Review of
The Birth of Dirt
By Frank J. Berto
I’ve just read Frank Berto’s book The Birth of Dirt (second edition), about the origins of the mountain bike.
It’s a quick, fun read, and offers quite a thorough review of that history, illustrated with numerous photos and drawings. Berto was for a decade the technical editor of Bicycling magazine, and he has a fine command of the technical issues of bicycle design. But this is a history about people and what they did, not only a technical history. Berto has the advantage of living in Marin County, California, where the mountain bike originated, and of knowing and having interviewed most of the pioneers in its development. The book offers a thoughtful and probing exploration of the question of who invented the mountain bike. Berto’s conclusion is clearly justified by the evidence: many people were involved, and no one person could claim to be the inventor.
I did find some minor errors of fact: for example, what is described as an Atom drum brake is a Maxicar brake; Berto also locates the home of the late John Finley Scott in Davis, California rather than in nearby Dixon. The exact truth always lies somewhere in the past, and in the future…
