Joe Breeze

He hoped to promote cycling by restoring and displaying examples from the 1890s, the high point of bicycle technology.

Vendetti had a few years earlier ridden similar 1930s-40s “paper boy” bikes on Tamalpais at the periphery of the mountain's seminal group of off-road riders, the Larkspur Canyon Gang.

Encouraged by Vendetti, Breeze bought the old fat-tire bike for $5, stripped off its extraneous parts and rode it down Mount Tamalpais.

He loved it.

Breeze, Vendetti and Velo Club Tamalpais teammate Otis Guy were soon riding Mount Tamalpais trails together regularly.

They and other teammates including Gary Fisher, and other enthusiasts from Marin located old fat-tire “ballooner” bikes of many makes, used them off-road and settled on Schwinns built between 1937 and 1944 as the best.

They would remove extraneous parts from the bikes, strip them down to their original paint and ride them on Marin's rugged fire roads and trails.

Some, including Gary Fisher, added parts such as gears and derailleurs to their ballooners.

Joe Breeze (born 1953) is an American bicycle framebuilder, designer and advocate from Marin County, California.

An early participant in the sport of mountain biking, Breeze, along with other pioneers including Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, and Tom Ritchey, is known for his central role in developing the mountain bike.

Breeze is credited with designing and building the first all-new mountain bikes, which riders colloquially called Breezers.

Breeze had taken up cycling seriously as a teenager in the late 1960s, sometimes going on rides of a few hundred miles.

He so enjoyed cycling and saw such value in the bicycle as a vehicle, he wanted to spread the word.

Breeze, a road bike racer through the 1970s, was among the fastest downhill racers at Repack, mountain biking's seminal race held west of Fairfax, California.

In 1970 he took up road-bike racing, figuring that publicity about races could show people how fast and far a bicycle could go.

Breeze also studied bicycle history and while traveling for races he searched for early bicycles.

Joe Breeze raced road bikes throughout the 1970s, eventually racing in the top category.

By 1972 Breeze was also competing in cyclocross races and often rode on the trails of Mount Tamalpais.

In 1973, he and Velo Club Tamalpais teammate Marc Vendetti were looking for fine early bikes and found a less elegant relic: a 1941 Schwinn-built balloon-tire bike.

In 1974 Joe Breeze took a course in the art of bicycle framebuilding from Albert Eisentraut in Oakland, California, and began to build his own custom-tailored road racing frames, using his father's machine shop at their home in Mill Valley.

He also studied Machine and Metals Technology at College of Marin from 1974 to 1976.

He won 10 of the 24 Repack races, which took place between 1976 and 1984.

In 1976 Breeze began to compete in Repack races.

A downhill time trial on fire roads in the hills west of Fairfax, California, Repack brought together riders from around Mount Tamalpais who stripped down older bikes for off-road use and fitted rugged parts to them.

Repack served as a testing ground for off-road bikes.

The heavy old fat-tire bike frames, made of mild steel, were not standing up to the rigors of mountain biking.

He built the prototype, known as Breezer #1, in 1977 and completed nine more Series I Breezers by early 1978.

Breezer #1 is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Breeze was asked by Charlie Kelly to build a mountain bike frame and in early 1977 Breeze agreed to do so.

While working on the design for the mountain bike, Breeze took orders to make mountain bikes for several other Marin County off-road cycling enthusiasts.

Breeze developed mountain bike and road-racing bike designs through the 1980s and most of the 1990s, then focused his efforts on advocacy for bicycle transportation.

Breeze is a charter member of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame; he was inducted in 1988.

In the early 2000s he devoted his Breezer brand entirely to transportation, introducing in 2002 a line of bikes for everyday use, equipping them for local trips, errands in town and commuting.

In 2008, Breeze sold the Breezer brand to Advanced Sports International and since then has worked for the company as Breezer frame designer, designing transportation bikes, road bikes and mountain bikes under the Breezer name.

Breeze grew up in Mill Valley, California, at the foot of Mount Tamalpais, just north of San Francisco.

He graduated from Tamalpais High School, which at the time had extensive technical training facilities.

He studied architectural and engineering drafting there for four years.

His father, Bill Breeze, was a machinist and owner of the Sports Car Center in Sausalito, California.

An avid cyclist at a time when cycling was not a common activity for adults in the US, Bill Breeze sometimes commuted to work by bicycle, and he shared with his son an appreciation for efficient, lightweight vehicles and for the bicycle as king of such vehicles.

The two often discussed the properties of metals and technical aspects of bicycle design.