On his Web site, fisherbikes.com, Gary Fisher devours this mantra:

"Eat bike, sleep bike, think bike, make bike."

The quirky and colorful Northern California native's passion for two-wheel machines continues to spin, three decades after he built what some called the first mountain bike.

Tall and lanky, Fisher has pedaled as an athlete and innovator.

He may not be a household name like Tour de France dynasty Lance Armstrong, but mention the words mountain bike to those in the know, and Gary . . . Fisher are often the first and last names you hear.

In 1987, Outside magazine featured Fisher in its "50 Who Left Their Mark" issue.

Ten years later, the Smithsonian Institution dubbed him the Founding Father of Mountain Bikes.

In 1988 he was among the first inductees to the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Crested Butte, Colo.

In 1994 he won a lifetime achievement award at the Korbel Night of Champions, cycling's equivalent of the Oscars. And in January he received another lifetime honor at the X-Dance Film Festival in Utah.

"His biggest claim is that he took it (mountain biking) to the world," Don Cook, co-director of the Hall of Fame, told IBD. "Gary is a cycling enthusiast. You can go for a ride with him all day, he'll tell you about the bike and kick your butt doing it. With his riding ability, he was able to take that enthusiasm to the people. He showed that they could be a kid at any age."

Fisher was born in 1950 in Oakland, Calif. By age 12 he was already pumping hard, competing in road, cyclo-cross and track races. He was a fierce competitor, winning state and national titles in Category One events — for elite athletes.

Fisher cut no corners — and was cut no slack. In 1968, racing officials ousted him for refusing to cut his hippie-esque long hair. The suspension lasted four years later.

Fisher hardly rested. During his hiatus from racing, he used homemade equipment to put on psychedelic light shows — flashes of colored lights and visual images — at rock concerts around the San Francisco area. He even performed on his bike for the Grateful Dead.

When Fisher returned to racing, he steered toward Olympic glory. But he had to slam on the brakes, no thanks to the U.S.-led boycott of the Moscow Summer Games in 1980.

Although he wasn't exactly the inventor of the mountain bike or mountain biking, Fisher was a major player in the movement that gave the sport an identity. And he was instrumental in launching it into a global phenomenon as well as a multibillion-dollar industry.

In 1996, he helped stamp his sport with Olympic rings. Riding a Gary Fisher bike, Italy's Paola Pezzo rode to a mountain biking gold medal at the Atlanta Games.

The industry's ride has only sped up. Towns such as Boulder, Colo.; Moab, Utah; and Whistler, British Columbia, have turned into mountain biking hotbeds.

Each year, Moab's Slick Rock trail draws 100,000 riders, 20 times the town's population.

The Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival — a series of mountain bike races in Wisconsin — is so popular, entrants compete for spots on the starting line by turning in essays.

On a high level of another sort, even President Bush has shifted into high gear, taking his bike to meetings with world leaders. A few weeks ago he rode before talking with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Kennebunkport, Maine.

According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, mountain bikes accounted for 28.5% of all bikes sold in 2006.

Mountain biking's origins are a little muddy. Other cyclists in Northern California formed the Morrow Dirt Club and rode modified off-road bikes that predated Fisher's.

But Fisher was a key part of the early '70s movement that many consider the start of mountain biking. That's when he and other avid cyclists from Marin County — also in Northern California — planted the sport's roots.

"There were lots of godfathers," said Steve Madden, editor in chief of Bicycling magazine. "But Gary has done a better job manufacturing, distributing bikes, and through that he's become the public face of (mountain biking)."

Fisher and his gang cross-trained by riding trails on 2,600-foot Mount Tamalpais, often called Mount Tam, north of San Francisco. Since road bikes couldn't handle the rough terrain, the riders handled trails on fat-tired, single-speed cruiser bikes called clunkers, bombers or ballooners.

The fun part of the ride was speeding downhill. The only problem was getting up there. Unless the bikers caught rides with pickup trucks, 80% of their time was spent pushing these 40- to 50-pound tanks uphill. Today's top-of-line mountain bikes weigh half that much.

"I wanted a bike I could ride off the road, both uphill and down, and it had to be strong so I didn't come back home with parts in my hand," Fisher told the Smithsonian.

With his know-how from working at a bike shop, plus inspiration from spotting a two-wheeled machine that could rough it, Fisher went to work. In 1974 he souped up his 1930s Schwinn Excelsior X, making it able to go uphill and downhill.

"I don't know why I built that first bike," he said in Rolling Stone magazine. "I didn't need it. I could beat those guys to the top of any pass anyway and down any downhill. But I started to put it together. It really took some cobbling and blacksmithing to get there. I was creating absolute mongrels. I put the five-speed derailleur on. I did motorcycle brake levers. I did thumb shifters."

Once on his invention, Fisher flew. He owned the fastest time in dashing down a stretch of Mount Tam known as the Repack, a proving ground for modified bikes.

William Savage, who made the documentary "Klunkerz," told IBD how the Repack racers, now in their mid-50s, "light up like school kids" when recalling riding down the hill.

Eventually Fisher and partner Charlie Kelley went into business. In 1979 they formed MountainBikes with an investment of $300.

Working out of a garage, the duo sold 160 bikes in the first year. The $1,300 price tag and the weeks-to-months wait didn't deter buyers. The next year they ramped up production, churning out 1,000 bikes.

"He had an ability to see that mountain biking would be as big as road cycling, if it were made available," Cook said.

Although MountainBikes the company didn't last, the moniker stuck. Fisher bought out Kelley's interest in 1983 and renamed the firm Gary Fisher Bicycle Co.

"With passion, clever advertising and a race team, he put Fisher Bikes on the map," Cook said.

Ten years later, Fisher sold the firm to Trek Bicycle Corp. of Waterloo, Wis., staying on as a designer.

"He was an important piece of the puzzle," Maurice Tierney, publisher of Dirt Rag magazine, said of Fisher's place in the industry. "He is more important today because of his vision of the bicycle's place."

BY VINCENT MAO.