Mountain Biking - Paper help(History of mountain biking)

I have a 15:eek: page paper I have to write for this college essay thing (I am in highschool but taking accelerated college clases). I can write it on anything, but chose to do the history of biking:rolleyes: , focusing on the history of mountain biking;) . I already have like 8 books on it, but I need to interview people who were around back in the late 70s and early 80s and expeirienced th emountainbiking boom first hand. Also, If anyone has a site that has a nice brief history of mountain biking, that would be great to use as "general guidance" for th epaper.

Thanks ahead to anyone who responds/helps me out w/ this.:)

Do you have rudimentary Google skills?

Pm mtbiker66 my man, he's the old timer around these parts.

15 page paper on anything you want and you choose mountain biking? I highly doubt you are going to find enough information on it to stretch 15 pages.

Dont forget that off-road riding preceeded MTBing by many decades.
In the UK the Rough Stuff Fellowship is a dedicated off-road club. In France, bagging unsurfed Alpine passes on 650c touring bikes was a serious business.
The first mountain bike I know of is a 1920s Bianchi.

The mountain bike hall of fame website has a lot of useful info, including a list of inducties and personal info about all of them(by clicking on their pics)

Do you have rudimentary Google skills?

Why yes;) , thanks for asking. All the sites I found are just brief explantaions of the books that I have, and in the eyes of profs grading these, an book is better than the net.

I plan on doing a 4 page intro to just the history of biking, then start from the 1970's schwin ballon bike guys (e.g. gary fisher) and on to the bikes now. I will also explain about the growth of new companies the 4-5 different styles, and how big of an industry it is now ($ wise). The main thing I need from this forum would be an interview I guess. First hand sources (especially interviews) are always a +.