A Tale of Two Bontragers - c1990 and c1992 O.R.

jimi911

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I picked up an early Santa Cruz c1990 Bontrager OR a couple of years ago and it hasn't made into the assembly line until now. I also impulse bought a c1992 O.R. for the heck of it a couple months ago so this looks like a double bonty build thread.

Kinda neat to see the design differences.




 
Re:

I'd say '94 not '92 on the newer one... ;)

I have a '91, '92, '94 and the '92 is much more like the '91 - differences are more minor, like closed cap under the wishbone etc. Those dropouts are certainly not '92, and they're more 'formed' than the '93 which was first year for vertical dropouts, so I'd go 'early '94 before the change to arrow decals...

:)
 
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A few of my buddies were all debating the age of the 2nd one. They all have Bontragers as well. We were pretty sure the older one is a 90 or 91, but the newer one we were less sure of. One of them is a former dealer/racer (he’s got a cool half Brazed 1990 bonty). He was saying that 92-94 was a bit of crap shoot for design features. Apparently those dropouts appeared in 92, but were only consistently used from 93 up. There’s also a 94 seat tube mod that shows up in 1994. The purple colour I’m told is a late 1992-1993 thing ... and it came with xt735. Anyway ... who knows. Maybe I’ll just say c1993 and try to stay in the middle. :LOL:
 
Signing in for this one (two)
 
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I have pretty much everything for both of these builds.

The c1990 O.R. will get a Bontrager Race fork. Dang thing was seized pretty solid so it took a bit of convincing to get it apart. Its set to be rechromed along with the stem and bar. Yes the frame is also changing colour.

A nice simple NOS Mag 21 for the c1992 O.R. From my stash :) I haven't built a bike with a gold mag fork in a while. Totally the #1 part of my era of riding.

 
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Looking forward to seeing the results - I'm very jealous.

I keep trawling ebay for a nice Bontrager frame and backing out at the last minute because I don't have any suitable parts to get one built up and the costs would get silly.
 
:cool: Nice, twice.

I like some of the features on the '90 frame, are they both the same size?
 
mkone":34o6cvj0 said:
:cool: Nice, twice.

I like some of the features on the '90 frame, are they both the same size?

The 1990 is a 19" c2c and the 1992 is 18" c2c ... though the designed changed as you can see. The TT on the 92 is longer. I expect the fit to be close on both.
 
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