Need help to identify my old bike frame

iampm

Could someone help me identify what are the Brand / Model / Year of production of my old MTB. I can almost say for sure that it's an old Ritchey bike but can't confirm it neither can I say which model it is and in which year it was made.

I have made a little website about the bike with all the information I got about it so far and some pictures. Please, can someone take a look at it?

http://unknownbike.iampm.org

By the way I'm new to MTB and don't know much about it.

nicklouse

the most identifing part are the rear brakes and their position. the rest of it looks fairly "normal" for a bike of arround 1980.

but your best bet will be to send pics direct to Ritchey. cranks are early 90's (1992).

iampm

nicklouse wrote:

[...] but your best bet will be to send pics direct to Ritchey.

I did! Here's the awnser I just received from Ritchey Logic :

We do not keep records going back this long, however this site should help out in finding out more about your bikes SN number:

http://oldmountainbikes.com/

Thanks,
Ritchey Info

Thanks for the help, Mr. X at Ritchey Design Inc.!
For your information , I already consulted this website and couldn't find a S/N pattern that suited the one on my bike ...

Wow! If I had a company considered has a leader in its field I would be prouder of my products than that. No matter how old they are!

Thanks for the hint on the cranks tho!

nicklouse

ok what are the brakes?

pics and see if there is a name on them.

as they will be an easy way to age the frame.

iampm

nicklouse wrote:

ok what are the brakes?

pics and see if there is a name on them.

as they will be an easy way to age the frame.

I've added some pics of the brakes on the Unknown Bike's website ...
Hope it will help!

nicklouse

Mmm this is an odd ball.

something to consider is this the frame and frok may not be of the same age.

also looking trough the old ritchey bike pics they all seem to have canti post for the brakes none seem to have U brake posts.

iampm

nicklouse wrote:

Mmm this is an odd ball.

something to consider is this the frame and frok may not be of the same age.

also looking trough the old ritchey bike pics they all seem to have canti post for the brakes none seem to have U brake posts.

Hum, could you please define what you mean by "odd ball", I don't understand this expression.

So the fact that there dosen't seem to have Ritchey frame with U brakes means that the quest of the Unknow Bike continues?

To help, here's a link to a thread I made on mtbr about the bike : http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?p=3342557

nicklouse

ood ball -strange.

i think they are all missing the U brake factor.

i read nothing on MTBR that is not on the old mtb site that you mentioned earlier.

biopace cranks WOW mean zero they could have been fitted later.

Unless you have the providance to show they were original? which i dont think as the U brake predates them by many a year.

yes it looks very similar to the Lugged ritchey frames BUT for the brake mounts.

that is the key to identifing the bike. who actually says it started as MTB frame (or ATB as they were in the early '80's)

follow the brake mounts.

iampm

Thanks!
I'll follow this track!

iampm

Thanks to kb11 on mtbr I recently entered in contact with Mr. Grayson Bain original co-founder of Rocky Mountain. I asked him about the Unknown Bike and I think this awnser finally put an end to my researches :

Hi Pierre-Michel:
It is an original Ritchey ENDURO, designed by me and staff at RMB in 1985, produced in Japan by National Panasonic. It was produced under an exclusive license agreement with Tom Ritchey to finish off the line of higher end handbuilts and Japan produced (TOYO built) TIG welded bikes. Al of our bikes were assembled in Canada including Wheeltech Wheels. The colour was BLACK frame, LIME GREEN forks and decals. Never imported into the USA. Though maybe some made it down there!

Grayson Bain

I'll update the Unknown Bike's website about this in a couple of hours.