1983 Mountain Goat Deluxe, all gussied up now

[FirstFlight]

Finally got the Goat all cleaned up and took some decent pictures. From the literature, it looks like the first "Deluxe" models were based on the parts package while the name was used later to designate the oval tubed models. The bars are pretty cool since they are painted to match but they are kinda ugly?

More details @ http://mombat.org/1983_Mountain_Goat_Deluxe.htm

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

I agree with the bar/stem being kinda ugly. But it's different, so that helps.

 

[FirstFlight]

I agree with the bar/stem being kinda ugly. But it's different, so that helps.

I do like to see stuff that is unusual and being color-matched helps as well!

 

[pete_mcc]

Certainly is fugly but matches the bike sooo well. Like a painted, steel version of the morati m-bar, the dekerf combo or the new Jones unit (nothing is new is it!). Personally I never thought of really old bikes as real beauties (with only a couple of exceptions like the original breezer), they always looked like road bikes with fat tyres, which I suppose is down to what the builders knew how to build. Think it was really the late 80s/early nineties that MTBs got a true identity of their own rather than being hybrids of their road cousins (probably down to the fact that I am a short-arse and all the bikes I owned at that time caused me serious pain, especially when coming off on to the top tube!).

It's the attention to detail that always gets me on these old goats, things like the fork crown logo is something you rarely see on newer bikes, and the ovalised tubing is lovely, like some of the more bizarre colnagos of the time. And I am a sucker for all things colour matched, shows it was all designed together, how I'd love a colour matched pump! Another real cracker!

 

[konahed]

Ugly thing but a classic of course, a historical mountain bike. Cyclists don't pay road tax but if they did that bike would be exempt.

 

[FirstFlight]

Personally I never thought of really old bikes as real beauties (with only a couple of exceptions like the original breezer), they always looked like road bikes with fat tyres, which I suppose is down to what the builders knew how to build. Think it was really the late 80s/early nineties that MTBs got a true identity of their own rather than being hybrids of their road cousins (probably down to the fact that I am a short-arse and all the bikes I owned at that time caused me serious pain, especially when coming off on to the top tube!).

I would have to go completely opposite on that. The early bikes have much more personality and are more artistic. They were hand-made one at a time with a sometimes obsessive attention to tiny details. There was also much more experimentation going on (such as these handlebars). By the late 80's and early 90's, a vast majority of the bikes were cookie cutter Taiwanese bikes that you could go into any shop and see rows of 20 of the identical bikes. They lost their individuality by that time which I find kinda sad.

 

[konahed]

That's true but in that time bike companies were also learning what was a good effective design and what wasn't. Mountain Goat were making some pretty nice bikes right into the 90s.

 

[pete_mcc]

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you on individuality, it's the identity they lacked. A lot of the individuality was directly related to the builders experience in road frame building where indiviuality was rife (things like the GT triple triangle, the e-stay, sloping toptubes, multi-tube designs, the use of alloy or Ti all came from road builders). I just feel that the identify of an MTB (fat tyres, solid frame and decent sizes to suit short arses) wasn't there until the cookie cutter phase, but as you say, it came at the expense of the individuality.

I remember my first 'mountain bike' in the early eighties, a Vindec Trekker. It was a real original with 2" fat 29" (ish) tyres, a bent TT, risers and truss forks (imagine a Jones DD frameset or a Black sheep but 25 years ago!), very individual, but not a classic MTB. Much the same with my late 80s Cinelli, loads of stunning details on the frame as you'd expect from a top Italian builder (this was a euro Cinelli, not a GFisher US one), but if you put thin tyres and drop bars on it it wouldn't have looked out of place on a cyclo-cross course.

 

[GoldenEraMTB]

Personally I never thought of really old bikes as real beauties (with only a couple of exceptions like the original breezer), they always looked like road bikes with fat tyres, which I suppose is down to what the builders knew how to build. Think it was really the late 80s/early nineties that MTBs got a true identity of their own rather than being hybrids of their road cousins (probably down to the fact that I am a short-arse and all the bikes I owned at that time caused me serious pain, especially when coming off on to the top tube!).

I would have to go completely opposite on that. The early bikes have much more personality and are more artistic. They were hand-made one at a time with a sometimes obsessive attention to tiny details. There was also much more experimentation going on (such as these handlebars). By the late 80's and early 90's, a vast majority of the bikes were cookie cutter Taiwanese bikes that you could go into any shop and see rows of 20 of the identical bikes. They lost their individuality by that time which I find kinda sad.

I brought up this point in another thread on here; I agree.

 

[konahed]

ok so by the late 80s many were mass produced, but they were also better designed for their purpose.