Singletrack

KEITH
BONTRAGER
“Strong, light, cheap – pick two.”
Mountain bike pioneer,
product designer, agitator.
WORDS CHIPPS PHOTOGRAPHY CHIPPS & STEVE BEHR
Keith Bontrager has been a bike industry name since the
earliest days of the sport. While not a great self-publicist,
his thoughts on bike design have nevertheless had a
great influence on mountain biking over the last three
decades. It’s been 15 years since we last interviewed him
in Singletrack and so we reckoned it was time to see what
had changed. We despatched Chipps to Keith’s house
in Santa Cruz to quiz Keith and to have a particularly
good chicken molé and pulled pork tortilla lunch.
Keith has always been merciless in pointing out the
emperor’s new clothes and has never taken anything at face
value. If someone says that a particular tyre size rolls quicker
or corners better, Keith will ask for proof or he’ll go and
create his own experiments to prove or disprove the theory.
It’s the same with interviews and journalists. If
you’re asking the same dull questions as everyone
else, then you’ll quickly know about it as he’ll tell you
that you are. And even when we think we’re being
clever, he’ll quickly bring you back to earth.
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