Joe Breeze

Who is Joe Breeze?

Joe Breeze is a bicycle framebuilder, designer and advocate from Marin County, California. An early participant in the sport of mountain biking, Breeze, along with other pioneers including Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, and Tom Ritchey, is known for his central role in developing the mountain bike. Breeze is credited with designing and building the first all-new mountain bikes, which were called Breezers. He built the prototype, known as Breezer #1, in 1977 and completed nine more Series I Breezers by early 1978. Breezer #1 is now in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History.

Breeze, a road bike racer through the 1970s, was among the fastest downhill racers at Repack, mountain biking’s seminal race held west of Fairfax, California. He won 10 of the 24 Repack races, which took place between 1976 and 1984. Breeze is a charter member of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame; he was inducted in 1988.

Breeze developed mountain bike and road-racing bike designs through the 1980s and most of the 1990s, then focused his efforts on advocacy for bicycle transportation. In the early 2000s he devoted his Breezer brand entirely to transportation, introducing in 2002 a line of bikes for everyday use, equipping them for local trips, errands in town and commuting.