1991 Bradbury Manitou FS

[mkozaczek]

Been sitting on this one for a while and figured it might be fun to post it up. Picked up the frame from Doug B's shed in CO back in 2015/2016 and finally built it up last year. This is the very first Manitou FS built in 1991 and featured in numerous mags and for promotion. Frame was cracked when I got it, I had FTW replace the HT and kept the rest pretty much in tact. The parts on the final build are all original and were recovered among other stuff I got from Doug. The only things I had to truly hunt for were a pair of prototype M900 front brakes which took a little while. All of the XTR on the bike was stickered as PROTOTYPE, RD was originally XT so I stuck with that.

I've had the bike out on several rides and other than the top of the rear suspension hitting the calves (fixed in later designs) it rides great. Bit flexy, rear wheels walks some under load, but nothing too bad. Will run some wider tires soon which I think will help settle it down some.

As found pics

Pre restoration pics

 

[markoc]

Bookmarked! That's awesome

 

[mkozaczek]

Here is some of the original media from 1991/91

 

[27motorhead]

Great find and rescued by one of the best (FTW!) interesting to see the prototype stickers on the XTR too! Look forward to seeing the built up pics...

 

[mkozaczek]

Here are the final photos of the bike as Doug had it, you can see he had the threadless stem on there (as found) with a Manitou 2 fork. Though I kept that stem I decided to rebuild the bike to the original condition in the original magazine scans shown earlier.

 

[Suprachrgd82]

Jeez dude, that's a significant piece of MTB history. Definitely worthy of center stage at the Marin MTB museum.

 

[Retro Spud]

Jeez dude, that's a significant piece of MTB history. Definitely worthy of center stage at the Marin MTB museum.

100% what he said ^

 

[mkozaczek]

100% what he said ^

It's a piece of history, but just fine in my loft with some periodic trail time.

 

[mkozaczek]

Here are some final pics of the as-built. I'll post up some trail pics soon.

Build spec
Frame 91 DBM FS (90mm BB shell, 145mm rear spacing)
DBM Manitou fork
DBM modified XTR rear hub and custom front hub
DBM modified IRD seatpost
Selle Italia Flite saddle
DBM 1 1/4" quill stem
Shimano Hyperlite handlebar
Chris King 1 1/4" EVO threaded headset
DBM modified Shimano front derailleur
Cook Bros custom BB and RSR cranks
Ringle QRs, custom DBM lengths
Shimano M900 XTR (Prototype) STIs and brakes (rear brakes modified to fit frame)
Shimano M737 XT short cage rear derailleur

 

[mkozaczek]

Few more pics