Shifting systems and full suspension brought an end to this. Shifter compatibility was already making life difficult from the first introduction of Shimano's Rapidfire and road STI products. Competing companies each had different standards, all vying for market control. The retro-grouch mechanic can only do so much to throw a wrench into the bike industry's plans. And the emergence of full suspension really put the pressure on everyone's wallets trying to keep up with the state of the art.
As the 21st Century dawned, riders who had dropped out for various reasons would return, from school, or military service, or family commitments, or busy work schedules, looking to get back into some of the fun they remembered. I call these people Van Winkles, after the Washington Irving character who slept for 20 years. They are always astounded by how much technology has changed and prices have gone up since the last time they looked at a bike. A few of them embrace the new and shell out for the new stuff. A good percentage of them just junk the bike and find something else to do for fun. Or they buy lower-quality stuff because it's "new," so it must be better than fixing something old.
This season has already brought several Van Winkles out of the forest. It's interesting to look at the old equipment and compare it to what it evolved into.
This 1995-ish Rockshox Quadra fork was made during the transition from forks that could be fully disassembled to forks with one-piece crown and stanchions and one-piece lower tube assemblies. The crown and stanchions on this generation of Rockshox are bonded, but the lower legs are not only removable, but interchangeable right and left, so you didn't have to keep track of that during service. The innards are identical in both sides.
Because the legs are interchangeable, the fork ends have dual "lawyer's lips" to retain the wheel if the quick release skewer falls open. Not only that, the inner set will help retain the wheel if a skewer outright fails. You could view this as an evolutionary step toward the through-axle.
Another Van Winkle brought in a Cannondale F900 with a Lefty fork, from the early 21st Century. The fork appears to be functioning okay, but it has a brake problem.
The early disc brake era was marked by the same kind of experimentation as the early suspension era. And Cannondale was notorious for trying to design their own shit from the ground up. Anyone remember their motorcycle? Don't feel bad if you don't. The unfortunate experiment was very brief. According to what I've read, it wasn't brief enough. So this fairly okay hard tail mountain bike with its weird, one-legged fork and the proprietary hub that goes with it has CODA disc brakes. I think you can actually find pads for them, but not much else. They made a huge secret of their brake fluid formulation (mineral oil). Their literature at the time said it was "designed by NASA!"
The front brake on this F900 has lost its will to live. We should be able to find a brake that will mount to the tabs on the fork, but Cannondale decided to use a 171mm rotor. What the hell kind of size is that? The rear is 151. And they mount with four bolts. So changing out the front brake will mean changing out the front wheel. You can get 6-bolt Lefty hubs. You can get carbon fiber Lefty forks that get great reviews. So this machine can be recovered...for a price.
Here's where my Van Winkleism comes into play. Once we stopped selling Cannondale, I stopped paying attention to all their weird bullshit. I worked a little with the early CODA brakes and Lefty forks. But when we dropped the line I was happy not to have to explain and apologize for a lot of their spec choices. The Headshok design was very smooth, but too limited in its travel to appeal to the emerging class of rider that would settle for nothing less than 100mm of travel, preferably 120. The Lefty was a way to move the mechanism out of the head tube, where it could stretch its legs -- er, leg -- a bit more.
Even though the Lefty is still in production, forget the 26-inch wheels. Looks like the hubs you can get and that stub axle are still compatible, though. I can build this guy a wheel on a six-bolt hub. It all comes down to money. Does he want to do the rear wheel at the same time, to get ahead of the inevitable failure down the road? That has a 151mm rotor, also mounted with four bolts, so it would require another wheel replacement. Or maybe we can get someone to machine some 160 rotors to fit that four-bolt mounting. That sounds practical, doesn't it?
The rider fits the classic profile of a person who invested in something state of the art, intending to enjoy it for a long time, and then got diverted by life and never got to use it much. The bike has storage dust on it, but no trail dirt. The rear cassette is shiny and clean. So he wants to get something out of his investment now. It will be the usual treasure hunt. I'll gather information and lay out his options.
A lot of mountain bike riders around here had not been cyclists before the mountain bike craze, and a large percentage of them did not become the kind of addicts that the industry mistakenly identifies as its best bet for high-volume sales. Did the heads of the bike companies want to shrink it back to aficionados with whom they could identify, and chase the rabble out? Or did they really believe that their expensive and excruciatingly sophisticated products were so beguiling that the briefest exposure would trigger an irresistible craving?
