I had a Zaskar '99 bought in 2000 January sales with 'Made In USA' sticker on it. It was overbuilt compared to an earlier Zaskar I knew - extra gusseting around the headtube especially. Rigid enough to make me buy a suspension seatpost!

Scrapped it in 2003 after I finished work to find a great dent in the top tube. Nice.....not.

Zaskar Race,from 2001.red and black for UK market is taiwanese produced,the shop i work in sold a few,most broke at the triple triangle,some broke at the bottom bracket and others snapped the disc mount off when you braked.We had a couple of failures on the us-made Zaskars and these were replaced from 2000 onwards with the taiwanese versions,which have disc mounts,are 7005 alloy and were silver with blue graphics,or orange and dark purple.These also occasionally snapped the disc mounts clean off and the caliper would come round with the wheel and hit the seat stay.I had a 1999 Zaskar,and these were us-made,6061.There was also the le version,these were us-made,the team version was yellow and blue,disc mount and there is one on Flea-bay today in 12.5".These have a stainless,machined head tube badge,nice frame,no failures on the few of these that we sold.Anything 7005 alloy is made in the far east,NOT USA.

wrong

wrong again

Don't be so supercilious, whats wrong? The fact that the 'race' was lighter or the fact that I'm not sure about something? I'm quite confident that me not being sure about something isn't something that you can judge to be either right or wrong so you must mean the weight thing? If thats the case then rather than rather than just typing "wrong", be a bit more useful, tell me why I'm wrong and and back it up with some actual frame weights please.

Quite happy to be wrong (I'm really not that bothered) but would like to know why.

Likewise.... Back it up buttercup.

Scroll down the page at this link: http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=345824
Ther isn't a bike manufacturer on the planet that puts a lighter frame under a bike with LX componenets (ZasKar Race) than one that has XTR components (Zaskar Team). It just isn't done that way. You have too much riding on weight these days when you spec a bike and nobodies going to pay for a tank with XTR on it.
I wish I had kept a listing of all the wieghts for the frames I've sold the past few years. I know the Race wasn't lighter that the Teams and LE's even though they had disc mounts on them.

Ah I see, what you're saying is that you don't actually know the weights either. I'll help you out, heres some frame weights (descending order) that I've lifted from the Weight Weenies site. I appreciate that it isn't definative, but its the only info we have. I've filtered out large frames so it only includes medium or smalls to be a fair comparison. It clearly shows that the Race frame is the lightest frame, in fact a 14.5"LE is nearly 200g heavier than a 16" Race according to this info.

GT Zaskar 2000 17.5" 1825g
GT Zaskar LE 1998 14.5" 1730gwith gear hanger
GT Zaskar Race 2002 M 1632gw/ seatpost clamp
GT Zaskar Pro 2003 Medium 1619gw/out seat clamp
GT Zaskar Race 2001 16" (S) 1576g

Like I said, not definative by any means, but as its all we have, I'm willing to go with it.


[/b]

Nice to see a thread on the best Hardtail frame ever made........ IMO

hi matey i got a 2000 gt zaskar race brand new off ebay for 65 quid red and black i hate red so striped the paint off and it has easton elite 7005 stamped in the tubes cheers yes its very light for a chunky strong frame if you get one get a rear brake booster if you use v brakes as the frame can flex
cheers dave