FUGITIVE CARVED NEW LIFE IN CRESTED BUTTE

Neil Murdoch, in jail Friday in New Mexico after 28 years on the lam,
remains a folk hero in Crested Butte.

Murdoch, whose real name is Richard Bannister, jumped bail in Albuquerque
on federal drug charges in 1973. He was accused of bringing 22 pounds of
cocaine to Taos from Bolivia.

As Murdoch, he lived in Crested Butte until 1998 and was revered as a
mountain bike visionary. Federal agents closed in April 30, when he
vanished, taking only his bicycle.

On Wednesday, he was. arrested in the Taos town plaza by a U.S. marshal and
taken to Albuquerque for a court date next week.

"He made a decision to flee and start life over and rehabilitate himself,"
said Don Cook, who built his first "clunker" from 1950s-era Schwinns and
Roadmasters with Murdoch's help.

"He did such a good job that it surprised everyone when the feds came after
him," said .Cook, who waited tables with Murdoch at Donita's, the local
Mexican restaurant.

In the late 1970s, Crested Butte was a failing mountain town with dirt
streets, old miners and hippies. There was a nude hot spring on main
street, a fight to stop a molybdenum mine and a spirit of rebellion in the
town.

Murdoch, then in his 30s, arrived with an old bicycle that he used to
commute between his assorted part-time jobs, volunteer work at the Crested
Butte Mountain Theater and the town's first day-care center, Stepping Stones.

"My kids went to the day-care center. They loved him," said Eric Roemer,
owner of the Wooden Nickle bar. "He rode a bicycle everywhere.... You would
never think he'd ever done anything wrong."

He owned the town's only bike shop and lived alone in a downstairs
apartment, giving most of his money away.

Murdoch tinkered with bicycles, building some of the first sturdy, knobby
tired mountain bikes. He put Crested Butte on the map with the Fat Tire
Bike Classic, where cyclists on homemade hybrids bounced up mountains and
over rocky passes.

He's honored at the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Crested Butte, and there
was talk Friday of raising money for his legal defense.

"He rehabilitated himself better than if he had spent time behind bars in a
correctional institution," Cook said. "He gave more free time to good
causes in a year than most people do in a lifetime."