(Still from CBS Evening Magazine)
Thanks to the wonders of Twitter, I just finished watching one of the most satisfying bike video clips I have ever seen.
Uploaded last month by YouTube user frenchjr25 (a self-described “TV history fanatic”), the segment — which was created to be aired on CBS Evening Magazine — recounts the sport of “Klunking” in Marin County, California and the famous “Repack” downhill races from the late 1970s. I’ve seen photos and read books of these exploits for years, but to see video footage and to hear interviews from the likes of Charlie Kelley and Gary Fisher from this long ago was a real treat.
Fisher, who these days is a fashionable advocate who jet-sets the globe riding and watching over this Trek/Gary Fisher Collection bike line, is filmed wearing a flannel and a beanie. I was stunned at Fisher’s prescient quote at about the 3:40 mark in the segment. When asked by the reporter when he and friends started customizing their cruiser bikes, adding gears, and making them into downhill, cross-country capable mountain bikes, he replied:
“About 5 years ago… And it’s come a long way since then, and it’s going to go a long ways.”
Um, yeah. I’ll say.
Other highlights for me included the “I’d rather be KLUNKING” t-shirt and this line by the reporter:
“It’s important to note that klunkers are not designed only for downhill racers. In fact some riders say that the most enjoyable form of klunking is cross-country riding. They even have a saying that goes, ‘klunking is best away from the cops, the cars, and the concrete’.”
Check out the video for more great quotes and bikes from people whose simple love of riding bikes in the dirt sparked a global bicycling phenomenon…
[Taken from YouTube upload page: Segments from the original Evening Magazine are brought to you courtesy the School of Multimedia Communications archive at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and Jan Yanehiro. These video pieces are under the ownership and copyright of CBS Television.]