May 20th, 1984
L2R: Steve Cleek, Max Jones, R. Bulis and Bayard Webb at the 1st Sierra Bicycle Club mountain bike race in the Reno area on May 20th, 1984. The Sierra Bicycle Club was the predecessor of the modern Reno Wheelmen for local club mtn bike racing.
Race report from the original SBC newsletter:
(Click article for full size image)
This was also Max Jones first ever mtb race. He went on to become a mountain bike pro, two time National Champion, 3rd at the World Cup Finals in ‘89 and was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame! Max currently runs the mountain bike and XC ski concession at Spooner Lake (at the bottom of the Flume Trail, Lake Tahoe). MtnBikeHallOfFame.com in Crested Butte, Colorado.
In the photo Steve is wearing a white “Skid Lid” helmet and Max is wearing a leather “hair net”! Neither helmet would even get close to getting a modern CPSC sticker. Bayard has on a Bell helmet that probably had the same level of protection as today’s helmets.
1. Leather helmet “hairnet” 2. The Skidlid
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The Bikes:
Back in the day, there was only one kind of mountain bike. They were all fully rigid, cromoly steel hardtails and looked pretty much the same.
Steve and Max are racing 1983 Trek 850 mountain bikes. This was Trek’s first mountain bike and it was cool for the price in ‘83.
Notice that the seat post had a quick release under the saddle to slide the saddle fore and aft. Everyone quickly figured out that this wasn’t an important feature for a mountain bike and it faded into the annuals of mtb history.
Photos from First Flight Bikes.
Steve snapped the top tube on his 850 bomb’n down Keystone Canyon later that year (1984). He replaced the 850 with an awesome, handmade Ritchey Timber Wolf that is still running!
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Bayard’s bike was a super trick, camo Mountain Goat. Photos of the same model are here: FirstFlightBikes.com/Mountain_Goat
May 3, 2007 at 3:33 am |
Hey Steve it must have been hard racing back then with no shocks, wooden wheels and being chased by the saber toothed jackalopes.
May 3, 2007 at 7:28 am |
Yes shocks were invented just in time – the rigid bikes and wooden wheels almost shook my fillings loose. Being chased by the saber tooths used to make us faster …. I haven’t seen a saber tooth in quite a while.
May 3, 2007 at 8:00 am |
[...] 1st ever MTB Race in RENO!!! [...]
May 3, 2007 at 11:05 am |
WoW those are such cool bikes .I taught Max Jones how to jump at the BMX track one day in the early 90’s he was an awesome guy ,Shawn O’Meara will remember MAx also I think he worked for him at Spooner .Thanks for the trip down memory lane..
May 6, 2007 at 5:56 am |
Thats is really cool.
June 24, 2007 at 8:09 am |
Hi there.
I just stumbled on your page about “Reno’s First Mountain Bike Race” ( 5-20-84 ).
I don’t know what is scarier, that it was 23 years ago or that I have absolutely NO recollection of the event, despite the fact that
I put it on
I am in the picture
I wrote the report
I printed and mailed the newsletters!
Man, where can I get drugs like we had in the old days?????
Anyway, Bayard Webb is a bigwig with IGT (as of last year anyway) Max I guess is still around but I haven’t seen him. I’m here. Steve Cleek, Chris Mahannah ditto. Don’t know Robert Stewart.
Sadly, Peter Fisher, mentioned in the report, passed away suddenly in 1992. He was a good friend and I miss him still. That’s his VW bus in the picture.
One minor point of Order. The Reno Wheelmen were reactivated in the very early 70’s by (among a few others) William Savage and his sister Julie, Roland Della Santa, and I believe Dave McKinstry- a physics Ph.D candidate at UNR at the time. I did not come along until 1966, I still see the Savages semi-regularly and of course DS hides out in his shop, holding hostage anyone who stumbles by.
Lucinya Toestraps and Patty Fattire got married in a civil ceremony in Massachusetts.
But my point was the SBC was not the antecedent of the RW, rather than an effort by Larry Glickfeld who lived in Incline Village, to get some citizen level road racing going. The RW in the late 70’s/early 80’s was rather restricted to a handful of guys who considered themselves “real racers” and while they did go to a few races, the only event they put on was a Thursday evening ten mile TT that started from the Synagog on Lakeside and over Windy Hill to S. Virginia and back.
In it’s heyday, the SBC held road races and crits and with more people racing than do now, tho the local population is at least double.
Altho, we know how that s*** goes.
Yours in nostalgia, if not historical accuracy.
Ciao
Richard Bulis/ Riccardo Bulissimo
July 2, 2007 at 6:30 pm |
Whoops, here I go trying to correct the historical record and I F**** it up myself.
The Reno Wheelmen were “re-organized” in the early ’60’s ( not the 70’s as I wrote previously). I joined in 1968, when “to join” was to simply say you were a member.
I also neglected to mention Jim Pirtle, who was a major influence in the RW back then and taught me alot in the late 60’s. Sadly, he kinda “lost it” and the last time I saw him he was living out of his car and working odd jobs.
I also failed to give a nod to Ken Jones who was old when I met him in the late 60’s and he is still around! (he hangs out at Rolands a bit). Ken also taught newbies how to ride back then, before fat tires and one had to GLUE one’s tires to the rim.
Thanks,
RB
PS, if you would like an “old greybeard” story about the very first Mountain Bike “Ride” in Reno, I’ll be happy to tell you more. It involved 6 of us, in 1980 or 1981. Also, at that time, we had funky races held up past the lake park off Keystone where there are now houses. We also did 2X head-to-head races on the Steamboat ditch trail. Many a rider ended up in the water. The hiker/joggers were always blown away by our off-road bikes of the day. I still have my original Stumpjumper I rode back then. Drop me a line, I’ll yak more.