MTB. MTB Tech. Retro MTB. Fixing and maintaining mountain bikes; sharing knowledge about mountain bikes, retro mountain bikes; the modern tech of mountain bikes; oh and a bit of DJing on the side. So that's what you'll be finding here!
Here, Gary Fisher tells the story of how the 700Cx47mm Finnish snow tyres sent by Geoff Apps inspierd him to invest in the production of the 1st 29er mountain bike tyre: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-8syt59gK65o.html
Very sad to see that Geoff Apps has died. My wife Sue Darlow was a close friend of his (she did the photography for his cycle maintenance book) and we spent a week at his converted church on the Scottish border in '92. Really a brilliant designer with a unique vision of what an offroad bike could be.
You are dead right about those Zolatone Marins. You might have seen the 91 Team Marin on my channel, which is the only one I’ve ever seen and my current all-time favourite bike. Also, I’ve never seen that Browning electronic transmission in real life, although I do have the 88 Specialized catalogue in which it’s specced on the Stumpjumper. I cherished that catalogue but never got near any of the bikes. Wonder if anyone ever actually got an 88 Stumpjumper with that system on it, or if the catalogue spec was a promise they couldn’t keep? You’ve intrigued me on that one.
gday from australia , we have a bike brand here called " malvern star " on eof those would be great to get in there , i have an australian " bigfoot " very rare bike . i used to work for gt and had one of two GT RTS3 's in australia ..
It's a shame that you passed up what were arguably the finest and highest quality hand built mountain bikes ever produced in the 80's and 90's. The two Klein Attitude bikes in Dolomite (green/white/red) and the other Klein Attitude in the green/yellow fade (the Durethane paint from the factory was $1,800 a gallon). All hand welded frames, built from custom large diameter aluminum tubing with internal cable routing, in Chehalis, Washington, and they came with a lifetime frame warranty. Nobody else offered that kind of quality or warranty on hand built bikes.
Watching this for inspiration after buying a tatty 1990 kona cindercone but who cares it's got the splatter paint, tbh i think i'll clean it up, get the parts together to make it completely original then ride it. Enjoy it for how it rides, rust and all.😂
The paint job of the all steel GT Xizang from 1989 must be "Violet Thunder". Normally it was a color for the Karakoram. "Spider Webbing" was dark ground with blue and yellow webbing.
I had a Kili Pro Elite and what a bike it was. Unfortunately it was stolen from a flat ten years ago, otherwise I’d still have it. That powder paint/coating was bombproof. I’m still a hard tail fan and love my new Orbea Alma carbon machine.
I lived by Greenham Common when the base was active with cruise missiles. We had 2 USAF soldiers join our club and from this, I bought a Mongoose John Tomac signature model MTB. The lightest bike at the time it was made from Tange Prestige, had road bike geometry, and rode brilliantly. Unfortunately, the lightness led to its downfall, and the frame broke after a few years. Many happy memories though.
Love all the bikes ,huge fan of retro mtbs. Missing my old Parkpre pro elite watching this video. I sended your buddy Anna some pictures of it last year hoped you wanted to see it too. Sadly i had to sell it. Btw, the Kona humuhumu... ,Kona made a titanium version of that, it would be fun to know how many of these was made.
Amazing bikes! It's interesting to me as in mostly flat East Yorkshire very few people had great mountain bikes. Some had expensive mtb bikes, but set up generally for vanity and road use. Those of us going off road were mostly on low end bikes. So I wonder if collectors presenting at retro shows like the Malverns are still coming from geographic areas that required better bikes.
I was in London a few years back and saw some guy riding a Funk. Haven’t seen one in person in the states and some guy rolls by like it’s no big deal. If it’s you and you read this, thanks for keeping that bike alive
Hey Doddy --- this vid is amazing, LOVED every second of it. I'm 46 and lived down the road from the Malverns so went ro maybe 7 in a row up to 98, I think that was the last year until it recently re-started. I collected MBUK from it's inception until 1998 so seeing all these mags brings back amazing memories! ... the bikes are all those I grew up with. I've moved away from Worcestershire now and miss the Malverns so much --- this vid is exceptional, I'm so happy to have stumbled upon your channel. I owned a Kona Lava Dome, GT LTS 1000, Orange 222, Intense Tracer VP .... I don't ride as much as I should --- that PACE Copper bike is insane ... Always loved the Klein paintworks and Tomac's MAVIC disc wheel! I've got a few old Malverns VHS vids ... wish I kept my race number from racing the main XC race in 93 or 94 ... it was a green plate, maybe 7-Up sponsored ?>!>!?!?
In my town back then we had a shop called No Sweat that later on sold hiking gear skiing gear only, but started off with Trek & Marin up stairs. I would go in after school and when i left school in 92 and look at those bikes, then down the high street was the Halfords with the Carrera and Saracen bikes that people would have for school.
For the new format how cool would a little qr code on each card and maybe it takes you to a video of the owner talking about the bike, its history etc. I know signal is rubbish at Malverns but even to take a photo and view later could be cool 🤔
@doddymtbtech Echoing the comments here, that was a brilliant video, great energy that we all feel the same about. A real trip down memory lane of peak MTB around '90-95. Hopefully get to the Malverns Classic one day, missed it in the 90s when I was racing. Still running the same bike though, my '94 Kona Explosif (the Tange Prestige Ultimate Ultrastrong with the ribbed down tube).
Had no idea this was a thing. I put another 25 miles on my 98 Santa Cruz Bullit yesterday. I had a set of those Spin wheels in the late 90’s as a 240lbs guy they were terrible for me; I could feel each spoke as I rode along on flat ground.
Really enjoyed this video. Pure nostalgia. Never mind all the amazing bikes, even little things like seeing a pair of old Deore DX thumb shifters that I used to have (indexed!) gave me the warm and fuzzies.
The colors are good. The mtb thing has been shady cause the industry never tried to simplify or make something fun oriented earlier. I mean look what geo they said you needed to climb? People ran with that for decades. You should be able to buy a chromo complete ss rigid with modern trail geo for 800 bucks.
