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Completed May 2021 Setting The Scene: Its fair to say I'm a huge Pace fan taking inspiration from Jerky, Gil M ,Rich Matthews, Bollox64 as well as many others Through the years I've seen some epic Pace builds. DR s (pretty sure he sprayed his RC100 six times until he was happy with the colour) , Neil Millard's, Rich's Pink Pace (Mavic Groupset) and the perfection that Bollox64 goes to with his builds. I can't write about amazing Paces and not mention Bibbsey's original RC100 with a Campy groupset which is outstanding In the late 90's a friend turned up on a Red F7 to go for a bike ride and id honestly never seen anything as stunning. I made him give me first refusal and when he later wanted to buy an Orange I jumped at the chance of...

In the early 1980s, Chris Chance, an American frame-builder who specialized in TT and criterium bikes, formed Fat City Cycles in Somerville, Massachusetts, and began building mountain bikes. He had an intuitive and prodigious talent, and over the course of the decade was building the best handling off-road bikes in the world, including the Fat Chance with a relaxed, upright position and the more responsive Wicked Fat Chance with quicker-handling geometry. For the 1990 model year, Fat City Cycles launched a new top-of-the-line racing model, the Fat Chance Yo Eddy! Team. Combining everything Chris knew about designing efficient, quick-handling bikes for criterium races with almost a decade of building the sweetest handling mountain bikes...

UK MTB scene stalwarts Orange Mountain Bikes can trace their ancestry back to wind surfing company Tushingham. Orange's Lester Noble worked for Tushingham back in the 80s and there the Tushingham mountain bike range was designed. The lucky owner of this Tushingham B-52 which is being offered for sale on ebay picked it up without realising the bike's significance and is now selling it. The B-52s apparently came from the same factory as the Muddy Fox Courier, hence numerous similarities. Tushinghams are a rare beast, later in the 80s Lester Noble went on to form Orange with Steve Wade and the rest is very much history! Click here to discuss in the forum..

Sheffield born Steve Peat is without a doubt the UK's most successful downhill racer. In the course of a career almost unmatched in length Peaty has taken numerous World Cup wins and British National Championships, along with the 2009 World Champs in Australia which is surely the highlight. At the start of Steve Peat's career back in the early 90s he raced both Cross Country and Downhill when rider's did that sort of thing for local shop Langsett Cycles. His success led to a ride with Kona and the 1993 UK Downhill Series aboard this rigid Kona Hei Hei which most 'trail riders' wouldn't dare take round the red run at their local man made trail centre. The Kona features a front hope disc brake, Marzocchi forks, Ringle skewers, M900...

The early 90s were a halcyon time for road bike development. The steel era was (sadly) drawing to a close and the use of many materials now considered common place was being pioneered. This innovation was also unhindered by over zealous governing bodies. One bike which still stands out from this era is the Pinarello Espada, four of which were custom made from carbon fibre for one Mr Miguel Indurain, former Hour Record holder and five times Tour de France winner. The bikes were designed in association with F1 Engineer Ing Giacchi. This particular example was photographed at the recent Campagnolo 80th Anniversary event with it's former rider. Fausto Pinarello can complete the story "There were only four of these bicycles made: two for...

The words rare and unique are used all too freely in the world of retro - few bikes deserve to be described as such and this is truly one of them. This Bontrager Experimental was built around 1995 at Bontrager's Santa Cruz frame shop and currently resides with a well regarded collector here in the UK. This particular Bontrager Experimental and the other six or seven completed around the same time were built out of a debate as to which frame material was best. Keith Bontrager's take was that no material could be said to be best and each should be used in a frame to optimize it's properties. This frame consists of *Large diameter Aluminium main triangle = Lightest and Stiffest. *Steel chainstays and dropouts = small diameter tubing so the...

Back in 1995 the iconic UK MTB video Dirt was filmed in and around the grounds of Pete Tomkins’ house in Yorkshire. Tragically one of the stars would never see the finished cut - UK MTB legend Jason McRoy's life was cut short in August 1995. The McRoy family have owned the bike Jason rode since then but have now decided to place it up for sale, click here to see JMC's Specialized S-Works from Dirt auction on ebay and click here to discuss in the forum. The bike has been cherished ever since and is specced as it was for the video - with the exception of the pedals and saddle. The small S-Works frame features carbon specialized suspension forks up front, partial XT groupset, Avid brakeset, DT hugi hubs, Azonic risers and of course a red...

UK based online retailer Kinetic Rush have dug out their John Tomac Raleigh for display in their Leamington shop, John Atkins Cycles. What this means for us is they've done a whole load of great pictures of this iconic machine, enjoy the images :D This Tomac Raleigh was purchased direct from Raleigh UK by the store owner back in the 90s and is believed to be a Merlin built model. Check the Kinetic Rush blog for a full set of images and details.

