Charlie Cunningham has passed away at the age of 78 in California, the state he called home. He will be remembered as one of the founding fathers of the sport of mountain biking.
MTB photographer and frequent MBUK and BikeRadar contributor, Steve Behr, met Cunningham at home in the mid 1990s and saw his workshop. Behr described Cunningham as “friendly, quiet and unassuming” as he talked him through the innovations he was working on.
Cunningham suffered a major bike accident in 2015, leaving him with multiple injuries including head trauma.
Tech pioneer
An early proponent of using aluminium for bike frames, Cunningham built his first frame in 1977 and experimented with other exotic materials for components, including a magnesium stem.
As well as improving the design for hub and bottom bracket (BB) bearing systems, Cunningham also helped develop mountain bike standards such as wider front hubs and zero-dish rear hubs. He is also widely credited with helping to create the original and iconic Specialized Ground Control tyre. Innovations such as these influenced the speed and direction of the progression of MTB technology.
Cunningham, Mark Slate, Steve Potts and Lance Wyeth were the co-founders of legendary brand Wilderness Trail Bicycles (WTB) in Marin, California in 1982.
Cunningham and other inventors like him helped differentiate MTB tech from road and beach cruisers, helping define the discipline as technically advanced, as well as distinct in its own right.
He was inducted into the Marin Museum of Bicycling’s Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1988.
