Pair of retro Marin's

mrlee

My 96 Bear Valley. All original apart from tyres





And my current restoration project a 93 Palisade Trail

gt-arrowhead

That Bear Valley looks really nice. Nothing quite like a retro restoration project. How are you getting on with center pull brakes in the winter months? :P

mrlee

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

That Bear Valley looks really nice. Nothing quite like a retro restoration project. How are you getting on with center pull brakes in the winter months? :P

Not done a lot of riding so far this winter due to family commitments and injury. A little off road and a few commutes on the Bear Valley to and from work, that's it. I love it in a different way to my Cotic

rockmonkeysc

I like your bar ends :-)
I had some like that on my old original Stumpjumper.

arthur_scrimshaw

I've got a 91 Pine Mountain (the one with grey textured paint and orange forks/bars) its original apart from a missing front wheel, I wondered where you source contemporary bits or do you replace with new stuff?

mrlee

Arthur Scrimshaw wrote:

I've got a 91 Pine Mountain (the one with grey textured paint and orange forks/bars) its original apart from a missing front wheel, I wondered where you source contemporary bits or do you replace with new stuff?

The Bear Valley was like that when I got it, apart from the tyres and fork. Can get most things on ebay or retrobike

BloggingFit

Scary to think what we used to ride on but at the time we didn't know better. I just have fond memories of taco'd soft rims and riding with a block of bitumen to rub on them to get half decent brakes.

gt-arrowhead

BloggingFit wrote:

Scary to think what we used to ride on but at the time we didn't know better. I just have fond memories of taco'd soft rims and riding with a block of bitumen to rub on them to get half decent brakes.

I rode my Arrowhead in the mud properly for the first time today. And i know what you mean with the brakes They are completely fooooked. The lever travel was triple what it was before the ride. And they feel awful now. There must be some sort of mud-compound pad you can get? And downhill bits with roots were very interesting on a rigid bike with thin mud tyres at 30+ PSI.I still think riding a 90s rigid is still very enjoyable. Definitely improves your riding too IMO.

BloggingFit

Used to run these back in the day...

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/scott-mathauser

Heard a rumour these are being produced again.

rockmonkeysc

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

And downhill bits with roots were very interesting on a rigid bike with thin mud tyres at 30+ PSI.I still think riding a 90s rigid is still very enjoyable. Definitely improves your riding too IMO.

It improves your skills for riding rigid bikes but those skills don't really transfer to modern bikes (unless you have a Transition Klunker)
Riding mountain bikes like these back in the 90's was great. By modern standards we were slow and the jumps we thought were huge are tiny compared to what I ride now but we had huge crashes, broke bones, met lots of nurses and always had a blast.

gt-arrowhead

RockmonkeySC wrote:

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

And downhill bits with roots were very interesting on a rigid bike with thin mud tyres at 30+ PSI.I still think riding a 90s rigid is still very enjoyable. Definitely improves your riding too IMO.

It improves your skills for riding rigid bikes but those skills don't really transfer to modern bikes (unless you have a Transition Klunker)
Riding mountain bikes like these back in the 90's was great. By modern standards we were slow and the jumps we thought were huge are tiny compared to what I ride now but we had huge crashes, broke bones, met lots of nurses and always had a blast.

Depends what sort of riding you do i guess. From looking at your bike threads i take it you ride more aggressive DH type stuff in which case youd probably be right. But for someone who rides XC like me with the odd rooty downhills thrown in every now and then, you can learn from riding a rigid and still use what youve learnt on a newer bike. Either way, riding rigid is great fun.

Just googled that Transition Klunker. Sod doing DH on a fixie!

Twelly

GT-Arrowhead wrote:

Just googled that Transition Klunker. Sod doing DH on a fixie!

Klunkers are where it all started GT:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h19n-5qIp78
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLH8GWuejyo