FAIRFAX, Calif. — If you ride your bike down the eastern side of Mount Tamalpais, it'll take you to the birthplace of the mountain bike and the Marin Museum of Bicycling. Museum curator Joe Breeze is one of the pioneers of the sport.
As a way to pass time in the 1960s and 70s, Joe and a group of Marin County bike riders started racing vintage one speed bikes down Mt. Tamalpais. Breeze says the event became known as the Repack Races because, often after one ride, the bearings on the old bikes needed to be repacked with grease.
“If you dared to look back, you'd notice you're being followed by a contrail of smoke as the grease inside that hub is being vaporized out into a contrail,” Breeze said.
Not only was Breeze a racer, but he’s also a bike builder. One of the organizers of the Repack Races commissioned him to build a better bike.
“I hustled it together. It's just primer red. I was just thrown it together, rode it up from Mill Valley, won the race,” Breeze said.
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The win allowed Breeze to sell more custom repack bikes, but it also caught the attention of other bike builders in Marin County.
“Regarding the mountain bike... we're known as the birthplace of mountain biking,” Breeze said.
Today, the global mountain bike market is a billion-dollar business that’s always evolving. The Marin Museum of Bicycling not only chronicles the mountain bike's evolution but also the evolution of other bikes.
The collection showcases several experimental bikes displaying different possibilities of functionality and style. Not all the bikes in the museum are practical or pretty, but they tell do tell a story of how two-wheeled machines have changed travel for man no matter what the terrain looks like.
“I am happy to see it progress, and I am happy to be a part of it,” Breeze said.
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