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the summit whisperer

7/31/2020

Last October I picked up a very rare Rocky Mountain from 1991, the Summit RL. It was one of those bikes you see other dudes restore, but you never think you'll come across one.

Yesterday I picked up a possibly even more rare Summit, the Summit Max. I don't think it differed a lot from the RL, but it was yellow instead of white. As you can see from the pic here, this is going to require some work.

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let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be

7/9/2020

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Let's talk about TREKs.

Used to be that I was totally convinced that Specialized was the most evil empire in cycling. Their distasteful use of lawyers, their insane and bewildering lineup, and the very real possibility that they exist because Mike Sinyard may have sent an early Ritchey frame to Taiwan to be copied and become the seminal Stumpjumper, just made them a company that was impossible to like.

TREK was just never particulalry exicting. Any of their bikes that I liked, I liked because of a general love of bikes from 1990 to 1992. For instance, a '91 TREK 990 is cool, but I like it because of a general affection for the Shimano M730 XT group, tanwall Panaracer Smoke tires, and TruTemper tubes.

You can find all that stuff on a Marin Team Issue, Diamond Back Axis, or a Specialized Stumpjumper too. TREK's branding was dull, their frames were dull, they never had a cool headtube badge, or a cool backstory. They felt like they were focus-group driven right from day one.

Slowly and quietly, TREK has stolen the crown of Worst Bike Company Ever from the big S. They started on this process way back in the early 90's, and they did it in such a quiet way that I'm not sure people even know it happened. And if they did, they've probably forgotten.

Well, TeamCow remembers.

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these are some of the things you left behind

7/9/2020

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Seeing as how the weather is straight up garbage - again - I figured it was a good time to talk about some bikes from my past. You know, one of the big reasons I was cool with moving from a decent setup in Edmonton to the Okanagan was the weather, but it seems I was lied to. I was expecting 30 degree days, everyday. Haven't hit 30 once yet. Still, everytime I see a news item about Alberta, I'm happy to be here. Sorry Alberta, but you really blew it last May.

Anyway, back to bikes. This is one of the few attempts at a road bike that I've made. A Vitus 979, made from bonded aluminim tubes. I was told that Rocky Mountain was a distrbutor of Vitus back in the day so these were a little more common out here than you'd think.

I realized by this time that I didn't like drop bars, so we've got a moustache bar here attached to a ControlTech MTB stem. It looks a little wrong from a road bike stance, but I was very comfy on it. There's some Shimano STI levers (that didn't shift that well), a cool Shimano 600 Arabesque headset that needed a special wrench to adjust (not cool), Ultegra cranks, and a fancy Dura-Ace derailleur. I replaced that with a proper 600 "pizza cutter" derailleur.

It rode so smoothly, but I could only ride it on flat trails as a 1x9. Eventually I figured I weighed way too much to ride this thing and broke it down to sell the frame and fork for barely enough to buy a few good beers. Not one of my better moments to be honest.

This is a 1992 Rocky Mountain Altitude that I somehow scored on eBay for cheap. Probably because someone had just painted it all red and striped all the decals off. It had a bunch of cool SunTour MicroDrive stuff on it I think. I had to have it though, because of this;

How cool is that?

I repainted it, put those lousy '99/'00 decals on it, my handbuilt singlespeed wheels with a White Industries ENO hub, superlight Kinesis aluminum fork, and a 180mm RaceFace singlespeed crank. I wonder if this was a rare thing? It didn't have holes to mount a granny ring, which seems kinda crazy now that I think about it.

Ideally, I should have been on a frame one size smaller than this, but for just casual cruising, I remember it being a great rider. But, thinking it was too big for me, I swapped it for a Gary Fisher Sugar frame.... that was probably a size too small.

Another mistake. *sigh*

I sure hope someone saved this bike.

This was my second titanium bike, the Raleigh / Bike Nashbar Titanium. I remember it took some work to figure out what it was, as it had Nashbar decals on it, but had all the same frame details as the Raleigh RSP frames. It was not - I don't think anyway - one of the Russian Ti frames with John Tomac's name on them.

I cannot remember where I got this frame from. I built it up with some bits off my Dekerf, a nice set of Mavic wheels, cheap eBay brakes and RaceFace cranks, and a Surly 1x1 fork. I think I rode it once and really enjoyed it.

I finished it right before the annual Bike Swap, and on a whim, took there to sell it. I really don't know why I did that. I had always wanted a Ti bike, and I sold off the mystery one I had a few years earlier - for no reason I can remember - so why did I get rid of this after riding it once?

I'm looking at this build and it's awesome!

Anyway, I guess I wanted something a little more nice. Like a Moots or a Litespeed. I do recall the welds on this being pretty ugly. But still, pretty sure it was a great rider.

Eight years ago I stole a riff from the The Nails' 88 Lines About 44 Women and wrote 88 Lines About 44 Bikes. I might try to update that, but I think it will be VERY hard to remember all the bikes I've had in the last eight years. I've bought and sold four in the last week alone.

