I have asked around, and it turns out that everyone else came up with the idea before I did. In this post I will share a couple of documents on that subject, two by Joe Breeze, one by Frank Berto.
These are multi page documents. The scroll arrows are at the bottom left of each image.
Here is Joe Breeze, from Bicycling Magazine in 1996.
JB_Bicycling-3_96-who-really-invented-1Here is Joe being scholarly.
Who-Really-Invented-the-MTB-Joe-BreezeFrank Berto interviewed a lot of people.
Berto2