1984 The Birth of British Mountain Biking

Though people have ridden off-road since the invention of the bicycle. Today, with fat tyre mountain bikes everywhere, it can be difficult to remember the time before they existed.

The Birth of UK Mountain Biking

In 1977, British Journalist Richard Grant, later of Richards bicycle book fame, happened across some hippies riding bicycles down mountains in California. He so enjoyed his experience of riding in the mountains with Charlie Kelly and Gary Fisher that he bought a Gary Fisher clunker off them and shipped it back to the UK.

Despite not have been into cycling previously he became an evangelist for what later came to be called mountain bikes. He displayed his clunker at bicycle trade shows and in 1982/3 teamed up with Richard Ballantine in importing about 20 Ritchey Montare MTBs into the UK. Aware that there was going to be an influx of these bikes into British shops in 1984, he set up Bicycle Action magazine to promote the new bikes. Though there was not enough of a market at that time for Bicycle Action to solely focus on MTBs.

In collaboration with Charlie Kelly, Grant created the Fat Tyre Five, a series of five MTB events to take place in 1984. The first four in the UK and the last in California. The first event, a cross-country race event took place on the site of the Eastway Cycle circuit in North London on May the 27th. It is thought that this was a hastily set up event tagged onto an HPV race taking place at the circuit and to coincide with the launch of Bicycle Action. However, it rained on the day and much of the banking at the circuit was too steep for the unexperienced riders who had to dismount and run up and down cyclocross style.

Earlier on, Grant been introduced to Geoff Apps by Charlie Kelly. So, for the next event he approached Apps for help and guidance because he was both an experienced off-road cyclist and competitive motorbike trials rider. Using his knowledge of off-road riding in the Chilterns, Apps chose a suitable site for the next event and negotiated the required permissions from the Forestry Commission. Unfortunately, the FC later got cold feet with regards to allowing a long cross-country route by restricting the event to much smaller area than originally agreed. Apps got around this by devising a short course circuit with multiple laps with knockout heats based on the cycle speedway format. Not being allowed to use existing tracks meant that the course had to be created by clearing a route through the overgrown woodland.

So on Sunday the 17th of June 1984 the great and the good of the early UK MTB scene gathered at what used to be a WW1 shooting range at Mansion Hill near Halton Buckinghamshire for the first of the Wendover Bashes. This was the first UK MTB specific multi-discipline event featuring MTB downhill racing, trials, hill climb events and the second to feature cross-country racing. This time the weather was warm and sunny and the event was deemed to be a great success.

The Wendover Bash went continued annualy for five years at the same location.

One rider competing at the first ‘Bash’ was Jeremy Torr, later to became a co-founder of the UK Mountain Bike Club (MBC).
The MBC went on to adopt the same multi-discipline format established by the ‘Bash’ with each competitor participating in a range of events and the winner being the rider with the highest overall score. This format continued until British Cycling took over stewardship of the sport in the late 1990s and split the sport into separate disciplines.

Thanks to Muddy Fox co-founder Drew Lawson for originally uploading this video clip.

Mountain Biking: The untold British story

1986/7 Wendover Bash Videos:

Video about the Richard Grant 1977 ‘clunker’