Joe Breeze is one of the central figures in the development of mountain biking. He is perhaps best known as builder of the first successful modern mountain bikes. His Breezers were the first all-new bikes built with rugged frames specifically for what would only later be called "mountain biking." Breeze became a leading designer and proponent of a sport that has gotten more people on bikes in the western world than at any time since the 1890s. Breeze attributes his successes with mountain biking to his passion for bicycling, which is evident in his oft-quoted line, "We were just havin’ fun."

Born in 1953 and raised just north of San Francisco in Marin County, California, Joe had been introduced to bicycling by his father whose love was lightweight, efficient vehicles. Throughout the 1950s, father Bill Breeze would often ride his road-racing bike from their home in Mill Valley to work at his "Sports Car Center" in nearby Sausalito. Joe learned from an early age how useful these kings of lightweight efficient vehicles were for exploring his environs, being healthy, and to just get places he needed to go. Yet in the America, this kind of bicycling seemed like a well-kept secret, being seen in the 1960s as just a kid’s sidewalk toy.

It’s only natural that when we find something enjoyable, we want to share it with others, and so Breeze set about to turn others on to bicycling. He and his friends were soon riding beyond town, and at the age of 14, he and his brother Richard rode to Lake Tahoe, some 200 miles distant. To Breeze, road racing seemed like another way to advertise how far and fast a bicycle could go, so in 1970 he took up road racing. After all, a squib in the local paper could broadcast bicycling’s benefits to a much wider audience. Joe raced road bikes from 1970 through 1979, eventually at the top level.

One avenue he thought of along the way was to restore and display old bikes from bicycling’s golden era--the 1890s--to inspire people about this marvel of mobility. One day in 1973, while scrounging through some old bike shops in Santa Cruz, the best old bike Joe could find was a forlorn 1941 Schwinn-built ballooner, a fat-tire paperboy bike. On a lark and with encouragement from his friend Marc Vendetti, Joe paid $5 for it, scraped the frame down to the original "featherhead" paint job, and rode it down Mt. Tamalpais’ Railroad Grade. It was a blast! Joe showed up to Velo Club Tamalpais meetings aboard his fatty, and friends followed suit. Soon, Gary Fisher sported a Shelby Traveler, and Otis Guy, a 1947 Schwinn. More were to come and many rides on Tam ensued.

By 1974, Joe was building road-racing frames. He was also still having fun on Marin County’s dirt roads and trails with friends and fellow road racers, on old Schwinns and other balloon-tire clunkers. But those old frames weren’t built for such abuse. They were not only heavy, they were breaking. Fellow racer/rider Charlie Kelly asked Joe to build him a frame for mountain biking, and Joe agreed.

As Joe worked on the design and fabrication of his prototype in 1977, he took orders for eight more. Those 10 bikes, called Breezers, are considered the first successful modern mountain bikes. He welded the frames using cro-moly steel aircraft tubing, and built up the bikes with all-brand-new parts. He finished Breezer #1 in September 1977 (and rode it to victory at Repack, its maiden voyage). He completed Breezers #2 through #10 by Spring 1978. For the next few years, while still focused on road racing, Joe continued to refine and share his design ideas, helping shape the next generations of mountain bikes. While building more Breezer mountain bikes in the early 1980s, he taught frame building to several friends, including Steve Potts, Scot Nicol (Ibis), and Otis Guy.

As a machinist, Joe Breeze worked on many component innovations. Among them were the Unicrown fork design and his patented Breeze & Angell Hite Rite seat adjuster, which was one of the new sport’s first accessories. In 1983, he helped found the National Off-Road Bicycle Association (NORBA) to promote mountain bike racing and trail access. He even drew up the NORBA logo, which was used, untouched, for over 15 years. Always focused on progress in bike and component design, Joe insisted that NORBA adopt a racing self-sufficiency rule. His intent was to ensure that mountain bike companies develop vehicles upon which any rider in the wilds could depend, and which would subsequently develop better bikes for all.

Of Marin County’s seminal Repack races, Joe Breeze won 10 of the 24 races held between 1976 and 1984. His 1977 Breezer #1 is on permanent display at the Oakland Museum, in the Cowell Hall of California History. Breezer #2, built for Charlie Kelly, is in the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame collection at Crested Butte, Colorado, and so is Joe’s beloved 1937 Schwinn Excelsior. Another first-10 Breezer is at the Shimano Museum in Osaka, Japan.

Joe has researched the roles of many players in early mountain bike history. He championed the MBHOF inductions of Ignaz & Frank Schwinn, the Cupertino Riders, and the French VCCP riders. In 1999, Joe helped spearhead a movement to acknowledge European contributions to the sport of mountain biking. That mountain biking became so popular in a land where people already understood bikes was a great surprise to Joe. That October, he went to Finale Ligura, Italy, to help set up the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame collection and oversee the overdue inductions of some of the sports leading players.

Breeze designed and produced his Breezer mountain and road bikes throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Today, Breeze continues to advocate the wider use of bicycles for recreation and transportation. His new line of fully equipped Breezer bikes is dedicated to bringing fun and fitness into the daily lives of North Americans. See http://www.breezerbikes.com