An ode to Charlie Cunningham, a true unsung OG of mountain biking – with words from Gary Fisher, Tom Ritchey, Charlie Kelly and Joe Breeze

Gary Fisher, Tom Ritchey, Joe Breeze and Charlie Kelly are widely considered the great founding fathers of mountain biking – and indeed as the men who brought us the flat bar, fat-tyred bikes that we now know as mountain bikes.

Their analogue and faded hippy-like tales of bodging old balloon tyre single speed cruisers to create ‘klunkers’, which were raced down the famous Repack trail on Mount Tamalpais in Marin County, California (and way beyond), are at the very core of our sport, and rightly so.

However, these greats were not alone on those hallowed trails or in tinkering with wildly rebellious and eccentric machines in home workshops. A whole lot of sport and life-changing innovation was going on in those hills, and one man in particular was welding and wielding his own way through that defining era, Charlie Cunningham, who was very much a part of the original mountain bike movement and who, in a humbly unsung way, brought so much to the sport.

Born in Washington DC, Charlie moved to California as a youngster and was schooled within riding distance of Mount Tam. He later studied aeronautical engineering at UC Berkley, which taught him a thing or two about the potential of aluminium for making bikes.

After starting as a bike builder in 1977, in 1979, Charlie created what is considered the first-ever welded aluminium mountain bike; his CC PROTO. The bike was a radical and logical step towards what would become the future norm for mountain bike design. It had fat frame tubes, a sloping top tube, wide-spaced hubs and adapted brakes – plus dropped handlebars, a single chain ring, and a retention device. This bike was way ahead of its time, and could even be doubly-dubbed as the first ever gravel bike.

Charlie was innovating and creating game-changing products from the mid 1970s right up until 2015. In 1982, he co-founded WTB (Wilderness Trail Bikes) with Steve Potts and Mark Slate, which soon became one of the most respected and innovative brands in the bike Industry. The founders moved on from WTB in 2002, and Charlie continued his innovations as Cunningham Bikes.

As well as pioneering welded aluminium MTB frames, Charlie his also credited with introducing and innovating through wider hubs, zero dish rear wheels, the Gease Guard bearing system, rollor cam brakes, gooseneck (LD) stems, Type 11 forks and Type 1 towing forks – as well as leading the way of tyre development with the Specialized Ground Control – to name but just a few of his implementations.

Charlie was married to Jaquie Phelan, one of the very early MTB racing greats and great characters of the sport, who famously appeared with Muddy Fox paw prints across her bare back in an ad campaign. She also won the first MTB inclusive edition of the famous Man vs Horse race in Mid Wales in 1985, beating all of the male riders in it.

Unfortunately, Charlie had a life-changing accident while riding in 2015, suffering multiple injuries and severe head trauma. His life was never the same again. Sadly, he passed away on June 3rd, aged 77, leaving one heck of a legacy with the sport.

Words from the founding fathers of mountain biking

Given Charlie’s recent passing, I thought it poignant to speak to the acknowledged four founding fathers of our great sport, men who all rode that revolutionary and evolutionary trail alongside Charlie in those pre-dawn days of mountain biking.

At very short notice, over the weekend, we managed to get a few personal thoughts, insights and reactions on Charlie and the recent news, while noting that some here were amidst heavy travel schedules.

Joe Breeze

Joe Breeze was one of the original “klunker crew” and is the man who built the very first MTB style ballooner bikes, which became the basis for Tom Ritchey’s first ever recognised mountain bike. He later went on to form Breezer Bikes, and he still lives near and rides around the Hallowed Repack trail, and is also the curator at the Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame, a place all mountain bikers should make a pilgrimage to at some point.

“I first met Charlie on the road one day. I think it was on Shady Lane in Ross, 1976 or so. He had a flat tyre and was pumping up his tyre with a pump he had made. It was a compressor that he could engage to the rear wheel and use his cranks to drive it, or something like that. I’d never seen anything like it before”, Breeze says.

“Not long after, he stopped by my machine shop in Mill Valley to show me his latest road bike. It wasn’t particularly pretty, but there were many innovations. He wasn’t winning me over with its rough execution, and I wished him well.