Privateer magazine are currently in Portland visiting Chris King and others. Lucky them. Whilst with King they toured his factory (check the magazine for the full story I'm sure) and also managed to get some great pictures of King's personal bike, a 1993 Yeti ARC soft tail. The bike has some great detail like loads of King trickery including a prototype adjustable bottom bracket. King apparently used this as his main ride up until '08 - chapeau! Anyhow check the post in the forum for more pictures and detail of Chris King's 1993 Yeti ARC.

Seeing there is a lot of interest (and appreciation) on retrobike for Brodies the man himself kindly emailed over the story of how his own personal Brodie Rodie has evolved. Check the forum out for the full Brodie Rodie story.

May 2011 sees a welcome return for the Feature Bike series. First up is doctorbond's 1989 Team Peugeot / Roberts White Spider (click for original build thread). Enjoy! I’ve always had a soft spot for old Peugeots. In fact, one of my earliest off road memories was as a kid, bouncing along a dirt track in the back of an ancient 404 estate. And when Peugeot turned their hand to producing off road bicycles during the MTB boom years of the 1980’s, it was a similar no nonsense sturdiness that typified the machines that they created: great for touring and recreation but not out-and-out racers. Which is why, when in the late 80’s Simon Burney’s Ace Racing cyclo-cross team was asked by sponsors Peugeot to compete as an MTB outfit, he ended up...

Another month another outstanding bike. This 1991 Funk Pro Comp belongs to Felixdelrio aka Andreas, the site's #1 purveyor of leftfield brands! Felixdelrio & 1991 Funk Pro Comp As you all might know I am the e-stay maniac. This is my fav ecs bike the 1991 Funk Pro Comp with the quite rare Black/Magenta/Fluo-Green paint scheme and matching Big Fork. I bought this bike back in 2005 from a Berlin based collector. At this time the bike was unridden, a true virgin. During the last years I changed a lot of parts and now everything is perfect. Most of the parts are NOS. I rode the Funk mostly 1-2 times per week it’s truly a dream ride … FUNKY! 1991 Funk Pro Comp rear end detail 1991 Funk Pro Comp handlebar detail

A class build from one of retrobike's #1 builders. Over to retroking#1 for a brief write up on his Ritchey Team Comp Retroking#1's Ritchey Team Comp Like a lot of you when you find retrobike you start reading threads on bikes and parts you knew nothing about. As a result I got interested in building a early bike and when I met velomaniac at Cannock, riding the McSchwinn, and knowing al was advertising a Ritchey frame and fork I was hooked. A few PMs to al and I had got myself what turned out to be a Ritchey Team Comp frame and fork. Using the link from this site I found http://www.oldmountainbikes.com so now I knew what I had to find. So with the help of ebay I found the bars, rims, mechs, cranks, shifters, levers, brakes, saddle...

Pete McC's Doug Bradbury Manitou Full Suspension In the now standard start to a Retrobike.co.uk story I want you to wind the clock back 17 years - it's 1992, Carter USM are riding high in the charts and playing on my 'auto-reverse' walkman, my Calvin Kleins are visible for all to see above the waistband of my baggy jeans and the MBUK Summer Special has just landed in WHSmiths. This years Summer Special really lived up to it's name as nestled amongst the pages of vital holiday reading was an article so special that it would get read with an amazed open mouth more often than a lottery winner rereads his winning ticket - the Superbike Test! Four bikes - all works of art, all utterly desirable and all far too expensive for a 17 year old on...

Archangel’s 1993 Klein Adroit 'Tinker Juarez Replica' Ever since I saw a Sachs chain add featuring Tinker Juarez on his Klein Adroit EX in Team Storm paintjob on the pages of Mountain Bike Action magazine in 1993, I have lusted after a similar Klein. I remember drawing pics of Team Storm Adroit on my Physics exercise book during high school lessons. At the time, it was more exciting for a young man than learning about gravity! Fast forward 12 years. After graduating from the University, I was able to get a good and well-paid job and my love for the bikes from my teen years began anew. Now I was able to buy those bikes I drooled after while reading the American bike magazines but never had funds to buy any of them. From the beginning...

It all started back in ‘Ebay and Market Watch’ thread (October 2008) Gravymonster had spotted it on Ebay and posted it up for fellow retro bikers to see. There seemed to be lots of interest but not a lot of bids, seemed like an opportunity not to be missed so I quickly sold off lots of bits in the ’For Sale’ thread to finance a bid. I was thinking it would go for well in excess of £700, but to my surprise when it came to bid with a few seconds remaining it was at just £252. The auction ended and as the screen refreshed the final total was revealed £362! I could not believe my luck. Research (October/November 2008) The bike had been tinkered with over the years as parts wore out or broke. With a 1993 Grundig bike there was only one...

Welcome to the first in the retrobike 'feature bike' series. Each month (or so) the retrobike team will pick a different bike we feel deserves a place on the front page. The Feb 2009 Feature Bike is Elev12K's exquisite Zieleman Type Special -> More details on this build can be found here in the forum.