it comes back. A lot of writers might not know this, but you actually developed the first dropper seatpost the height right in the early 1980s Why do you think it took so long for this to become such a must have accessory for mountain bikers?

Joe Breeze 30:47
Yeah, yeah, Josh and I came up with that. Josh Angel and I came up with that in 1984 or three, something like that, we got a patent on it. And, yeah, why? Why do you You make it sound like it was never a big deal, actually, back when that, when we started that thing, my gosh, it’s like, we, I forget how many distributors I had, but there were on all the top bikes made at that time as original equipment. Oh, wow. And, and even before 1990 we had sold over a quarter million of those height rights started with our advertising or our slogan descend with conviction. And the reason it essentially went away like you’ve noticed that you did notice was that early on, well, in 1990 something, that the race promoters realized that, hey, if they made, instead of having these epic a to a point A to point B races, if they could have a shorter loop, then they could have better spectator, more spectators coming to their race, right? And of course, once you shorten that lap, then there’s less time to be bothering at lowering your saddle. So the high rate kind of went away for a while there. And it wasn’t until more recently that people really brought back more fun into mountain biking. As as suspension got better and and you go further off road and and having a really light bike for racing wasn’t the key thing anymore after the 1990s and and people started to focus on that fun end again. And people came out with, with dropper seatpost, even with remote. I was working on a remote in 1990 when the whole thing went south. And then, wow, that people are coming back with this, this height, right? Thing. Again, wonderful. And, yeah, actually, we even had, I had a few left over from all the ones we sold, and my son is now cleaning up the closet selling them online for people looking for a lower price seat dropper, yeah, it’s about 1/10 the price of what today’s seat droppers cast.

Jeff Barber 32:56
Wow. What can you describe the design? I mean, it’s a really simple design.

Joe Breeze 33:01
It is. It is so simple I didn’t think we could get a patent on it, but our patent attorney said, those are the very best kind, right? And anyway, it’s a simple torsion spring that you attach onto your seat post with a clamp, and the lower leg fits, oh well, against a wraps around a quick release skewer like all bikes used to have, and some still do have. And then you just as you’re riding along on the fly, you reach back and undo that quick release lever and controllably lower your saddle to where you want it for that gnarly downhill. And once you’re back on to terra firma flatter ground, you can just reach down and pop it right back up to your efficient pedaling height, and it keeps it straight with this, with the frame, and off you go like nothing ever happened. And so, like I said, sold a lot of those things and and it’s, it’s a way to have fun on a mountain bike. For sure, you cannot sell a mountain bike today if it doesn’t have a drop or seat post. It seems sometimes very unlike pedals, bikes can mountain bikes can come without pedals because a lot of people have directions they want to go in for their personal pedal, but man, doesn’t have a dropper seat post. Holy cow.

Jeff Barber 34:10
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And yeah, this just further highlights that trend of just everything being so cyclical in the industry.

Joe Breeze 34:18
Yeah, I don’t know if that will be a cycle. I think that’s here to stay. It’s a fun thing. Well, as long as fun stays around, we’ll have a dropper seat post.

Jeff Barber 34:30
Yeah, that’s a great point. You co founded and are the curator of the Marin Museum of bicycling in Fairfax, California, which seems really fitting, given your early interest in bicycle history. What does it feel like, though, to have some of your own creations, like the early Breezer bikes in international museum collections like the Smithsonian?