Civilians believe that they will find expertise in the shops, and that a high price always indicates a worthwhile investment. Through the 1980s, especially in road bikes, that was largely true. I have a couple of frames, and a lot of componentry, that dates from later than the '80s, but it's all pretty retro stuff. My current road bike frame was built in the 1980s. This is the perception that most non-cyclists have of bicycles: simple, lovable machines that they can own for years and keep in shape with minimal maintenance. Even riders who bought into the mountain bike boom in the 1990s didn't think about how all of those moving parts and sub-assemblies in the suspension, and the fidgety-widgety disc brakes brought with them perishable substances like shock oil, brake fluid, and elastomers. They didn't spend enough time with the bike industry to realize how they were being herded and fleeced.
In defense of the bike industry, they're only partly soulless bean counters. They're also smitten with their technology, and love to solve the problems that the most obsessed and hard-driving riders are encountering. I remember an article in either a consumer publication or Bicycle Retailer back in the mid '90s, complaining that the industry was focusing too hard on racers and not enough on the people who were just out for a good time on a mix of technical trails and milder paths and roads. Riders wanted to be able to mix it up. Early mountain bikes would do that a lot better than the technical marvels of today. Nowadays, if you want a go-anywhere off-road bike you have to know that you're probably looking for a "bikepacking" model rather than the catch-all "mountain bike" that no longer exists. And your bikepacker model will have more piercings than a goth teen with a big allowance. They're keeping the braze-on industry in business.
In another archaeological moment, El Queso Grande dug up this publication from 1990, laying out the perilous predicament of mountain biking in the USA (mostly the western USA) as a result of rude and reckless riding by those hooligans on fat tires.
Because I was on the East Coast and completely out of touch with the industry from 1981 to 1989, I knew very little about how mountain biking was evolving. I had a racing bike, a touring bike, and a commuter fixed gear. I knew mountain bikes existed, but I hadn't been close to many of them.
The fixed gear was my path and trail bike, to the extent that I found anything like that in Annapolis, Maryland. One of my commute options bushwhacked from a dead-end street onto the grounds of some Navy housing, but it wasn't as much fun as threading the corners on the regular streets, and not much shorter, either. I didn't look for trails as such until the cyclocross series started around 1986, and we all built ourselves some form of 'cross bike. Even then I could take it or leave it. Only moving to actual mountains made an actual mountain bike interesting.
Here in New Hampshire, there was a little bit of friction from a few landowners, but we had no shortage of places to ride. Event promoters ran into snags when they tried to direct large numbers of participants onto a course and discovered who actually owned what, and how they felt about a thundering herd rather than a trickle of riders. The same thing happened when riders would try to produce a guidebook for their area. Other than that, the problems were generally limited to riders trying to use designated wilderness areas in the National Forest, and the first few unsanctioned singletrack builders here and there. I was interested to see how early mountain bikers managed to offend existing trail users the way the invasive fat bikers have been riding over the toes of cross-country skiers in a microcosm of the first wave of mountain biking many decades ago. Everything is smaller than it used to be, except for the bikes themselves.
The answer for three-season off-road riders has been to acquire land or use rights, and build their own closed courses. Fat bikers are following suit, either by using existing connections to the three-season rider category or by developing their own landowner relations. Before you can have a trail, you need a place to put it. That's why you can't really afford to piss anyone off. A strong arm only gets you as far as your arm will reach, for as long as your strength lasts. The promoters today are stressing the economic benefits of attracting people who have already been willing to shell out at least a thousand bucks for their ride, and are eager to find places to use it. And a thousand bucks is the ante. The real players are plunking down twice that much, and more. Lots of people have that kind of coin, right?
Fewer and fewer every year. But don't believe the dying canary on the floor of the mine. It just has a negative attitude.
Even though the Lefty is still in production, forget the 26-inch wheels. Looks like the hubs you can get and that stub axle are still compatible, though. I can build this guy a wheel on a six-bolt hub. It all comes down to money. Does he want to do the rear wheel at the same time, to get ahead of the inevitable failure down the road? That has a 151mm rotor, also mounted with four bolts, so it would require another wheel replacement. Or maybe we can get someone to machine some 160 rotors to fit that four-bolt mounting. That sounds practical, doesn't it?
