The 1979 Berkeley Hills Road Race
Jonathan Boyer won the Berkeley Hills Road Race in 1979, the year Velo Club Berkeley and the Berkeley Wheelmen merged into the Berkeley Bicycle Club, which has organized the race ever since. The race's winners list records him as Jon Boyer.
No results from that era are online, so the winners list is the record of his win, and we haven't found whether he raced here in other years.
From California to Europe
He wasn't a newcomer when he won here. Boyer won a California state championship in 1972, which took him to the 1973 junior world championships in Munich. He stayed in France afterward, raced there as an amateur, and turned professional in 1977.
By 1979 he was racing for the American Grab On team and finished second overall at the Coors Classic. In 1980 he won the Coors Classic and was fifth in the world road race championship.
1981: the first American at the Tour de France
In 1981 he rode the Tour de France for Renault–Elf–Gitane, the team of that year's winner, Bernard Hinault. He wore number 136 and finished 32nd. He started the Tour five times, with a best finish of 12th in 1983, and later raced for the American 7-Eleven team.
American professional cycling
Americans in European professional racing were rare then. Greg LeMond started his first Tour in 1984 and, in 1986, became the first American to win it.
Eric Heiden, the five-time Olympic speed skating champion who won the Berkeley Hills Road Race in 1983, also raced for 7-Eleven.