Joe Breeze 34:52
Oh my gosh, yeah, that’s, well, that’s to have a anything in the Smithsonian. That’s a. Honor for sure. For me, holy cow, I was just blown away. I finally made it out there to see it in the American History Museum there, off Constitution Avenue on the Washington Mall. Oh, cool. Finally, finally saw it sitting there and all its beautiful blue glory. Hadn’t written it since about 1980 or so, but, but there, but there will sit forever. So, yeah, it’s quite, quite an honor. And, and, yeah, the whole, you know, like, Who would have thought this? Like, like we were talking about earlier, like to think that our little fun in the woods would grow up into essentially the ubiquitous bike on the planet. You know, if that tire bike all around the world is that bike? Yeah, that, that’s the go to bike for everything, right? Not, of course, not just mountain bike, but just getting, getting across to wherever in the in the world, the jungle or some city, and in any big city in the world. So, yeah, and it’s something that you just can’t see coming. I mean, yeah, you can think, you know, my friends are enjoying this, you can kind of see it coming, but you don’t know how big it’s going to get it. And what I tell people is, if you’re sitting around, imagine us back in the early 70s, sitting around the campfire, drawing and roasting marshmallows, whatever, talking to our friends about where this bicycle someday might go, you know. And if you gave any inkling, you know, if you hey, this bike is going to be, well, like, like it is today, they would lock you up, right? I mean, there has been so much, essentially, chaos along the way that things that you never saw coming that have pointed to this bicycle as as something you want to do, that was just, it’s things are not obvious until they’re obvious and, and this is no exception, and, and, yeah, it’s it’s come a long ways. It’s just amazing that people would care this much about something we were just having fun in on it out in the woods 40 some odd years ago?

Jeff Barber 37:03
Yeah, well, when you were younger, too, and you were interested in these older bikes and some of the historical aspects of bicycling, did you follow sort of the inventors? I mean, did you ever see yourself as one of those people? Could you see yourself in the shoes of, you know, say the guy who invented the penny farthing?

Joe Breeze 37:22
Not back then, for sure. And, and, you know, I had, it’s a funny thing about that museum, because Mark Vendetti, Otis Guy, and I back in the 1970s were hoping to do just that museum back then, and to really, you know, before the mountain bike, right? Yeah, and, and we really wanted to show those bikes from the 19th century that made the bicycle happen. You know, the bicycle was formed in the 30 some odd years between 1865 and in an 1895 and where and competition. Competition absolutely improved the breed right up to the point there were other ways to get around, like the automobile. And it was the very same people who would go on to start a lot of the motor motoring automobile companies. And heck, the Wright brothers were bike builders before flying at Kitty Hawk, right? And, and, and. So this is what we wanted to share, this fabulous history about the bicycle and its important role in all of industry. Did you know that the ball bearing was perfected with the bicycle? You know, we have a bicycle in the museum that has the very bearing on it from Daniel Ridge, which is considered the great granddaddy of all ball bearings industry today. Wow, you know, for instance, and there are many more, but believe me, and and so we wanted to share this history that had been in it occluded by these later technologies like the automobile and the airplane. It’s a history that people don’t know. And when they come in, it’s like, well, I had no idea. So anyway, we’re hoping to, we were hoping to do that, and then we’d finally do this museum many, many years later, right? 40 years later, and and that we are now part of that history. That’s the strange part, you know? And yes, I thought highly of Daniel Rudge, and I thought highly of Hans Reynolds, who gave us our bush roller and chain, the most efficient method of transmitting power known still today. And, and the same technology that we propel our bikes with today that wrote that change no different and, and you know that that we are part of this history. It’s really strange when I’m showing people around, I’m really digging showing them that 1890s history, but when it comes to the mountain bike, it’s like I would almost like to talk in the third person. I like, I wasn’t even there, but now I’m part of that history, so I’m i It’s nice. I can give people that firsthand knowledge of what we did way back when, but it’s a little strange, let me tell you.

Jeff Barber 39:57
I know you don’t want to toot your own horn. And, yeah, it’s, that’s probably, it’s probably a little weird. But, I mean, how would you place the mountain bike on that historical timeline? I mean, how big of an inflection point was that compared to, say, the height of bicycling before that, you know, the 1890s?

