Joe Murray (born December 4, 1963) is an American pioneer in the mountain bike movement. Starting out as a professional mountain bike racer, he later moved into bicycle design. Murray was one of the original inductees (1988) into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. He was the first mountain biker inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame in 1999.
He has raced 400 races in over 10 years with over 73 victories. He is a five-time winner of the Rockhopper Race (the first popular mountain bike race) and three-time winner of the Whiskeytown Downhill (one of first "classic" mountain bike races). He was the first mountain bike cyclist to be inducted into the United States Bicycling Hall of Fame.
Murray grew up in Fairfax, California. He started riding on dirt roads in Marin County on a 1950's Rollfast cruiser bike. In 1981 he purchased a Schwinn Spitfire 5 from MikeâÂÂs Bikes in San Rafael, California which he began to upgrade piece by piece. In 1983 at the age of 17, he entered his first race called ZeroâÂÂs Notch which consisted of the Pine Mountain loop and Repack downhill course near Fairfax, winning the Novice class.