Hello,
This is a thread about my '94 Bonty OR. In May 1994 I was working full time at a bike shop in Coventry and for my 20th Birthday I treated myself to a Bontrager OR with a rigid fork geometry and for a good 8 years it was my racing bike, my commuting bike, my Uni hack and my all round form of transport.
In the early 2000's a lot of the original equipment had started to wear out and as I was earning a proper wage I wanted something more modern with disc mounted brakes, front sus forks etc, so I bought a Scott Elite Racing (with lots of mods). The poor old Bonty ended up in storage in my garage and wasn't touched for nearly 6 years.
How it looked after 6 years of storage (Panaracer Smoke and Dart tyres were perished)
Then in late 2007 I dragged her out of the garage and gave her a full make over with new decals and lots of newer tech (sorry to all the purests...but it gets worse!!
)
For the past 3 years she has been my casual 'going out for a ride with the missus' bike, and never see's the dirty stuff (again sorry to the purests...but I like my Bonty mint all of the time...and to be honest modern MTBs are so much faster off road).
Last year I needed more bike storage space so the Bonty was parked in my attic space. Ever time I went up there to get something I felt sad to see my pride and joy parked out of sight and generally feeling unloved.
One snowy December 2010 afternoon when I was knocking out some time on my indoor rollers I decided that I didn't want to ride my Carbon Road bike on rollers anymore (far to easy), so I thought I'd get a cheapo flat bar road bike instead. So I looked about and then realised I had no space for another bike (is 7 to many?) and I had a massive brain fart!!! Why don't I run the Bonty on my rollers, that way it gets used, I don't nail my road bike, and I save money by not buying another bike.
Well one thing led to another and this happened...
To hard core retro fans the above is probably an abomination...but its my bike and always will be, so I can guarantee at some point it'll end looking like something else again!
Thanks for your time and be kind with your comments (I'm new and all that!).
Keith
P.S. Huge thanks to Gil for the fresh decals.
This is a thread about my '94 Bonty OR. In May 1994 I was working full time at a bike shop in Coventry and for my 20th Birthday I treated myself to a Bontrager OR with a rigid fork geometry and for a good 8 years it was my racing bike, my commuting bike, my Uni hack and my all round form of transport.
In the early 2000's a lot of the original equipment had started to wear out and as I was earning a proper wage I wanted something more modern with disc mounted brakes, front sus forks etc, so I bought a Scott Elite Racing (with lots of mods). The poor old Bonty ended up in storage in my garage and wasn't touched for nearly 6 years.
How it looked after 6 years of storage (Panaracer Smoke and Dart tyres were perished)
Then in late 2007 I dragged her out of the garage and gave her a full make over with new decals and lots of newer tech (sorry to all the purests...but it gets worse!!
)
For the past 3 years she has been my casual 'going out for a ride with the missus' bike, and never see's the dirty stuff (again sorry to the purests...but I like my Bonty mint all of the time...and to be honest modern MTBs are so much faster off road).
Last year I needed more bike storage space so the Bonty was parked in my attic space. Ever time I went up there to get something I felt sad to see my pride and joy parked out of sight and generally feeling unloved.
One snowy December 2010 afternoon when I was knocking out some time on my indoor rollers I decided that I didn't want to ride my Carbon Road bike on rollers anymore (far to easy), so I thought I'd get a cheapo flat bar road bike instead. So I looked about and then realised I had no space for another bike (is 7 to many?) and I had a massive brain fart!!! Why don't I run the Bonty on my rollers, that way it gets used, I don't nail my road bike, and I save money by not buying another bike.
Well one thing led to another and this happened...
To hard core retro fans the above is probably an abomination...but its my bike and always will be, so I can guarantee at some point it'll end looking like something else again!
Thanks for your time and be kind with your comments (I'm new and all that!
).Keith
P.S. Huge thanks to Gil for the fresh decals.