Joe Breeze 40:19
Yeah, well, it was a pretty amazing time. Back in the 1890s this golden age of cycling, where it was the darling of transportation culture, or more than that, it was in all the popular magazines, 1000s of stories, and of course, in all the the scientific journals, like Scientific American, you know, the latest technologies coming from bicycles. Just about half the patents in 1895 were about the bicycle, wow. Okay, there was where you went to get your bike, to get your idea patented. There was a building for bicycle patents, and there was a building for everything else. Okay, yeah, that’s how that’s how huge it was. And, yeah, it was this the center of culture. I mean, it was that golden age. So, okay, so how to compare that to the mountain bike? Well, okay, so the mountain bike’s been around for over 40 years now, and it’s really changed a lot with how we get around in life. And really it’s, gosh, it’s a crazy, nutty thing, but it even seems to have even rejuvenated the idea of using a bicycle for transportation, not even in our country, but in Europe, in Amsterdam, in Germany, bicycles, the mountain bike, brought new blood to cycling and opened up, invigorated the sport and inspired whole new generations to enjoy the beauty of a bicycle and how, you know, it’s the most efficient vehicle ever devised, you know, yeah, and, and that’s, that’s really, you know, as as dry as that might sound, the most efficient vehicle ever devised. That’s what puts the smile on our face when we ride a bike, and we are just astounded with how we’re able to propel that thing down the road and down the trail and fly down the hill and and do all those amazing things. And that’s that’s what the mountain bike did around the world, was reinvigorate cycling so that many people could use a bicycle to do something as simple, to go down to the store and buy a quart of milk and and incorporate it right into their lives so they could get health while they get where they go. And so anyhow, it’s, it’s, it’s been a pretty amazing ride. And, and, and I hope it keeps on going.

Jeff Barber 42:38
That’s really amazing to think about sort of that first boom and then this second boom. There are some similarities, but yeah, like you said, it’s it’s really different, I guess in the way that those things have moved forward. One of the tenants that you advocated for when forming norba, which was the North American off road bicycling Association, was self sufficiency, particularly when it comes to riders and their equipment. So I wanted to ask you, how do you think electric mountain bikes fit into all this in terms of self sufficiency or getting out on trails with an electric motor?

Joe Breeze 43:15
Yeah, sure. I think it correlates well and the self sufficiency I was aiming for. I was hoping to not develop a freak bike through racing. Which kind of happened, road bikes, you know, it’s the UCI. Many years, decades back, chose a path of making the athlete the star of the show. Where before that, when bikes meant something, beforehand in the 19th century, that technology was part of the star of the show. And now, instead of the focus being on the technology, it’s been on the athlete, to the detriment of growth and cycling, and that’s why a bike from the 1890s in profile doesn’t look a whole lot different from the Chris froome’s bike that he won the Tour de France on last year. And it’s not, I mean, certainly there are updates to it, but in basic profile, it’s the same diamond shaped frame with those two pneumatic wheels of the same diameter, and it’s because the rule book states that that’s what a bike must look like that to be legal to race as a machine. And that’s easy marketing for the builder, because you know, you built what won the race on yesterday, right? So as bicycles, once again, are being seen as a solution in our everyday life to get transportation brighter. People are coming back into the industry, and it could be that well, and I should tell you about something else that’s happened. The UCI has once again, hinted that they’re interested. In giving back to humanity a better bicycle developed through racing. And wouldn’t that be a great thing that people go, yeah, when I got my quart of milk, that those racing bikes gave me a better bicycle? Okay? No. And there’s so many things that can be improved on a bicycle that by having wheel changes, that just creates not a good wheel, not a good tire, right, right? If, boy, you can bet, if, if, if they if you had to finish that Tour de France race on that same bike that you started on, and you might even have to change your own tires. Holy cow, you bet the manufacturers will make a damn good tire. And we’d all be the benefit. We’d all be the beneficiaries of that new tech, that new improved technology. So the UCI is getting smart with the game and realizing that they can have a great impact on society in a very positive way, by improving by changing the rules a little bit in the racing plan to make bicycles more self sufficient, that’s what I was shooting for with mountain bikes, not to develop a freak bike like a road bike, a road racing bike is today, and come up with a bike that will not only get you into the woods, but back out of the woods, right? And so. So, whether it’s a pedal powered bike or a pedal powered e bike, if there are to be rules. They should be rules that will not only get you into the woods, but back out of the woods. And so that’s why I say that. It’s a similar thinking for either bike.

