He was the toughest guy on the bike scene; and a wimp. In 1985 Doug Bradbury (54, as of 2006)) founded the fork manufacturer Manitou and took the bike circus by storm.
He coughed and spat. His lower jaw had shovelled an extra portion of dirt down his throat again, right on his doorstep in Manitou near Colorado Springs. Was he just not a better biker, was he too old at 34 or was it perhaps the stubborn mountain bike? Douglas Bradbury, the hippie guru of the bike, had at least had enough of crashing for today. His body was already only holding itself up with plenty of scrap metal and his dentures wobbled suspiciously with every bite. Decades of motocross sport had left their very own marks on Doug. He didn't want any more screws and steel plates holding his body together. He had to choose between his life and his bike. He decided in favour of both and made a compromise. Douglas Bradbury wanted to build mountain bikes that anyone could safely plough the trails on - even him. In 1985, he founded his own bike forge in his home town of Manitou, which later became the suspension fork giant Manitou.
When Bradbury is on his bike, the trail becomes a theatre of war. He is the toughest of all bikers and is always on a campaign to push the perfection of his bikes. No other star of the bike scene has had more crashes, more steel in his body. Before his biking career, the Manitou founder was a passionate motocross rider who tortured his body in races. Bradbury first came into contact with mountain bikes in 1982. On a motorbike tour, he saw a couple of "idiots" on bikes dragging themselves up the mountain. But shortly afterwards his curiosity got the better of him and he swapped his cross bike for a two-stroke. Doug was infected and rode just as mercilessly as in his motocross days. However, the heavy steel frame on which he laboured was a thorn in Bradbury's side.
"There must be another way!" he thought and started building frames himself. Not flabby aluminium rods, but light metal beasts as thick as a stovepipe. The wheels were bursting with ideas. He tuned the rear triangle width (145 millimetres) and the installation dimension on the fork (115 millimetres) to cross-like dimensions. Of course, there were no suitable hubs available, so Doug simply built them himself. Another unusual feature was the rear triangle offset 15 millimetres to the right - for flatter spokes on the sprocket side - and the 90 millimetre wide bottom bracket. Bradbury had found his new battleground, even if it meant scraping along the poverty line for the first few years.
Big business came to Manitou with the suspension fork. Doug always knew that a suspension fork had to be fitted to the bike. For him, it was a logical consequence, because what worked on the bike had to work on the bike. When Rock Shox gave the go-ahead, Doug locked himself in his garage. He was determined to design one just like it. After a week, the fork was born. Not with the problems of an oil-soaking "Rock Shox 1", but with smacking rubber dampers. The first Manitou suspension fork (35 millimetre travel) quickly found new fans. John Parker from Yeti ordered the "damping revolution" for his riders John Tomac and Julie Furtado. The 1990 World Championships in Durango thus became the acid test and Manitou's most important and cheapest advertising campaign. Furtado won with the rubber fork, Tomac still finished sixth after a flat tyre. Doug became the uncrowned king of suspension forks overnight. All of a sudden, people were running him ragged. He spent months in his workshop and produced 1400 forks, which he sold in one go. After this mammoth task, he could no longer see "the things" and sold the patents to the Answer company.
Nevertheless, Bradbury has not left the bike business. Today, he designs frames for Tomac's mountain bike company. However, the old warrior has not yet calmed down and a few bones have already been broken again, as he still lives by the motto: "The best rides are the ones where you bite off more than you can chew - and survive."
(Text: Björn Scheele)
