JO e BREEZE
HE STILL REMEMBERS EVERY TWIST AND TURN OF LOSING HIS REPACK VIRGINITY
Joe Breeze was one of the original ‘klunker crew’ and the man who built the custom chromoly-steel ‘ballooner’ bike that inspired Tom Ritchey [overleaf] to begin making 26in-wheeled off-road frames and set up Ritchey MountainBikes – the brand that gave the sport its name – with Charlie Kelly and Gary Fisher. Joe went on to found Breezer Bikes, only stepping back a few years ago, and is the curator at the Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. He still rides the hallowed trail where the sport was born, and remembers every twist and turn of losing his ‘Repack’ virginity.
“Charlie held my rear wheel, said ‘three, two, one’ and then I sprinted off over the initial brief rise and hit the downhill at speed, adrenal glands wide open, eyes locked into ‘the line’, my brain processing critical trajectory math. Business as usual [for an accomplished road racer], but with trail topography considerations!
Fortunately, I’d had months to sort out my beast of a bike – a 1941 Schwinn-built BF Goodrich with a Morrow coaster brake – and I managed to stay upright and win the nascent race in record time.”
Despite the Repack races (thus-named because riders’ coaster brakes got so hot they had to re-pack them with fresh grease after every run) starting out as pure, unadulterated
