RetroShopper

[Russell]

I have ridden Geoff Apps designed bikes since 1985 and I can't understand, after all these years, why you can't go into a shop and buy tough off-road bikes like these.

Because the industry can't admit that the 'Marin pioneers' got their initial design wrong and that every MTB made from the 80's to the late 90's was based on fundamentally flawed principles?

The glamour of a Californian bike cruising the sun-bleached trails sells bikes. Mud-pluggin' in the UK doesn't

 

[barry2017]

Now is the bit where I sound like a conspiracy theorist!
The way I see it, you can't buy reliable bikes because GrahamJohnWallace has owned his bike since 1988 and by all accounts does laughably small amounts of maintenance on it.
Reliable bikes are not generally available for the simple reason that the industry would lose huge amounts of money if everyone stopped buying disposable ones.

 

[GrahamJohnWallace]

Because the industry can't admit that the 'Marin pioneers' got their initial design wrong and that every MTB made from the 80's to the late 90's was based on fundamentally flawed principles?

The 'Marin' bikes were designed for the thrills and spills of racing. And racing, though exciting and fun, is not what the majority of people use mountain bikes for.

The Clelands were designed to allow Geoff Apps to go motorbike trials riding in the countryside, without the noise and disturbance caused by his motorbike. This exploring and touring is what many people would like to use their mountain bikes for, but most stay on-road or ride on Sustrans style tracks. The reasons for this are:

*they can't read a map,

*they don't know how to fix a bike that breaks down in the middle of nowhere

*and, in Britain, there expensive new bikes would easily get damaged and they and the bike, covered in mud.

If you walk into an outdoors shop in Britain you find waterproofs, waterproof boots and wellies. If you walk into a mountainbike shop you find shiny bikes designed for racing in California, mudguards that don't guard you or the bike from mud, derailleur systems where the chain cleans the mud off the rear tyre as you pedal, and brake disks that can be bent by a twig.

A Cleland is not anything special or exotic, it's just the bike equivalent of a reliable and comfortable pair of old walking boots.

Chris, I recently I discovered that the 1980 Range-Rider from Richard's Mountain Bike book still exists. Now there's an interesting restoration project.