History:

The historic mining town of Crested Butte lies at 9,000 feet, ringed by the imposing Elk Mountains. The town's Victorian storefronts cozy together today just like they did in the rowdy Old

West days, and guests have compared its laid back friendliness to Andy Griffith's Mayberry. But Crested Butte is no sleepy backwoods burg; its spirit is decided young, lively and adventurous.

Blame the potholes for starting the whole biking thing. When Crested Butte had no paved roads (the streets in Crested Butte were paved in the summer of 1983) the locals got tired of trashing their cars in the ruts just driving from home to the post office. Someone figured out that a good alternative, short of reverting back to horses, was to use old balloon-tire bikes that were rusting away in garages and trash heaps.

So a few enterprising souls including Steve Baker and Al Maunz dug the metal corpses out of bicycle graveyards and gave them a new life. Soon bikes became the accepted means of getting around town-and dodging potholes.

In 1976, bicycles carved a milestone in Crested Butte's history. That was the year the guys from the Grubstake Bar hopped on their one-speed clunkers and rode over the 12,705 ft. Pearl Pass to harass the town of Aspen, some 40 miles over the hill. This perilous expedition was in response to a gang of Aspen motorcyclists who frequently dropped down from the Pass to raise a fuss in Crested Butte and vanish into the sunset with the local ladies. CB wanted revenge and got it.

Since that year, bikes became a symbol of the town's honor, and the tradition has been kept alive with an annual trip over the pass every September. During the following years, Crested Butte hooked up with a faster crowd, some stump-jumping, boulder-hopping cyclists from Marin County, California, who had developed a peculiar machine with big tires, wide handlebars and plenty of gears. They called this thing the mountain bike.

When the Californians breezed into town with their new inventions, hoping to test them on Pearl Pass, it was love at first sprocket. The CB crowd had never seen such elaborate bikes. To put it mildly, Crested Butte went head over wheels and the place has not been the same since.

In 1980 a couple local riders bolted away from the group with the California hot rods, and began racing up the first leg of the tour to base camp. In the summer of 1981, those local riders, the Cook Brothers, decided to have a race the day before the tour to provide an outlet for the competitive urge, and the Paradise Divide Fat Tire Stage Race (first-ever mountain bike stage race) was started. It was dubbed that because the cross-country race route went over the 11,372 foot Paradise Divide. The cross-country stage included a timed uphill and downhill competition within the stage and the race also had a criterium on the unpaved streets of Crested Butte. That same year the tour expanded into a full blown festival and Fat Tire Bike Week, the oldest mountain biking festival in the world, was born. Eventually, organizers moved Fat Tire Bike Week into early July (peak wildflower season) then into late June where it remains today. The Pearl Pass Tour remains in September, where the possibility of snow flurries is almost guaranteed.

The Fat Tire Bike Week festival set the standard for mountain biking festivals across the world. It combined fun, humor, serious competitions, educational clinics, social events and backcountry tours. At its peak it attracted thousands of riders from all abilities to gather and have a fantastic time on bikes. The competitions ranged from intense (the Fat Tire Bike Week Stage Race, the Keystone Downhill and observed trials) to the outlandish (like the Chainless Race and Bicycle Rodeo, with its log pull, bicycle limbo, corkscrew criterium and car-jumping events). There were mechanics competitions and Official Mountain Bike Polo.

Beyond the clinics, picnics, races, games and spectator events, the tours were a special draw for many people. Each day, guides led rides geared to specific ability levels into Crested Butte's natural wonderlands and historic landmarks. The tours were a wonderful way to meet people and share the camaraderie of getting to explore a new area.

Fat Tire Bike Week also hosted the annual induction ceremony for the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. This made sense seeing that Crested Butte was also the location to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame's museum. Mountain biking history was so fast-paced and colorful that Crested Butte bikers created the museum before its history was lost. From the first inductions in 1988, and on through 1996, the Crested Butte festival was the home to the ceremony where mountain bike legends were honored (since 1997, the ceremony is held in conjunction with the annual Interbike Show).