1997 Bontrager Race Lite

[TiHardtail]

I've been wanting to build an urban all around bike for grocery runs, or anything to just not fire up the car. The list of candidates were the usual suspects, i.e. Bridgestone, Bianchi, Univega, Schwinn, etc. but as a long time bike industry guy I wanted a bike with panache. Then I stumbled across a Bontrager for the pricey sum of $325.00 That was it, sold.

Now, to share a Bontrager build of pedestrian purposes with this lot left me open to ridicule. Especially a Race Lite. But when KB himself @keith_bontrager recently did the same, why the hell not!

 

[slackboy]

Couldn't you have found a less pristine one to abuse? ;-)

Looks lovely, how are attaching the messenger bag to pannier?

 

[TiHardtail]

Couldn't you have found a less pristine one to abuse? ;-)

Looks lovely, how are attaching the messenger bag to pannier?

This bike is indeed nice and will not be abused. So fun to rip around the metro area on a snappy handling vintage MTB.

The Timbuk2 bag has mounting points for a rack built in, they can be found on ebay but are out of production.

 

[Stinus]

Looks very nice, shows one more time how versatile these bontragers are!

What forks are you using? Is it the 425mm tange or an shorter version? Maybe you could post a drive side shot.

 

[keith_bontrager]

I've been wanting to build an urban all around bike for grocery runs, or anything to just not fire up the car. The list of candidates were the usual suspects, i.e. Bridgestone, Bianchi, Univega, Schwinn, etc. but as a long time bike industry guy I wanted a bike with panache. Then I stumbled across a Bontrager for the pricey sum of $325.00 That was it, sold.

Now, to share a Bontrager build of pedestrian purposes with this lot left me open to ridicule. Especially a Race Lite. But when KB himself @keith_bontrager recently did the same, why the hell not!

View attachment 962874

That does look like it's been stored properly for many years. ;-)