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Design Your Own RevolutionAbout 20 years ago a new kind of bike started appearing on British streets: the mountain bike.
Where did it come from? Not from a lone inventor working in his shed, experimenting feverishly.
Not from the research and development lab of a mainstream bike manufacturer.
The mountain bike came from users, especially a group of young enthusiasts in California who were frustrated that they could not ride along mountain trails on racing bikes.
They put together clunky frames from traditional town bikes, gears from racing bikes, balloon tyres and motorcycle brakes.
For the first few years these bikes were made in garages, and were known as 'clunkers'.
A tiny industry emerged and by 1976 in Marin County, just north of San Francisco, there were a half a dozen small firms run by enthusiasts making bikes for their mates.
The first commercial mountain bike came out in 1982, and the big bike manufacturers piled in.
By the mid-Eighties, 15 years after the users had developed the first mountain bike, it was a staple of the mainstream market.
In 2000, mountain bikes accounted for 65 per cent of bike sales in the US, worth about $58 billion (£31.8bn).
An entire product category and the lifestyle to go with it was invented not by bike manufacturers and their designers, but by the users.
more: observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/sto... (328)
3/7/2005 | Viewed 15,017 time(s)
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