First Flight Vintage Bike Museum

R. Cunningham

First Flight Bicycles in Statesville, North Carolina, houses the largest collection of vintage mountain bikes in North America. The modest two-story brick building lies in the restored downtown section, in the heart of NASCAR racing country, and about an hour's drive from Kittyhawk, where the Wright Brothers traded their bicycle business for wings.

In addition to operating a busy retail business, shop owner Jeff Archer has been collecting road and mountain bikes for decades, and not just bicycles. Cataloged and boxed throughout the store are caches of every component imaginable and from every era that marks the development of the mountain bikes we ride today. Original Suntour thumb-shifters? "Got 'em." Purple RinglŽ waterbottle cages? "Check." Tioga tensioned disc wheels? "How many do you need?" First Flight even has every copy of every U.S. mountain bike magazine, and a library of brochures and catalogs, many from brands that have long passed into the history books.

Only thirty odd years have passed since the first mountain bikes sprang up from the bones of beach cruisers and British three-speeds (hardly a page in the history of the bicycle), but there has never been a chapter in the book that bears witness to such extraordinary innovation and change as the one that we are still writing. First Flight's dusty hallways and crowded racks trace the meteoric development of the mountain bike from Marin to mass-production. Join MBA for a pictorial walk back in time.

Humble Fade: First Flight Bikes looks like any other downtown bike store from the outside, but inside, there are hundreds of vintage bicycles and components on display. You can buy new ones there too.

One of the granddadies: Joe Breeze is accredited with making the first purpose-built mountain bike in the mid 1970s. The first Breezers had twin lateral tubes running down the sides of the frame like early tandems. This second-generation Breezer (circa 1979/1980) broke away from the cruiser look and set the pattern for generations of mountain bikes to come. Joe's head badges are collector's items by themselves.

The birth of BMX: First Flight archives brochures, catalogs and magazines in addition to bicycles. Who knew that the Schwinn Stingray would spawn freestyle dirt jumping?

Light-and flexible: If you wanted low gears, the only option in the '70s and early '80s was the French-made TA crankset. By fussing with screws and spacers, it could be configured with triple or double chainrings.

And they almost stopped: French-made Mafac cantilever brakes were originally made to stop touring tandems. One end of the pad holders was open, so if a rider installed the holders in the wrong direction, the pads would shoot out the first time he slammed on the brakes. "Snake Belly" tires were the fastest rolling knobbies of the day.

Bullseye crankset: Here's the one that everyone has copied today, Roger Durham welded a tubular bottom bracket axle to the right-side arm and clamped the left arm to a spline on the opposite end of the axle. Sound familiar? It was revolutionary in the '80s.

Suntour thumb-shifter: Made for city-bikes, Suntour's ratcheting thumb-shifter was the essential component of all early mountain bikes. They were actually out of production, so early builders had to scrounge old bike shops and wholesale warehouses for them.

Limited options: Suntour made the most reliable long-cage rear derailleur. Freewheels had six cogs and the lowest gearing available was 28 teeth-like the one pictured here.

Truly hand made: Tom Ritchey's early frames were absolutely beautiful as attested by the combination of lugwork and fillet-brazing at the seat tube junction. His road-bike background influenced his construction methods.

Me-too marketing: At some point, everyone believed that they could make a better derailleur than Shimano. Most of the ones behind the glass case proved to be losers.

The suspension era: Gary Fisher teamed up with Mert Lawwill in 1993 and produced some of the first dual-suspension trailbikes. The Lawwill Link rear seemed inconsequential compared to the swooping profile of Fisher's wild trip into carbon fiber land. The lower section of the molded frame was cupped to hold a water bottle.

Grove Innovations: Grove was an East-Coast custom bike maker who may have built the first freeriding chassisÃ'along with its steel crankset and 150-millimeter, extra-wide rear hub. Its geometry was designed for technical trails circa 1991.

Blast from the past: Before Richard Cunningham wrote stories, he made a few bikes. "It was an honor to see one of my creations at First Flight." The 1989 Mantis Valkyrie marked the beginning of an exploratory period in mountain bike design.

Three predecessors: The earliest successful disc brake was the Mountain Cycle Pro-Stop (left), followed by Dia-Compe's clamp-on caliper (middle), and then RockShox got into the game with a licensed copy of AMP's design (right). All failed because they were a little too far ahead of fork, frame and hub makers.

Almost revolutionary: Grafton "Speed Trap" pedals were one of the first clipless pedals. They offered unprecedented mud clearance and a fifty-fifty chance that you could get your foot out when called upon.

Manitou before Manitou: Doug Bradbury crafted "Manitou" big-tube aluminum frames in Colorado and he also made a telescopic fork shortly after the first Rock Shox appeared. Here are two of the earliest examples from 1991. Answer Products bought the rights to the name, the frame and the fork.

Famous racer: Few early racers were as famous and flamboyant as John Tomac. His Signature Raleigh, with its titanium lugs, carbon fiber tubes and Tioga tensioned-disc wheel sold for $5000 in 1993 the most expensive mountain bike of its day.

Whoa, Nellie: the desire to be different and perhaps the fact that oil regularly spewed from telescopic forksÃ'spawned a lot of alternative linkage designs during the '90s.

A simpler time: The Brooks leather saddle that Joe Breeze installed on his original mountain bikes was the only rear suspension available in its dayÃ'actually, it rides pretty darn well too.

Did somebody say shock?: First Flight's barrel of spare shocks. There is a whole wall of them-each mounted in order of appearance-but we liked this shot better.