Charlie Cunningham

Charlie Cunningham (born 23 August 1948 in Washington, D.C.)[1] is a mountain biker from Fairfax, California.[2]

For the British musician, see Charlie Cunningham (musician).
For other people with the same name, see Charles Cunningham (disambiguation).

Along with frame builder Steve Potts and his helper Mark Slate, Cunningham co-founded Wilderness Trail Bikes (WTB). Cunningham and Potts were forced out of WTB in 2002 for undisclosed reasons, at the urging of WTB's CEO, Patrick Seidler. Cunningham and his wife Jacquie Phelan are charter inductees to Crested Butte's Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.[2]

Early life

Cunningham came from an Air Force family, who lived in Alabama, Virginia, Japan and San Diego during his childhood, ultimately settling in Mill Valley on Mt Tamalpais, Marin County. His father, Bruce Cunningham, was a World War II and Korean War fighter pilot who won the Thompson Trophy in 1949, the only year military jets (F-86) competed. His mother, Carol, was a book artist whose imprint Sunflower Press is found in several museum collections. In his twenties, Cunningham studied nutrition, water quality, and chemistry, as well as engineering. At 25 he recognized that automobile use in the USA is largely wasteful, polluting, and socially ruinous, and therefore turned to bicycles.

Inventions

In the early 1980s, Cunningham invented a number of features for use on modern mountain bikes:

  • tubular-style fork crowns
  • 135 mm lower-dish rear wheel for mountain bikes, which are now the standard
  • identifying the fundamental tread design principles needed for well-performing mountain bike tires. Cunningham co-designed Ground Control,[3] a tire incorporating these principles.
  • the Grease Guard Bearing System[4] that allows bicyclists to replace the dirty grease that gets into bicycle bearings with clean grease in seconds, thus extending component life and saving time and money spent fixing and/or replacing parts.
  • the Roller Cam Brake.[5] The brake arms, the pivot mounting location, and the linkage combined to eliminate flex in the fork blades and frame stays. This brake also featured the linear spring he invented, now used on almost all V-Brakes today. The cam was eventually replaced with the Lever Link.

Competitive career

Cunningham raced competitively in 1984, placing 10th overall at the NORBA championships in Nederland, Colorado. He became National Vet Champion aged 36.

Cunningham built a total of 187 aluminum bicycles (the Indian, the Racer, and the Wombat for smaller people) between 1979–1992. They were guaranteed for life, and cost about six times as much as custom (steel) bikes. He is now a freelance inventor working on environmentally sustainable projects.

References
  1. Cunningham, Charlie (1989). "Cunningham Offroad Bike Infopac" (PDF). Point Reyes, California: Mountain TranSport. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2015-10-26. Retrieved 2015-10-26.
  2. "Charlie Cunningham". The Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 14 July 2011. Retrieved 30 December 2010.
  3. US patent 5088535, Potts, Stephen M.; Slate, Mark J.; Cunningham, Charles B.; and Merz, James H., "Bicycle or motorcycle tire tread", issued 1992-02-18
  4. US patent 4763957, Poehlmann, Paul W.; Slate, Mark J.; Potts, Stephen M.; and Cunningham, Charles B., "Bicycle hub constructions and lubrication thereof", issued 1988-08-16
  5. US patent 4765443, Cunningham, Charles B., "Caliper brake for mountain bicycles having wide tires", issued 1988-08-23
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