Show us (your) 80's mountain bikes !

Always delighted to have an excuse to show off pictures of my trusty pal since 1989! It'll be third time around for the Saracen and MacRetro dudes and dudoritas so apologies to them.

As I said in August, "Twenty years ago today I collected my brand new Saracen Tufftrax from the Edinburgh Bike Co-op, thrilled at the state of art 21 speed Shimano Hyperglide gearing, Deore thumbshifters and Mountain LX mechs, Biopace chainrings, cantilever brakes, full Cromoly fork and double-butted frame and handbuilt wheels with black anodised rims.

£332.95 it cost me, and That Was A Lot Of Money In Those Days.

Still in daily use today though, and the frame, forks, shifters, mechs, seat, seatpost, bars, stem and grips are still original.

A bargain!

This baby has accompanied me down trails in the Rockies, a run from Edinburgh to Orkney, up countless hills/mountains, in a collision on a roundabout in Portobello and to the shops. Here's to the next 20 years!"

As pictured in August:





No cantis these days, though. I moved to v-brakes as soon as I could as fiddling with cantis was the bane of my life.

Since August I have managed to track down a picture from 1992 when I took coals to Newcastle and had it along with me in Colorado.

Pictured at Lake Brainard, 10,000 ft up in the Roosevelt National Forest. I'm on the left, Doug in the middle has a Trek 7000, and Rosemary is on a Bridgestone MB-4, for the record. The latter bikes will be 90s I assume, as D&R moved there in 90 or 91.


http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2724/4151546660_dae355d574_b.jpg

25 years of storage

It all started when I was looking for a very cheap bike to cruise around the neighborhood with the family. Very cheap meant …… under €180. After searching the market, I realized that cheap brand bikes don’t usually make large frames for my height (1,92cm). That meant that I had to start from €280-€300…… then I saw that for a bit more cash I could buy a bike with disc brakes….. then I saw that I was pulling myself to a higher level…… so I stopped, cause I felt that I was creating a bigger “need” than I actually had planned for.

Now this is where the story becomes weird; I went to this bike shop to take a look and saw that they had some nice brand name bikes with nice prices, but unfortunately, they were one size to small for me…… at that point the owner of this old family business who was this old fellow (no employees… just him and his wife) took me downstairs to the basement cause he said that he wanted to show me something. So we went down, he opened the lights, told me to wait and then came back with this big 58cm mtb which seemed it came out of another era.

It was brand new but left over……. Actually it turned out that it was very very left over. He told me that he had it stocked up for 10 years and back then it cost something like 80.000 Greek Drachmas (who knows…) but that it was hard to sell because of its size and colour……. At that point something went click inside my head…… maybe it was the retro brakes, or maybe the old Shimano gear knobs or even the 2 tone tires, but most of all I think it was the thought that after all these years nobody wanted it and it was sitting there, first in its box, then in the old man’s show room (when he was a young man) and now in a basement of his old shop……. I knew it was outdated but something told me that I just had to have it …...

So I went home, thought about it again and again, then went back, bought it and rode home…….. that night I started searching the net for a clue on what decade it was manufactured.

RESULTS: The bike is not 10 years old…… its not 20 years old……..the bike seem like its an early to mid 80’s model mountain bike. I came to that conclusion after looking at some details which didn’t exist on bikes in the 90’s and 00’s (i.e. gear knobs, frame type and geometry, hanging brake calipers, etc)…….

The brand sticker on the bike reads: “FEDERAL CYCLES” and the model is “Jaguar”…………. Apart for some comments in various forums concerning 80’s FEDERAL bikes ……I can’t locate the brand anywhere…… who cares though …. The guy sold it to me for €130......... I’m wondering if its too much….. but then I ask my self….what are the chances of finding a brand new 25 year old bike that I can ride daily around my neighborhood with my wife and son? ….slim…right?

p.s.i purchased the bike the previous thursday

Holy thread resurrection batman. :shock:

Still, gives me an excuse to post up my only '80s ATB.
It doesn't come close to some of the lovely specimens already shown in this thread, but is representative of the lower end bikes a lot of us started out on.
And someone wanted to see some slack angles!

1989 Peugeot Sahara. Recent ebay purchase and believed all original.

thats a great story, 130 euros doesnt sound too much to me.

my 1986 specialized rock hopper

nice thread revived ,reading back thru it i feel mr K hits it on the head
relevant to the development of an obsession , got a few 80's bikes now
so

DR bonds old fuji , at glentress


88/9 titan half track ,painted in a cornish rock zombies tribute scheme


89 ms racing

I absolutely love that story paul68gr, definitely worthy of resurrecting this thread. If I'd finished building my Peugeot then I would have posted a picture, but it might be a month or two yet.

What a fantastic first post.

Also, I love the Cook Broas Bonzo Fury on the first page and find it amazing how these bikes can combine being clearly designs of the 80s period yet still have a lovely timeless quality to their designs, notably the Merlin.

I still hope to get a mid to early 80s bike in the future, but I may have to part with some others first.

lewis1641":2lixcab1 said:

my 1986 specialized rock hopper

Click to expand...

I like

I love that Overbury's too.

Boring old 80's Kona:

Somehow, I missed this thread!

Enid_Puceflange":3cn3j5y8 said:

Me with my Grandmother, around 88-89 with my (i think) 86-87 Cannondale Sm-400

Gc

Click to expand...

There is something about this photo that just warms my heart....thanks.

I have a few to add:

1986 Ritchey Timber Comp, and an Ascent from the same era:



My 1985-ish Marinoni Moose (under construction):



1985-ish Diamond Back APEX-one of the nicest under-appreciated bikes I've ever had, and wish I still had:



1987-ish Marin, also sold on-not the original paint/decals, but the parts are original:



1987 Fat Chance, also redone and gone-repowdercoated at the same time as the Marin.....:

Wow, the colours on that Marin and Fat Chance make them look like Barnet FC (or Hull City) inspired bikes. Which might not mean much since you're in the States. Sorry, I love football.

Thanks to the ones who unearthed this thread, I simply forgot aboutit it, shame on me,
This gives me the opportunity to post my own bike as I finally found one dating from 1985.
It's a french Bertin, mostly known for their roadbikes. If I'm not mistaken it was sort of equivalent to Claud Butler, a small company bearing the name of a former racer and producing good bikes from bottom to high range. They were located in the north of France.
Rightly in the fashion of the early eighties, components are a mix of french (crankset, saddle post) , british (saddle, hub brakes) and japanese (stem, rims, shifters, derailers) productions. The frame is of unknown tubing but not so heavy and quite sporty (road heritage). I must say I like it very much and it has almost made me forget about my craving for a californian bike !
Cheers.
Karl