Before mountain bikes featured cushy dual suspension frames made of aluminum and equipped with ultralight components.

Before Central Oregon trails were clearly signed with intersection markers, easily located with the help of a trail map.

Before today’s modern bike conveniences like clipless pedals, guys like Central Oregon native Dennis Heater were discovering (and creating) mountain bike trails and modifying cruiser bikes with gears to be taken off-road.

These were some of the true pioneers of mountain biking on the High Desert, the riders that paved the way to the mountain bike mecca that Central Oregon is known as today.

Organizers of a noncompetitive group mountain bike ride this Sunday plan to reunite some of Central Oregon’s knobby-tire legends on a trail originally discovered for bicycles by members of the area’s first mountain bike club.

The Black Rock Ride, an annual group ride that follows a loop around Paulina and East lakes on the Newberry Crater Rim Loop Trail, was originally named the Black Rock Cannonball Ride by members of the Black Rock Mountain Bike Club back in the early 1980s.

Before the Black Rock club formed, the Newberry trail was used only by hikers and equestrians. It was first conquered on two wheels by Heater, who served as the club’s leader, and other mountain bikers such as Phil Meglasson, Mike McMackin and Bob Woodward, all of whom still live in Central Oregon.

Heater says he discovered the trail while trying to find places to ride outside of the woods during the fall hunting season.

”We were just a bunch of rebels,” Heater laughs. ”Some of us were riding old Schwinn Varsitys that we put fat tires on, before mountain bikes were invented. They were pretty primitive.”

The trail around Newberry Crater’s rim looms at more than 7,000 feet in elevation. It is rated ”advanced” by Central Oregon mountain biking maps.

Now, imagine riding the trail on a 60-pound bike with flat pedals.

”Back then, it (the ride) was even tougher,” says Heater. ”They (the bikes) were heavy and didn’t have gears like they do now. We were crazy and would go everywhere where nobody had ever been. We were the founding fathers of a lot of these rides.”

Former members say at its most popular, about 25 riders belonged to the Black Rock club – which at the time was nearly every mountain biker in the area.

”One of the things that was unique to the Black Rock group, it was more social than anything,” recalls McMackin, who works as manager for Hutch’s Bicycle stores in Bend. ”People went to races, but it really wasn’t the focus of the group.”

Heater, now 59, was familiar with Central Oregon trails, having grown up riding motorcycles. He was also the rider behind the club’s frequent and long group rides.

”Dennis, being raised in Central Oregon, knows everything. We used to ride out by Warm Springs and Ashwood and the Ochocos. While all those places still exist, nobody goes there (to ride) anymore,” McMackin says.

Black Rock riders remember that the group – which dissolved in the early 1990s – gathered for rides every weekend, and that most members competed in races as well.

”He (Heater) used to put on some crazy rides,” recalls McMackin, noting an outing the group affectionally called the Big Hair No Brains ride staged in the Smith Rock State Park area in Terrebonne. ”It was in places where people today still don’t ride bicycles. So you had to have big hair and no brains to ride it. It was 12 miles. It was straight up and straight down and took three hours to do it.”

Other members of the group included Meglasson, who was turned on to mountain biking by his doctor after the Bend rider broke his hip while downhill skiing in the early 1980s.

Meglasson says he and other members of the club built many of the trails that mountain bikers enjoy today, such as sections of the Deschutes River trail as well as the myriad routes in the Phil’s Trails complex – named after Meglasson – west of Bend.

”They were just fisherman trails that didn’t connect,” Meglasson notes, ”Basically, when we built trails in those days, we tried to find deer trails and fire roads.”

Meglasson, 64, says he still rides three or four times a week.

In addition to riding the McKenzie, Rogue and Umpqua river trails, the group rode their bikes in designated wilderness areas at a time before the designation prohibited bikes. Club members cite epic 12-hour rides in the Three Sisters Wilderness.

Woodward, who has lived in Bend for 30 years, recalls mountain biking in Central Oregon long before dusty trails packed with riders became the norm.

”We rode any place that we could,” says Woodward, 64. ”There were no restrictions. We literally rode everywhere. It was exploring every time you went out. Every time we went on a ride, we’d find something new.”

Jeff Burnard, a former Black Rock member and former professional mountain bike racer, came up with the idea to reunite Bend’s early mountain legends at this weekend’s ride, which is open to all mountain bikers.

”It’s such a fantastic loop and it’s so beautiful,” notes Burnard, who works for Mrazek Bicycles based in Portland. ”We can ride slow and get back to the roots of mountain biking.”

Riders should reserve three to five hours to complete this 20-mile loop, which is moderately technical but aerobically demanding.

Burnard says that other Central Oregon mountain bike legends expected to be at the ride include former professional mountain bike racers Alex McClaran and Paul Thomasberg, as well as current pro Carl Decker.

Heather Clark can be reached at 541-383-0352 or at hclark@bendbulletin.com.