Whatever I can remember, I'll certainly post here.

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restoration videos

7/3/2020

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Recently I've discovered mountain bike restoration videos on YouTube. I don't know why I'm surprised this is a thing, since just about everything is a thing on YouTube. But I was certainly intrigued since this is what I've been doing for maybe 15 years now, minus the videos of course.

It's very interesting to see what other guys do. What tools and techniques they use, and what part choices they make. Especially with this first 'tuber, but we'll get to that later.

The first video I saw was this Kona Explosif from user oldshovel. It was posted in a vintage mountain bike group I belong to on Facebook, and let me tell you, those dudes were not happy.

He fully modernizes this Explosif, giving it a 1x drivetrain, a dropper post, modern(-ish) forks, and..... disc brakes. Putting disc tabs on the frame meant re-painting it.

The finished product looks very sharp, I have to say.

I get why the hardline vintage guys don't like this. The frame appears to be in fantastic condition. It is just way too good to sand down and re-paint. Dudes look for years to find something like this for catalog restorations, and here's this guy striping it down like it's some common Specialized...

And then disc tabs? That's just going too far. No doubt in my mind that there are a ton of guys out there looking for a really clean Explosif to build. I'm one of them. I am very impressed with the work, but this could have been done to any bike.

I just have a hard time seeing the reason for making a small improvement in the offroadability of an old steel frame when ten year old full suspension bikes, now made "obsolete" by modern 27.5" bikes, are cheap as free.

Worse things have been done to better bikes though.

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it's friday night!

7/2/2020

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It's Friday night dammit - let's talk beer!

Time to get back to beer!

Here's what I've had lately;

Viewfield Brett Saison from Driftwood.

This is a taste sensation! Shouldn't be surprised as everything Driftwood does is terrific. It's funky and flavourful, highly recommended.

4/5

The Golden Black Belgian-inspired Stout from Whitetooth.

I'm really digging deep in the memory banks to find what I thought of this, because I didn't check in with it back in May. It was a little smoky and not as heavy as it appears, light and a little sweet. Enjoyable and drinkable.

4/5

I'm going to talk more soon about some smaller BC breweries, as I recently visited Nelson and Castlegar, and the beer there was great.

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Kuwahara Cascade

7/2/2020

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I am now the somewhat proud owner of this fine Kuwahara Cascade. I believe Kuwahara's introduction to the American market - and it was pretty important at the time as I remember - was providing Eliot's BMX bike in E.T the Extraterrestrial. I remember seeing tons of ads in BMX magazines back then.

I don't know when they started making mountain bikes, but I had a U-brake model a few years ago, which was probably an '87 or so. This one is 1993 or '94, and it is very happily equipped with an almost complete Shimano Deore LX group.

Unfortunately it's not got the Parallax hubs, but these ones spin nicely. I'll take them apart and repack them for maximum performance. Some of the LX cantilevers came with cartidge style pads, which were really cool, but these brakes don't have them. There are a couple sets on eBay, but at $60, that's over half the value of this bike.

Finally, and maybe most critically, the front shifter works! I had a moment of terror when after I got home with it, I noticed no clicks in the upshift for the front derailleur. These Shimano rapidfire front shifters were not very durable at all. However, once I got it on the stand, it worked. Once I get a new can of Clean Streak, aka Miracle Sauce, I think it'll click again and work well.

It's made from Tange Infinity tubing, which I don't know much about, and has a set of those great Brahma bars with the bar-ends built in. Also a Kalloy steel seatpost, a Tange headset, and Cheng Shin Ritchey knock-off tires. I'm not totally certain about the tires, but otherwise, this bike is 100% original. It's quite a time capsule really. It has Kuwahara a branded seat and stem, which is just a great touch that old bikes

Which makes me a little sad to strip all the LX parts off it for another bike, but what can you do? My other bike is cooler, so it gets the good parts. It's the harsh reality of vintage bikes - they can't all be Rocky Mountain Thunderbolts fillet brazed by Chris Dekerf. Some - in fact, most - are mass prodcued bikes that didn't always get the respect they deserved.

Even though this is a time capsule, I'll strip it and put it back together with whatever I have left around the shop. It won't be original, but it'll work, and it'll work for a long time. And don't feel bad because I have another bike in a similar state that I'll leave as is.

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BRC sierra

7/2/2020

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I just really like old bikes. You have probably figured that out already if you've read any of my blog. Whenever I see one for sale, I just want it. Not to ride necessarily, but just to appreciate. Take pictures of it, and get it on the internet somewhere. There's really nothing fancy about this BRC, but this is a straight up time capsule from 1988.

This Boyes and Rosser Cycles Sierra came from West Point Cycles in Vancouver. I'm really guessing at it being an '88 model because I bought it along with a 1988 Rocky Mountain also from West Point.

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the summit whisperer

let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be

these are some of the things you left behind

restoration videos

it's friday night!

Kuwahara Cascade

BRC sierra

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