VINTAGE MTB: February 2011

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Tires, the road dirt kind

Since I haven't been seeing many old MTBs on the streets recently, I figured a post about tires was in order. I'm a big fan of these tires that have been marketed as "urban jumping," or "dirt jumping," or "cruiser" tires. A buddy and I have been riding around on a set Panaracer UFF DAs 2.3", and they are amazing, super fun tires.

They're fast on the road and pretty sticky in the dirt. The low tread profile makes them wicked in mud. And, since I'm a pretty big fan of "riding to the ride" they won't harsh your mellow getting out to the trail. When I first got these, I really wanted to buy some Schwalbe Fat Franks.

They come in cool colors and don't have an offensive space age tread design. They come in a 2.35"! They also cost just about double the UFF DA. I like to spend money on my bikes to buy good parts but when you're building up a new project 80 bucks of tires will blow the budget pretty fast. Then again, if you have to have some color, this is the option. But in some recent digging I noticed the Crazy Bob:

They also come in a 2.35" and have a nice basic tread design and the price is about the same as the UFF DA. Maybe I'll try these on the next project...

Also of note is the Big Apple. It looks like its more geared to hardpack than to cruising. Still costs about 35 bucks.

And there's the Geax Tattoo Light 2.3" Same idea as several above, An urban assault thing. Looks like a snake's underbelly, so it's got that going for it. Comes in white too.

And the blocky treaded Geax Booze, also 2.3:

Sunday, February 20, 2011

A weird thing

Saw this recenty on Cl. I'm not a fan of bonded aluminum, but I've gotta say this thing looks pretty chunky awesome. Check that headtube! It's a Miyata Alumitech Trail Runner.

Monday, February 14, 2011

No road bikes

I saw this sign this weekend riding my road bike out in Morgan Territory. No road bikes in the woods bro!

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Digging

I'm spending the day in bed sick with not much to do so I figured I could dig around a bit and find some MTB gems buried on the web. I tried to avoid posting easy stuff to find, like images from popular forums, although in a couple of cases I got some of those too. I'm really most interested in early 1982-86 lugged steel frames, preferably ones with nice wide fork crowns. Also my preference is for production bikes since I feel like there are lots of neat early MTBs that you can get your hands on without breaking the bank buying "collector" custom bikes like a Ritchey or a Fat Chance. The web and forums are full of folks who have those bikes and there's a lot of info out there about them. In my experience there is far less info and interest about early production mountain bikes other than the Stumpjumper. I did include a section of Italian bikes which contrary to what I just said are both collectible and expensive, but still rad and not as well known.

American:

Schwinn Miranda