“By the late 1970s, he had welded up a large-tube aluminium off-road bike. I understood the value of big diameter with aluminium; low modulus and all, but this bike had a BMX wheel in back and a 700c road wheel up front, with as big a tyre as he could find, a rather fat 1-1/4” tyre. It looked just wrong.

“It wasn’t until aluminium mountain bike rims became available [around the summer of 1979] that Charlie made a 26/26 mountain bike. This bike really caught my attention. That was the first aluminium-framed mountain bike ever made, the CC Proto. It has resided in the Marin Museum of Bicycling in Fairfax since it opened in 2015. Nearby is Jacquie Phelan’s 1983 Cunningham, which she raced her whole professional career.

“In 1979, Charlie’s CC Proto was the first of hundreds he would make. So radical-looking was it that it might as well have come from outer space, and as unproven as it was, people were saying it would never fly; sloping top tube, wide-spaced hubs, single chainring, etc. By the late 1980s, Jacquie’s Cunningham was a survivor; IT FLEW! Aluminium finally became an accepted material for all bicycles.

“Charlie and Jacquie would marry at West Point Inn on Mt. Tamalpais on 8-8-88”.

Tom Ritchey

Tom Ritchey was a highly accomplished road racer and was building frames and creating his own bike parts from a young age. Long before mountain bikes existed, Tom would head out on epic cross-country rides on dropped bar bikes – and, whenever he can, he still lives for the same lonesome rides.

Tom is credited as the creator of the first true modern mountain bike, and he still heads up his iconic Ritchey Logic company.

“Charlie was a sweet-hearted mad scientist genius. With his quiet and humble demeanour, you’d never detect any kind of self-inflating going on; just his genuine disarming self – without a word spoken… Charlie reminds me to be more humble…

“I miss the idea that I won’t be seeing him again, at least this side of Heaven!”

Charlie Kelly

An avid cyclist and rock band roadie, Charlie Kelly was very much the driving force behind the original Marin County ‘klunker crew’ and the early Repack races.

Along with Gary Fisher, he founded MountainBikes in 1979 – the first true mountain bike brand. Charlie is still very much involved with the sport locally, and stands as one of the great historical characters of the sport.

“I met Charlie in the early seventies, when he made a super light seat post for my road bike. His interest then was in very light road bikes. 

“Charlie never took part in the Repack races. He was not a “joiner.” In the 70s, he usually rode alone. After the 80s, he rode with Jacquie. No one could keep up with the pair of them.

“Charlie’s interest was not in downhill racing, or in fact any sort of racing. His riding style, and indeed his bikes, were what we now call “gravel biking.” He took long trail rides, almost always alone. His bike had drop bars, a one-by drive train, and the narrowest 26″ tyres he could find. 

“He was persuaded to enter the veteran” category at the 1984 NORBA National Championships, which he won easily.

“Charlie designed things for his own use, and some did not translate to manufactured products. Those that did were manufactured or licensed by Wilderness Trail Bikes. Charlie was one of the founders of the company, but left some years later.

“I am sending a photo that captures his essence. He is in his shop. You see his and Jacquie Phelan’s MTB Hall of Fame plaques, her 1983 National Championship trophy and a NORBA sticker. Charlie is wearing his “hands-free” telephone. This was an ordinary handset, taken apart and reassembled on a little helmet. It’s not wireless, so you can see the curly cord hanging off it, connected to a rotary dial telephone. There was a counterweight on the left side to keep it from tilting”.

Gary Fisher

Gary Fisher is perhaps the most recognisable icon of mountain biking, and is often considered the Godfather of the sport and the flat bar bikes we all know and love.

From the pre-mountain bikes to his Gary Fisher brand and through to a long integral tenure with Trek, Gary was very much the glitz and face of mountain biking for decades.

“Charlie was one of the most sincere humans. He also had the ability to manifest his ideas into reality one at a time. It was incredibly sad how he was eaten by the bike industry; it’s a long and complex story.

“I wish I had partnered up with him way back when. RIP Charlie!”

On a personal note, I would like to thank all of the above for what they have given us, and also for sharing these insights here. Our thoughts go out to Jaquie Phelan.

RIP Charlie.