MTB Pioneer Wende Cragg on the Early Days of Trail Riding
Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast
Singletracks.com
4.7 • 574 Ratings
🗓️ 2 May 2023
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We're re-sharing one of our favorite episodes from 2022, so be sure to listen in case you missed it! Check back soon for more fresh episodes.
Wende Cragg has been a part of mountain biking since the beginning of the sport in California in the 1970s, racing and photographing the early Repack races down Mt. Tam. She was inducted into the mountain bike hall of fame in 1989 and curates the Rolling Dinosaur Archive which chronicles the birth of mountain biking.
- Tell us a bit about your introduction to mountain biking. Was it love at first ride?
- Which aspects of riding a bicycle off road were most appealing to you? How would you describe the feeling of those first rides?
- What was your motivation for taking photographs in the early days of mountain biking?
- What was it like connecting with riders in Crested Butte who were sorta discovering mountain biking in parallel with you and your friends in the Bay Area?How was their idea of mountain biking different from the one being developed in California?
- Were you surprised to see mountain bikers banned from riding on Mt. Tam in the early 80s? How did you react?
- Did you get frustrated with the early bikes? Do you think today’s mountain bikes make the sport more appealing or accessible? How do electric mountain bikes fit in?
- What do you hope people get out of seeing and experiencing the Rolling Dinosaur Archive?
- With so many styles of riding within mountain biking today, which interpretation do you think gets closest to that original ethos?
Photo: Rolling Dinosaur Archive
The Singletracks podcast is brought to you by TPC -- The Pro’s Closet. Spring is the perfect time to upgrade, and TPC has an industry-leading selection of new and Certified Pre-Owned bikes, plus frames, wheels and accessories. Each Certified, Pre-Owned bike is inspected, tested and serviced, and every bike includes thirty day returns. Visit tpc.bike/singletracks and enter code Singletracks40 to save forty dollars on every order over two hundred.
Search the Singletracks podcast archive for interviews with more mountain bike pioneers including Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, and Tom Ritchey.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Single Tracks podcast is brought to you by TPC, the Proz Closet. |
| 0:04.7 | Spring is the perfect time to upgrade, and TPC has an industry-leading selection of new and certified pre-owned bikes, plus frames, wheels, and accessories. |
| 0:14.8 | Each certified pre-owned bike is inspected, tested, and serviced, and every bike includes 30-day returns. |
| 0:21.7 | Visit tPC.bike forward slash single tracks and enter code single tracks 40 to save $40 |
| 0:28.0 | on every order over 200. |
| 0:30.6 | That's the pros closet at tpc.bike slash single tracks and look for the link and coupon code |
| 0:37.4 | in the show notes. Hey everybody, welcome to the single tracks and look for the link and coupon code in the show notes. |
| 0:39.0 | Hey everybody, welcome to the single tracks podcast. My name is Jeff and today my guest is |
| 0:44.8 | Wendy Craig. Wendy has been part of mountain biking since the beginning of the sport in California |
| 0:51.2 | in the 1970s, racing and photographing the early repack races down Mount Tam. |
| 0:57.5 | She was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1989 and curates the Rolling Dinosaur |
| 1:04.1 | Archive, which chronicles the birth of mountain biking. |
| 1:07.8 | Thanks for joining me, Wendy. |
| 1:10.0 | Oh, I'm honored to be here. Thank you so much for |
| 1:12.6 | inviting me. Well, tell us a bit about your introduction to mountain biking. Was it Love at first |
| 1:18.2 | ride when you went out? Quite the contrary. I was coaxed unwillingly into mountain biking, |
| 1:26.5 | and it wasn't even called mountain biking then it was called |
| 1:29.3 | clonking so that kind of gives you an idea of our primitive machines my first bike weighed my first bike weighed |
| 1:36.8 | 56 pounds it had five gears oh my goodness drum brakes it was state of the art for what it was and my first ride was not the most |
| 1:48.8 | pleasant in the world it was on the it was in the middle of a hot august afternoon and the first |
| 1:56.3 | section was a single track that was so scary i tried to ride, and I was just terrified that I was going to fall off. |
| 2:03.7 | The second half of the ride was on a fire road that was just like being on a boiler pan. |
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