The rider fits the classic profile of a person who invested in something state of the art, intending to enjoy it for a long time, and then got diverted by life and never got to use it much. The bike has storage dust on it, but no trail dirt. The rear cassette is shiny and clean. So he wants to get something out of his investment now. It will be the usual treasure hunt. I'll gather information and lay out his options.
A lot of mountain bike riders around here had not been cyclists before the mountain bike craze, and a large percentage of them did not become the kind of addicts that the industry mistakenly identifies as its best bet for high-volume sales. Did the heads of the bike companies want to shrink it back to aficionados with whom they could identify, and chase the rabble out? Or did they really believe that their expensive and excruciatingly sophisticated products were so beguiling that the briefest exposure would trigger an irresistible craving?
Civilians believe that they will find expertise in the shops, and that a high price always indicates a worthwhile investment. Through the 1980s, especially in road bikes, that was largely true. I have a couple of frames, and a lot of componentry, that dates from later than the '80s, but it's all pretty retro stuff. My current road bike frame was built in the 1980s. This is the perception that most non-cyclists have of bicycles: simple, lovable machines that they can own for years and keep in shape with minimal maintenance. Even riders who bought into the mountain bike boom in the 1990s didn't think about how all of those moving parts and sub-assemblies in the suspension, and the fidgety-widgety disc brakes brought with them perishable substances like shock oil, brake fluid, and elastomers. They didn't spend enough time with the bike industry to realize how they were being herded and fleeced.
In defense of the bike industry, they're only partly soulless bean counters. They're also smitten with their technology, and love to solve the problems that the most obsessed and hard-driving riders are encountering. I remember an article in either a consumer publication or Bicycle Retailer back in the mid '90s, complaining that the industry was focusing too hard on racers and not enough on the people who were just out for a good time on a mix of technical trails and milder paths and roads. Riders wanted to be able to mix it up. Early mountain bikes would do that a lot better than the technical marvels of today. Nowadays, if you want a go-anywhere off-road bike you have to know that you're probably looking for a "bikepacking" model rather than the catch-all "mountain bike" that no longer exists. And your bikepacker model will have more piercings than a goth teen with a big allowance. They're keeping the braze-on industry in business.
In another archaeological moment, El Queso Grande dug up this publication from 1990, laying out the perilous predicament of mountain biking in the USA (mostly the western USA) as a result of rude and reckless riding by those hooligans on fat tires.
The fixed gear was my path and trail bike, to the extent that I found anything like that in Annapolis, Maryland. One of my commute options bushwhacked from a dead-end street onto the grounds of some Navy housing, but it wasn't as much fun as threading the corners on the regular streets, and not much shorter, either. I didn't look for trails as such until the cyclocross series started around 1986, and we all built ourselves some form of 'cross bike. Even then I could take it or leave it. Only moving to actual mountains made an actual mountain bike interesting.
Here in New Hampshire, there was a little bit of friction from a few landowners, but we had no shortage of places to ride. Event promoters ran into snags when they tried to direct large numbers of participants onto a course and discovered who actually owned what, and how they felt about a thundering herd rather than a trickle of riders. The same thing happened when riders would try to produce a guidebook for their area. Other than that, the problems were generally limited to riders trying to use designated wilderness areas in the National Forest, and the first few unsanctioned singletrack builders here and there. I was interested to see how early mountain bikers managed to offend existing trail users the way the invasive fat bikers have been riding over the toes of cross-country skiers in a microcosm of the first wave of mountain biking many decades ago. Everything is smaller than it used to be, except for the bikes themselves.
The answer for three-season off-road riders has been to acquire land or use rights, and build their own closed courses. Fat bikers are following suit, either by using existing connections to the three-season rider category or by developing their own landowner relations. Before you can have a trail, you need a place to put it. That's why you can't really afford to piss anyone off. A strong arm only gets you as far as your arm will reach, for as long as your strength lasts. The promoters today are stressing the economic benefits of attracting people who have already been willing to shell out at least a thousand bucks for their ride, and are eager to find places to use it. And a thousand bucks is the ante. The real players are plunking down twice that much, and more. Lots of people have that kind of coin, right?
Fewer and fewer every year. But don't believe the dying canary on the floor of the mine. It just has a negative attitude.
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