I ran into people over the years that claimed they were doing the same stuff myself and others were doing in California, Moab in Utah, the Denver area, state of NY, and from the Appalachian mountain areas. I think it was more widespread than people realized, it just wasn't talked about. The only reason we even have a hint about it is because there were several riders in N California that later became famous for frame building, if it wasn't for them no one would believe people did that stuff back then on road bikes, it's difficult enough for me when I tell people we did that and find them believing me, they just can't conceive the thought of such a thing being done on road bikes, but yet that's all we had. I mentioned Moab because I just ran into a guy about 3 months ago while I was in Moab, we got to talking and he told me him and his pals were doing that all over Moab on road bikes, and he's the one that knew guys in the state of NY that was doing that sort of stuff up in the Adirondack mountains.

All the time I was doing that in S Calif, I never heard of the famous guys in N California, till some years later. While most of the USA is flattish land, I do believe that those that lived in mountainous areas found themselves doing that sort of thing. Sure, not crowds of people were doing it, my group was only about a half a dozen at any one time, but people kept rotating in and out of the group so really there were more than 6 people, but enough people did do that sort of thing to where it was not a rare occurrence.

Nor disc brakes especially on road bikes, on mountain bikes it is different, they were introduced by shimano in 1998/1999

Jobst Brandt had been doing those rides with his posse of rotating characters for many years prior, and was the one who introduced Tom Ritchey to such riding. We know much about Tom Ritchey specifically because he never stopped, and became a big figure in the industry. There were countless others around the US riding their road bikes offroad that moved on to other activities, before entering into history. You can sometimes see their letters in old issues of bicycle mags posted by SpeedofLite writing in to ask questions about gearing, tires, frames, and other subjects. Or find their riding stories in other issues, and out-of-print books. Greg LeMond, among others, has mentioned such off-road riding during his youth as well.

Many a cyclist has greedily gobbled up every single paved road in only a few short years, and when that hunger for novelty strikes again, have taken their road bike into the unpaved wilds searching for more.



And of course as we well know, any place any one ever went on a road bike - somebody on a touring bike went there first.