T E A M C O W - Blog

gallery of bikes 6

1/16/2025

Would you look at that; three genuine full suspension mountain bikes.

It occurs to me, looking at these bikes, that I've never owned a full suspension bike for longer than a few months. Even when I rode trails where I might see some benefit from rear suspension, it just didn't seem to do anything for me. Anyway...

1. Rocky Mountain ETS X-70. I can't find a pic of this in the state that I got it; these pics are the 'after' with XTR wheels and Chromag bar and stem. Pretty sure it had XT wheels on it that were all black and just really looked good on my Blizzard. Tried to sell it as a bike, eventually broke it down and parted it out.

2. Rocky Mountain ETS X-50. I bought these two ETSs as a package for an amount that the X-70 was worth by itself. Again these are the 'after' pics, and I can't remember what I did to it - apart from putting a Chromag bar on it apparently - but I feel like it involves parts on the next bike.

3. Cannondale Jekyll 800 Sobe edition. Somehow, I traded a Santa Cruz Heckler frame that I repainted, for this frame. I recall building it, maybe riding it up and down the block, and that was good enough. These pics are what I used for the Marketplace listing.

marinoni turismo

1/15/2025

2024 was a hekkin' good year as far as acquiring bikes goes - I got bikes from Canadian legends Paul Brodie, Chris Dekerf, and, Guiseppe Marinoni....

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12/26/2024

Who am I kidding anyway - these bikes are not recent. We're into summer '23 and older now.

1. Marin Eldridge Grade. Amazing paint on this. Low level bikes got paint like this in 1990. I don't know how companies made any money on them. Well, I suppose I do - they paid the Taiwanese labourers peanuts.

2. Kona Lava Dome. I bought this as a heavily used and scraped up bike, repainted and redecaled it, and it became a gorgeous vintage machine. Maybe the only thing I've done better lately is...

3. GT Zaskar. This was an awful thing when I got it - no paint, mismatched wheels, 130mm Marzocchi Dirt Jumper fork - it was just all kinds of wrong. So, it got fresh paint, new decals, Shimano XTR bits, and it became what it was; an incredible vintage bike that rode beautifully. I probably should have kept it.

rocky mountain decals

12/26/2024

Last weekend I was visiting a friend and as we toured his collection, a Rocky Mountain Vertex frame hanging on the wall caught my eye. The decals on that frame blew my mind, because I saw something I had never seen before...

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12/24/2024

I'm really liking this series of posts, I'm finding pictures of bikes I totally forgot about.

1. Lemond Poprad. I REALLY wanted to keep this as I'm a huge Lemond fan, but it was just too small. I took the bar cons off it, put something else on, and made 900% profit on it. I almost felt guilty about this one.

2. Giant NRS. This was the kind of deal I love; buy a bike that's missing just a few parts, make it all work with new cables and brake pads, maybe even score something cool off it (like a Precision Billet rear derailleur in this case) and then sell it for 3x what I paid.

3. Gary Fisher Sugar. This was another deal like the Giant, I just had to put bars and a stem on it, make it shift, and it's easy money.

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12/17/2024

I am stretching the definition of 'recent' here now.

1. Iron Horse Raider. This was part of the package deal with the second Iron Horse from part 2. It also got a Shimano CUES drivetrain, and also didn't sell for $150. Nor did it sell when I put all the low level 7 speed stuff I had lying around for $50. Hell, I had trouble giving this bike away.

2. Cinelli Supercorsa. If you don't know, this bike has been made by Cinelli, mostly unchanged, since the 50's. It still has a 1" threaded fork. I got this for song, and incredibly, I'm going to lose money on it.

3. Rocky Mountain Metro. This is a '92 Metro, and is pretty much a Hammer with 700c wheels. I would have kept it if it was a size larger. I've already got a '90 Metro, but the '92 was just so cool.

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12/12/2024

I thought I would post a few pics of bikes I had built over the years here. I can't remember if I had said anything about them here or not, so apologies in advance for any repetition.

1. Iron Horse ARS 4.0. I went out to buy one of these bikes, and I guess the guy saw me coming, because I came home with two. I swapped a Shimano CUES drivetrain on to it, and could not sell it for $150. I've torn it down and I'm going to repaint it in the spring.

2. Kona Lava Dome. I think this is an '89, and whatever year it is, the paint on it is mind-blowing. It was original, with some pretty worn out SunTour parts, so I took all the Shimano LX stuff off the Fusion from gallery 1, and now I have this super clean Kona ready for the '25 show circuit.

3. Porsche Bike FS. This Votec-built Porsche seemed like a no-brainer as a flip. I had to buy new brakes for it though as the Hayes it came with were toast. I maybe made a modest amount on it.

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12/10/2024

I thought I would post a few pics of bikes I had built over the years here. I can't remember if I had said anything about them here or not, so apologies in advance for any repetition.

1. Rocky Mountain Fusion. That's a '92 Fusion I bought for next to nothing that seemingly had never been used. It was incredibly clean. I put a new Shimano CUES drivetrain on it, and actually sold it for a small profit.

2. Kona Kilauea. I think this was a '93 or '94 that I got as a singlespeed. I redid it with as much of the black Shimano LX group as I could, and put some Marzocchi XC500 lowers on the XC51 fork it had. I did eventually sell it, but it was way harder to sell than I ever thought it would be.

3. Cannondale M200SE. The Moose. I thought the Viper red Cannondale was an iconic bike that would be a cool project, and I turned it from a commuter into a period-correct 'roll around' bike with Shimano LX cantis, Ritchey Logic cranks, and ethereal Innova tires. However, other things came along, and I ended up returning it to its commuter roots and selling it.

fila teton

8/13/2024

You are looking at a 1994 (?) Fila Teton mountain bike. And this is all I really know about it...

pack it up, show's over....

5/22/2024

Friends, I believe the COVID gravy train has left the station, possibly never to return. I have all these bikes for sale, and have had ZERO interest in them. It's genuinely baffling....