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Description
In this oral history, bicycling legend Joe Breeze recounts a life devoted to riding, racing, designing, and building bicycles, as well as to fostering and promoting bicycle culture more generally. Born in San Francisco in 1953, Joe grew up in Mill Valley and, at the time of this oral history, had lived in Marin County his whole life. Joe recalls how his father introduced him to bicycling at a time in American history when it was a culturally marginal activity and recounts how, with his parents' support and encouragement, he and his brothers took epic summer rides on the highways and backroads of California and beyond beginning in their teenage years. In the early 1970s there was a bicycle boom in America that Joe and some of his friends from the Marin County bicycling community played no small part in as inventors of the mountain bike and pioneers of the sport. Joe describes designing and building his first Breezer bicycles in the mid-1970s and his participation over the decades in expanding bicycle culture, culminating in his founding of the Marin Museum of Bicycling in 2013. Throughout this oral history Joe expresses his love for the natural beauty of Marin and evokes the unique qualities of its culture that supported and nourished his life's work.
Identifier
97DB43DF-C117-4FF8-B242-010449370210 2016.019.001
Subject
Bicycle racing Bicycles Bicycling Breeze, Bill Cippolina, Gino Cippolina, Mario Cragg, Larry Cragg, Wende Entrepreneurs Guy, Otis Kelly, Charlie Marin Museum of Bicycling Maytag, Fritz Mill Valley Cyclery Mt. Tamalpais Museums Oral history - Sports and recreation Potts, Steve Vendetti, Marc Wolf, Fred
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