Charles Richard Kelly (born 1945) was an early pioneer in the development of modern mountain bicycles.

Life

Kelly attended

Tamalpais High School Tamalpais High School (often abbreviated as Tam) is a public secondary school located in Mill Valley, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is named after nearby Mount Tamalpais, which rises almost above Mill Valley. Tamalpais High Scho ...

Mill Valley, California Mill Valley is a city in Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States, located about north of San Francisco via the Golden Gate Bridge and from Napa Valley. The population was 14,231 at the 2020 United States Census, 2020 ...

, at the foot of

Mount Tamalpais Mount Tamalpais (; ; Miwok: ''Támal Pájiṣ''), known locally as Mount Tam, is a peak in Marin County, California, United States, often considered symbolic of Marin County. Much of Mount Tamalpais is protected within public lands such as Moun ...

. During the late sixties and early seventies Kelly was a roadie for a San Francisco rock band, The

Sons of Champlin The Sons of Champlin are an American rock band, from Marin County, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, formed in 1965. They are fronted by vocalist-keyboardist-guitarist Bill Champlin, who later joined rock band Chicago, from 1981 to 20 ...

. When the band broke up in 1977, Kelly turned his attention to his passion for bicycling and "klunker" bikes he and his friends were constructing from old frames and taking off-road. *In 1972 Kelly was a founding member and later president of Velo-Club Tamalpais, a bicycle club whose membership included most of the early Marin County mountain bike pioneers. *In 1976 he started promoting the Repack downhill race, the first great

mountain bike A mountain bike (MTB) or mountain bicycle is a bicycle designed for off-road cycling. Mountain bikes share some similarities with other bicycles, but incorporate features designed to enhance durability and performance in rough terrain, which ...

event. In connection with his downhill racing efforts, he commissioned custom off-road bicycle frames from builders Craig Mitchell and

Joe Breeze Joe Breeze (born 1953) is an American bicycle framebuilder, designer and advocate from Marin County, California. An early participant in the sport of mountain biking, Breeze, along with other pioneers including Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, and Tom ...

. These were among the first "mountain bikes" ever built. *In 1979 Kelly joined his former roommate

Gary Fisher Gary Christopher Fisher (born November 5, 1950) is considered one of the inventors of the modern mountain bike. Fisher started competing in road and track races at age 12. He was suspended in 1968 because race organizers cited a rule that his ...

and framebuilder

Tom Ritchey Tom Ritchey (born 1956) is an American bicycle frame builder, Category 1 racer, fabricator, designer, and founder of Ritchey Design. Ritchey is a US pioneer in modern frame building and the first production mountain bike builder/manufacturer i ...

in a business venture called "MountainBikes

the first place in the world people could buy a complete mountain bicycle, rather than putting it together themselves (Not to be confused with Specialized, who in 1981 sold the first PRODUCTION mountain bike, that could be bought in a bike shop and rolled away that same day). In 1982 Kelly sold his interest in the company to Fisher, who renamed it Fisher Mountain Bikes. *Also in 1979, Kelly began contributing articles to bicycle publications on the new and growing sport of mountain biking. *In 1980 Kelly and Denise Caramagno started the first mountain bike magazine: The Fat Tire Flyer. Until 1986 this was the only publication for mountain bikers. *In 1983 Kelly participated in the founding of the

National Off-Road Bicycle Association USA Cycling or USAC, based in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the national governing body for bicycle racing in the United States. It covers the disciplines of road, track, mountain bike, cyclo-cross, and BMX across all ages and ability levels. ...

, the first sanctioning body for mountain bike racing, and in collaboration with Tom Hillard, wrote the first set of rules for off-road bicycle racing. *Kelly is the author of a definitive history of the sport of mountain biking
Fat Tire Flyer: Repack and the Birth of Mountain Biking
He was inducted into the

Mountain Bike Hall of Fame The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame (MBHOF) was founded in 1988 to chronicle the history of mountain biking. Formerly located in Crested Butte, Colorado, it relocated to Fairfax, California in 2014 and became part of the Marin Museum of Bicycling. S ...

in 1988

Notes

Film

* Charlie Kelly appears in Full Cycle: A World Odyssey an around-the-world two-hour mountain-bike travel documentary produced by New & Unique Videos of San Diego in 1994. * Charlie Kelly was profiled in the 2007 documentary film Klunkerz: A Film About Mountain Bikes.

External links

Charlie Kelly's Home Page

Charlie's Page on the MTB Hall of Fame

Fat Tire Flyer, a book about the first mountain bikes by Charlie Kelly

Charlie Kelly's VeloPress profile

Charlie Kelly's Facebook page for Fat Tire Flyer
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kelly, Charlie 1945 births Mountain bike innovators Cycle designers Cycling writers Living people Tamalpais High School alumni

Life

See also

Notes

Film

External links