Archangel’s 1993 Klein Adroit ‘Tinker Juarez Replica’

Ever since I saw a Sachs chain add featuring Tinker Juarez on his Klein Adroit EX in Team Storm paintjob on the pages of Mountain Bike Action magazine in 1993, I have lusted after a similar Klein. I remember drawing pics of Team Storm Adroit on my Physics exercise book during high school lessons. At the time, it was more exciting for a young man than learning about gravity!

Fast forward 12 years. After graduating from the University, I was able to get a good and well-paid job and my love for the bikes from my teen years began anew. Now I was able to buy those bikes I drooled after while reading the American bike magazines but never had funds to buy any of them. From the beginning of my retro bike collecting hobby, I knew I HAD to find a Storm or Nightstorm Klein for me some day.

Archangel & Klein

A few of those appeared on eBay but I missed them due to bad luck. Then IT popped up on eBay in October 2007. A Klein Adroit in 19″ size and with Team Storm paintjob. But there was something different with this bike. It had old style Klein logos whereas all the others I had seen had the new MC2 era font type logos. The paint was somewhat different too compared to other Storm Kleins. The frame was used and had many scratches on it and on top of that, fellow Retrobike members started to call the thunderclouds as brains, mocking them as ridiculous. I thought, well, this might be my only chance to buy a correct sized Storm Klein even if it had a suspension fork and not my favoured rigid Strata fork. In a retrospect, several Storm Adroits have appeared since on eBay but none of them have sported the early paintjob.
I put up a large bid on eBay and got the frameset for a very expensive price. As it turned out, the seller was a really nice guy from New York, USA who happened to be a huge Klein fan with numerous Attitudes and Adroits, many of them NOS. Since the price was about 4 times more than he had paid for the bike some years ago, he gave me the other parts (wheels, drivetrain, etc.) for free and charged only the USPS shipping costs while he shipped it with FedEx. Quite nice thing to do even if he didn’t need to.

(more…)

Following on nicely from DrS’ RC-100 BoTM victory we have 20 questions with Adrian Carter of Pace Cycles, one of the leading lights of the British MTB scene.

Adrian Carter with early proto RC100 from about 1988. Note the 24in rear wheel and drum brakes. The bike also had the first threadless headset (bored out Shimano 105 road headset) fitted with one-piece steerer tube stem.

Retrobike: Hello Adrian.

1) RB: Ok, we’ve all heard stories about tubes not rolling off workbenches, box section strength and cartoonists saying they’re easier to shade…
why were they really square section then?

Adrian Carter: Nope not heard those stories and no one ever made fun of square tubes that I can remember. Actually we used box in some frame areas for the same reason why many manufacturers now use them- because you can make them handle a load better when the load is directional. That is, if the load acting upon a frame tube is the same from all directions then it makes sense to have a round tube- but we know that in fact there are primary loads acting upon a frame tube and these don’t come from all directions but from a particular one (vertical loads being a main one). So we spent some time doing the math, studying what loads really were applied and using a bit of FEA to determine what the loads were, what direction they were coming from, then stretching the axis of the tube to best withstand them. So we had square, rectangular, round and of course round plus two vertical webs up the back in the case of the head tube! (just showing off at that point).

2) RB: Did you intend to create quite such an ahead (geddit?) of it’s time machine as the original RC100? Or was that just something that came naturally when you saw how ‘orthodox’ many manufacturers were being?

AC: I was from a moto background, not cycle. So I hadn’t been influenced by the traditions of cycle frame design. Climbing off a long travel fire breathing dirt bike onto an early MTB was bit of a shock (mostly to the arms and back). Any level of redesign would have been an improvement. Being a petrol head made me receptive to motorcycle and general automotive design concepts and how sound engineering could be applied, rather than what could be redesigned within all the crap industry constraints – roadie BB size, pre war headset designs etc etc. Additionally the first prototype Pace frames were not designed with any commercial intent- they were almost interesting design exercises and diversions as we just played around with parts we’d made for our own early mountain bikes. I couldn’t have possibly imagined that it would lead to the vast wealth, legions of MTB groupies and glass pyramid Pace HQ sat in our own private moorland retreat.

Pace RC-100 blueprint

3) RB: Like many, I remember lusting after that bike in the small press picture that appeared in MBUK back in 1989. But what was the drilled black shoulder pad looking thing under the top tube/ seat tube bridge?
And why didn’t it make production?

AC: Bit of closed cell foam we chopped out on a band saw to make shouldering the bike easy. But it looked naff and wasn’t the right density so it was consigned to the skip. Shouldering the bike – now there’s a good reason for box sections.

(more…)

For those who have expressed interest and would like some new Retrobike Endura kit please check the thread here.

We now have more than enough orders to go ahead and will be placing the order asap to try and ensure delivery for MM.

Welcome to the first and almost certainly last in our self-penned 20 questions series (16 in this case). This article features retrobike’s #1 skip monkey, bin raider and angle grinder operator, the one and only Legrandfromage.

Legrandfromage, recently.

1) Legrandfromage: so, who the hell are you to be doing a ‘20 questions’ thing when all you do is wind up people on the site by finding ’stuff’?

Legrandfromage: I thought it was a funny idea… I live near a recycling centre that has provided some fantastic stuff that people simply throw away. And I dont get out much.

2) LGF: whats you best find?

LGF: In terms of value – a broken Macbook Pro – sold for silly money. In terms of ‘I’ll keep forever’ theres been some Campagnolo stuff that I simply couldnt part with. Theres also been some Hifi gear that I wont part with (my other interest).

3) LGF: Do you worry that people think you go around nicking stuff? Afterall, some of your ‘finds’ have been pretty spectacular.

LGF: Yes, I do worry, alot. I worked in Cash Converters for years and was offered so much hooky stuff. I learnt to spot the idiots – I’ve never knowingly accepted stolen goods. I’ve always bought from Police Auctions or recycling centres. Car boot sales are tricky, but experience helps. Its amazing what people consider rubbish.

4) LGF: do you have a criminal record?

LGF: Funny question, but, no, I dont. Regular CRB checks with my current job show I’ve never been the wrong side of the law. Can we talk cycling stuff now?

5) LGF: Sure, sorry – so, how long have you been rebuilding bikes?

LGF: Back in 1990 -ish a school mate gave me an old touring bike to do up for him. It was one of my best restorations. He was a good friend, I was proud of that rebuild.

6) LGF: whats been your favourite bike?

LGF: My first, nothing can ever reinact those first moments of freedom when you realise that you can actually ride a bicycle.

(more…)

English off-road pioneer Geoff Apps has finally been nominated for the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame by Graham Wallace.

Click here for full details > http://www.completesite.com/mbhof/page.cfm?pageid=7&categoryid=4&memberid=209

A fine victory for a British classic!