No, there was no romance involved. Nor was there a Californian sunset or a campfire. The origins of the world's first series-produced mountain bike lie in the frenzy at the Munich Oktoberfest. There, in 1974, a certain Mike Sinyard, among others, battled with articulation and gravity. College was over. The bike trip through Europe was just the right thing to let off steam after the cramming. In a Bavarian pub of all places, Mike had the idea of earning his money with bike parts in future. A drinking session with consequences.
Back in America, Sinyard immediately sold his rickety VW bus. The 1500 dollar proceeds were the starting capital for his distribution company for Italian racing bike parts. Frame builder Tom Ritchey was one of Sinyard's first customers. "He told me about these new types of mountain bikes," recalls Sinyard, who immediately had Ritchey weld one for him. A fateful encounter: "The bike made me feel like a kid again," Sinyard still enthuses today. The problem back then was that bikes were only available - if at all - from a few small garage workshops, requiring advance payment and a lot of patience. "Things should be different," thought businessman Sinyard. The naive hippie flair of the scene worked in his favour. Back then, the frame welders thought of everything but patents.
In 1980, Sinyard was able to order 450 frames from a company in Japan under the name "Specialized" without any major development work. 450 units! An unprecedented quantity. The Stumpjumper cost just under 750 dollars - with French Mafac brakes, Suntour gears and TA cranks. The garage forges charged twice as much with a long waiting time. No wonder the first series was sold out within a few weeks. The door to the global bike scene had been opened, the seed had been planted. Mountain biking could grow from a freak sport to a sport. The Stumpjumper is probably the decisive milestone in the MTB success story, the first real step after the years of crawling attempts by bike pioneer Gary Fisher and his "Klunker" boys. Almost clairvoyantly, Sinyard advertised his Stumpjumper in 1982 with double-sided adverts: "This is not just a new bike, this is a new sport."
Technically, the bike was rather lousy. The Stumpjumper had a wheelbase that was far too long - two centimetres longer than today's bikes. Corners were a real pain, cross-country legend Ned Overend later recalled in an interview. And the way it was created was also hotly disputed. Tom Ritchey still sees the Stumpjumper as a copy of the frame he welded for Sinyard. Bike pioneer Joe Breeze claims that one of his design drawings served as a template, which ended up in Sinyard's hands via headset guru Chris King. Stroke of genius or plagiarism? Either way, the wave was unstoppable. Biking became a popular sport. The small niche became a booming world market. The sport became an Olympic discipline. To this day, Specialized continues to set trends with the Stumpjumper. In 1990, for example, the frame was the first and only one in the world to be assembled from carbon tubes and welded titanium sleeves. In the same year, Ned Overend raced to the world championship title with the noble Stumpjumper "Epic Ultimate". One season later, Specialized presented an initially limited edition Stumpjumper made from the aluminium alloy "M2". Until then, the material had only been used in aviation. The Stumpjumper later achieved world fame as the full-suspension "FSR" version.
Well over a year has passed since the birth of the first production bike. The pioneering days are over, but the Stumpjumper is here to stay. Mike Sinyard no longer has time for Oktoberfest visits. The Stumpjumper has turned his beer mood into a huge business. And it doesn't look as if a layer of dust is going to settle on the classic any time soon.
For BIKE 11/2016, we pitted the original Stumpjumper against the current model of the classic. You can read the full story in BIKE 11/16.