Jeff Barber 46:31
Yeah, that’s really that’s really fascinating to think about the difference between road bikes and mountain bikes. And maybe what’s driving some of that innovation and that risk taking, I guess, with design and, you know, yeah, figuring out ways to solve the problems that competition brings up.

Joe Breeze 46:49
Yeah, and competition is a vital and tool to improve the bicycle and the UCI and all, all people involved need to get with that plan and and recognize that. That’s what’s going to keep people coming back to bicycles day after day of bicycles that’s useful to them, that works well, that is trouble free, nuts. That’s our goal, and that’s what’s going to keep us not only getting into the woods, but back out of the woods for whatever we use a bicycle for, and that will will make that a bicycle more and more beautiful as we go down the road.

Jeff Barber 47:29
Would you say, are the UCI mountain bike regulations? Are they different or and are they sort of modeled after the NORBA rules, as they were?

Joe Breeze 47:40
Well, of course, we NORBA was separate from the UCI until 1989 and it’s an interesting thing. Maybe this might sound a little ironic that the UCI because they wanted to bring our norba into the fold to have a unified world championship. And you can imagine how chuffed we were that our little baby was going to be international. Well, they actually just that one thing that the UCI did, which did come about. Kind of interesting story, how it did come about. But anyway, that one ruling from the UCI infused man. I just got to tell you the story, I guess. But so the I should tell you, the the the Italian bike federations, when the UCI brought that up, they said, Wait a minute. Not so fast. You guys, us at norba don’t even have downhill racing. And in fact, we did not at that time, even though that’s our roots, right, right? When we founded NORBA back in 1983 we were also the trail advocacy group. We were trying to save our trails, and the last thing we wanted to do was sanction downhill races because of the political blowback, right? And so we chose not to. And so in 89 when the Italians said no downhill, no dice, we at NORBA knew that downhilling was going to happen with or without us, so we just shrugged our shoulders and said, okay, and that first World Championship was with that rainbow jersey. You know, the rainbow jersey on Wyatt was at Durango, Colorado, 1990 Ned Overend won it, and it included the discipline of downhill racing, and that brought downhilling back with a vengeance, and that’s what infused all this technology in the mountain biking with better suspension, better kinematics, which carries on To this day to make the mountain bike more exciting, more better every year. You know, after 1990 when it was in the UCI his hands, and they ran with it, and we kind of had our indelible fingerprint on there for a while, but I think after some time, they chose to rescind the self sufficient. See claws and maybe allow for wheel changes. I actually hadn’t, haven’t paid close enough attention to you to actually know what those rules are like regarding mountain bike racing.

Jeff Barber 50:10
Well, in a downhill race, there’s just not a lot of time anyway.

Joe Breeze 50:13
Well, yeah, well, hey, I’ll tell you what was happening before we founded NORBA, the mountain bike racing was kind of devolving in the cyclocross because for some of these courses that the promoters would put on, you could get by with a cyclocross bike. And hey, it was lighter, right, right, but it wasn’t really mountain biking anymore, and so it wasn’t going to be developing a better bike for the people who enjoyed mountain biking. So by by going away from that rule, they run that risk of making a freak bike out of mountain bikes and and so, you know, I think they’d have their heads screwed on straight there at the UCI, and they’ll do the right thing to continue on with the with what’s obviously a boon to the sport.

Jeff Barber 50:57
Well, Joe, thank you so much for talking with us about mountain biking history and about the history of the bike. Clearly, you’re really passionate about it, and you’re one of the people that founded the whole sport, and so it’s just really awesome to be able to talk to you about mountain biking.

Joe Breeze 51:13
Well, you’re welcome, Jeff. Thank you very much. Wonderful questions of yours. Really had a good time. Thanks.

Jeff Barber 51:20
Well, you can learn more about the history of bikes and bicycle technology by visiting the Marin Museum of bicycling in person or online. Also be sure to check out the mountain bike Hall of Fame co located with the Marin Museum in Fairfax, California. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please share with a friend or post a quick review in your podcast app. Stay tuned for more great interviews. Peace you.