CURRENT MISSION

Currently on 'bikeabout' traveling in Europe by bike. Writing a book about the history of the mountain bike.

ABOUT ME

James McLean was born at the height of the ‘baby boom’ (1957) in a small village on an island on the east coast (Greenwich Village, Manhattan Island, New York). He was raised in Westchester County, New York with his eight younger siblings. In 1968 he won a 3 speed English racer by selling greeting cards door to door that he modified to ride on local trails. He rode balloon tire bikes in the woods of Maine during summer vacations. In 1971 he bought a ten-speed and began exploring suburban Westchester and the back roads of western Maine. In 1974 he entered his first amateur race and continued road racing around the northeast through 1977.
James moved to Santa Barbara, California in December 1977, where he met a local who went by the name of Wing Bamboo. Wing showed him his modified 'klunker' balloon tire bike that he referred spiritually to as his ‘mountain bike’. After riding the bike McLean thought it was too heavy to pedal up the mountains of Santa Barbara so he decided to build a lightweight version of Wing's bike. The definition of a 'mountain bike' he thought, would be a purpose built multi geared balloon tire bicycle with an steel alloy frame that was light enough to pedal off-road up a mountain but strong enough to descend without breaking. He tried to convince local frame builder Greg Diamond to build him an off-road frame based on this idea but he declined. James enrolled in a class at the local city college to learn how to weld himself. After reading an article about Marin county based frame builder Joe Breeze building a bike similar to what he envisioned McLean decided he would rather have an experienced builder make him a frame.
That summer of 1978 James visited Marin county where he met Charles Kelly on his original ‘Breezer’ off-road bike that he called a ‘klunker’. Unable to meet Breeze, he bought a bare proto-type frame from Don Koski at the Cove Bike Shop in Tiburon for $100. Don had designed the frame and had them built in Oakland by Terry Knight. It was the first frame that the shop sold. The 'Koski-Knight' frame that he bought later became the 'Pro Cruiser' bike.
In the fall of 1978 McLean built his ‘mountain bike’ with Koski's frame and a Cook Brothers fork with help from frame builder Chris Pauley and machinist Chris King who shared the bike shop where he worked in Santa Barbara. He baptized the bike 'mountain bike' with his water bottle before taking the bike on it's first test ride. McLean, Pauley and King discussed starting a company that winter that they would name ‘Mountain Bikes’. They started 'Cielo Cycles' instead named after local mountain top road Camino Cielo. In April of 1979 McLean met Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Otis Guy and Greg LeMond when they visited Santa Barbara. He showed them his bike and spoke of their plans to build and sell mountain bikes worldwide. At the end of that year Fisher and Kelly started a company named ‘Mountain Bikes’ selling bikes built with frames built by Tom Ritchey in Palo Alto.
In early 1980 James placed 6th in Victor Vincente’s ‘Reseda to the Sea Challenge’. After finishing second to nemesis Fisher in the ‘Central Coast Clunker Classic’ that June he decided to trade his bike for a lighter Ritchey built frame. He won the 35-mile ‘Sespe Hot Springs Stage Race’ the next month by nearly an hour. McLean edged out Vicente and Fisher later that year winning the ‘Southern California King of the Dirt’ title in the first year of off-road bicycle racing.
James began his road rep career that summer of 1980 and set out to sell mountain biking to California’s bicycle shops. He visited more than eight hundred bike dealers showing them his bike hoping that they would embrace the new concept of off-road cycling. Most dealers told him that mountain bikes were BMX bikes for adults and they would never sell. In late 1981 he convinced Univega Bicycles owner Ben Lawee to produce a mountain bike that McLean designed and named the ‘Alpina Sport’. The model was introduced in early 1982 and became the first factory produced mountain bike outselling all other off-road bicycles in the U.S. that year. He joined Specialized Bicycles summer of 1982 and that fall organized and promoted the ‘Rockhopper for Lungs’ off-road race in Sonoma county. The race became the largest event of the sport for the next four years. James allowed Specialized to use the name 'Rockhopper' for it’s new model in 1984. In 1983 he helped Glenn Odell put on the first NORBA championship in Santa Barbara. In 1986 James conceived off-road technical support which Specialized initiated later that year.
McLean became the promoter of the ten event ‘Colorado Off Road Series’ in 1989. In 1990 the series included the first unified World Mountain Bike Championship in Durango, Colorado. The prize list of over $230,000 (’90) remains the largest in the sports history. In 1993 James conceived and sold the ‘Fat Tire Journal’ television show to the cycling trade. The Journal won Velo News’s ‘Video of the Year’ as America’s first off-road cycling feature the following year. James can be seen in the documentary film 'Klunkerz' (2006).
James McLean now resides in Berkeley, Ca.
E-mail him at bikehyp@yahoo.com

PHILOSOPHY

No matter where you go, there you are!

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

None yet.

Interests

Cycling, travel, music, skiing.

• writing
• books
• documentaries
• cooking
• modeling
• off-roading
• shopping
• reading
• traveling
• music
• cycling
• fishing
• skiing
• sports
• history
• mountains

Countries I’ve Visited

Barbados, Belgium, Canada, China, England, France, Germany, Jamaica, Netherlands, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Scotland, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, United States

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States