From it’s inception, the purpose of KLUNKERZ has always been to shed some light on the more obscure characters in off-road cycling who influenced Joe Breeze, Gary Fisher, Charlie Kelly, Tom Ritchey, and the others who are credited with creating this great sport. Finding these people took a great deal of time and resources. This process wasn’t simply making a few calls to marketing departments of large bicycle companies to get the same old story.

Off-road cycling came to us through the contributions of a fairly large group of hippie/athletes and the communal spirit of the times, not any single individual inventor. I wanted to find as many of these people as I could to tell as much of the story as possible. That’s why this film took so long to produce. It’s not some piece of bike porn to show off the latest offerings from XYZ Bike Co that took two weeks to shoot and a month to edit. I’m going on year 4 of the KLUNKERZ project, so it’s pretty much my life’s work.

In the beginning, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, it was about who made the coolest modifications to their old jalopy to get them down the hill the fastest. That’s what interested me and that’s basically the story I wanted to tell. The riders back then shared their modifications and ideas with one another to push off-road cycling further down the trail. Gary knows he was one of many who are responsible for the off-road explosion. If you go to the screening, ask him and he’ll tell you himself. It was Gary who really pushed me to find some of the unsung heroes.

I think it’s important to not that I made this movie with my own money, not TREK/GARY FISHER. Although Gary is definitely one of the stars of the film, it may not be as Gary-cenric as you suggest. I’m thrilled that Gary likes the film and is willing to support it in a public forum. Gary and I have had some amazing adventures in Park City, Durango, Fort William Scotland and elsewhere supporting this film. With any luck, his visibility will help me sell some DVDs, which is the point of all this.

100% of the proceeds from this screening go to the Bicycle Federation of Wisconsin. I’ve never even been to Wisconsin, but I’m happy to lend my film out to help raise thousands of dollars for a worthy cycling cause. I hope that you, and the folks that read this blog, enjoy the film and will consider buying the DVD. That’s the only way I’ll ever pay off this film and, hopefully, make more cycling-related film in the future.

Thanks for the support and I hope to see you out on the trails.

Ride on,

Billy Savage
writer/producer/director
KLUNKERZ
http://www.klunkerz.com/

P.S. There’s no ‘c’ in Fisher:).