The bane of my existence is that I still have every document I ever had. Because of the places life has taken me, that includes the most comprehensive library on mountain biking before 1990.
I have everything, race results, club newsletters, press releases, personal correspondence, thousands of photos, product files on every potential advertiser for my long-gone magazine, the Fat Tire Flyer. And of course, every issue of every magazine.
After using what amounted to a microscopic percentage of all these data to write my book, I still have the immense pile, well over a ton of paper. For years now I have paid for the space to store it, I have moved it and protected it, but I would like this unique archive to outlast me and be of use to others.
My close friend Joe Breeze, who wrote the foreword in my book, is the curator of the Marin Museum of Bicycling. The museum recently expanded its footprint after the other tenant of the building moved out, and they have offered me a space in it. I still have to pay rent on it, but at least it is now a charitable donation and a tax write-off.
The next phase of the project looks like it will take the rest of my life, and I'm in pretty good health. In addition to my own archive, I have a filing cabinet and a dozen bankers boxes from Gary Fisher's collection, Joe Breeze has his own personal archive, and the museum itself has archives dating back to the 19th Century. We plan to solicit scans from anyone who has them, and put this unique collection online for anybody who wants to help with the effort.
Which is the next subject. Although it would be nice to make money from this, I would be happy if I could get the rental for the space and the bandwidth covered. Plan is to sell access to the collection for a small amount to cover the expense of making it available. With literal terabytes of data, the bandwidth charges could be a problem.
I need bicycle junkie volunteers who live near Marin County and want to spend hours poking through old bicycle documents and scanning them, because this will take a lot of person-hours.
That's about as far as the "plan" has gone. Moving this collection was not so much about money, but to make sure it would be around after I am not. I always worried that if I got hit by a bus while all this was still in storage, it would have disappeared entirely, so at least it is in a safe location.
Here's what it looks like, minus Gary Fisher's contribution.
Here are a few .pdf examples of the kind of material in the stash.
First issue of Fat Tire Flyer
11th issue of Fat Tire Flyer
Kelly-Fisher MountainBikes catalog 1983
1978 Co-Evolution Quarterly
Race Results of the 1986 Plumline 5000 (Cindy Whitehead wins without a saddle)