Lets see your Shop Brand Mtb's

Up here in Edinburgh we have Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op who have pretty much always punted out their own branded bikes now branded Revolution. Some of these have been discovered to be rebranded Claud Butler and Dawes bikes and others generic far eastern stuff. For a short time in the 90's a wee bike shop in Edinburghs Grassmarket was punting out fat tubed alloy mtb's as a shop brand as well. In Stafford you have Henry Burtons, my ex-wife was from Stafford and I visited the shop often. Some of the big chain stores have their own marques such as Carrera from Halford's, Pinnacle from Evans, B'Twin from Decathlon.
So has anyone got a shop brand they are not too ashamed to post up a pic of and wax lyrical about. I'm just curious to see what else was out there ?

Re:

velo, the wee shop in the Grassmarket, was it on the corner on the right just as you headed out to the Cowgate?
I remember buying a full suspension frame from there in the 90s. Think it was a Ballistic.

Aye that was the shop. When I was in they had numerous fat tubed alloy jobs with lovely Irn Bru metalic orange paint jobs and various differing spec builds. Wish I'd bought one now !

No pics but I had one of the Merlin Malt series with the spiral external butting and nickel plating.

Which was nice.

legrandefromage":2ixobz1n said:

No pics but I had one of the Merlin Malt series with the spiral external butting and nickel plating.

Which was nice.

Click to expand...

+1 on the Merlin Malts. Here's my '94. Very under-rated bikes. I've kept mine and got rid of Kona, Specialized, GT etc. which were not as good to ride.

Re:

velo, I was trying to remember the name of the shop, came up with Mountain Magic but wasn't sure so Googled it and this RetroBike thread came up
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=122963
As you can see big eck replied with info about the shop and the bike. Do remember a conversation with big eck about the shop a while back.

Then there's this pic



from this post,
"Hardly the vintage of posts above, the 1st 'decent' bike I bought from own wages in '96; grip-shift marvel - No idea what make, bought from the short-lived Mountain Magic shop in Edinburghs Grassmarket. Used mainly for adverse weather road-riding now, hence replaced crankset + v-brakes. Occasionally bung on some xc tyres for smoother trail-riding when I'm feeling nostalgic! "

It's from this thread on Singletrackworld http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic ... it-offroad

Might post a pic of the '90s full suspension frame I bought there to see if anyone recognises it, was told by shop it was a Ballistic but it didn't have any decals on it so not sure it is.

Re:

I've got some old MBUK's and there's loads of Mail order shop(!) adverts with Ballistic framesets with some quite decent pics; DDG and Handsome Dog too, so there's a good chance it's able to be identified.

gerryattrick":117psix6 said:

legrandefromage":117psix6 said:

No pics but I had one of the Merlin Malt series with the spiral external butting and nickel plating.

Which was nice.

Click to expand...

+1 on the Merlin Malts. Here's my '94. Very under-rated bikes. I've kept mine and got rid of Kona, Specialized, GT etc. which were not as good to ride.

Click to expand...

I used to buy a lot of my parts from Merlin, and wouldn't mind a nice Malt steel frame to add to my collection.

legrandefromage":mgj2vrzu said:

No pics but I had one of the Merlin Malt series with the spiral external butting and nickel plating.

Which was nice.

Click to expand...

I have one, spiral down tube, here in bright slick road attire....

And a more modern Merlin Malt.