Okay, so the story begins, as it often does, with a Craigslist alert!
Like most of you, I'm sure, I have a bunch of alerts set up for things I'm looking for locally. I also have a bunch set up not so locally!
The one for "Brodie" never comes up.
No notifications, no emails. Nothing.
But then, way back in February, this popped up halfway through an otherwise quiet Sunday:
Hmmm. Mill Valley. I clicked the link, and emailed within a few minutes of the ad being posted. Here's the original ad in full:
So not too much to go on, but that's a pretty great price. And although there were a few odd component choices on there, there were a few promising ones too. It appeared well-looked after, in a reasonable size, and had a Gatorblade on it!
In all honesty, my mind was already made up.
But I asked a few questions, to see a few more photos and for measurements. I also mentioned it was a bit of a dream bike for me, and received the following reply from the seller, Tim:
"Thanks for your reply. I do care very much about where the bike goes. I had it built out myself and I’ve had it for 30 years. It is a Sovereign frame by the way. The bike was recently rebuilt by a local frame builder who worked for WTB for over 20 years. It looks great."
Which, of course, peaked my interest even further.
Tim came back with the measurements: 20.5, from center to top of seat tube. Which is just about exactly the sort of size I've been looking for.
Sidenote: When I started getting back into old mountain bikes, I picked up where I left off in my youth. Not only the builders and companies I loved, but also the same size bikes I used to ride. And while they've all be perfectly ridable, I'm not sixteen anymore. I'm not even twenty-six anymore! Hell, I'm not even thirty-six anymore! So the more I ride, the further I ride, the more I've been coming around to the conclusion that I probably need to size-up. What does that mean for all the bikes I've already bought? Well, I don't know yet. Let's see! But I wouldn't be surprised if a mass trade thread makes an appearance in the For Sale forum eventually!
Okay, back to the Brodie. Along with the measurements Tim gave me the following info:
I actually ordered it without any decals. It is not the original paint which was not in the greatest shape after 20 years of riding it on Mount Tam. It was professionally repainted with powder coat when it was rebuilt a few years ago. The guy who rebuilt it is Greg Biber, a friend, who, like I said, worked for WTB for many years building frames for them. He did do some work on the frame, grinding out rust spots at the welds and re-welding it where necessary. The bike was originally put together at a local bike shop called Plane Away, they originally sold windsurfers. The shop was owned by a good friend of mine named Tom Bowers who also played bass in my band. Tom closed the business years ago. I ordered all the parts individually, prioritizing light weight. At the time, it was the lightest bike that anyone at the shop had ever seen. The original cost was around $2200, which was a lot of money in 1992. I bought it just before I started graduate school, knowing that I was gonna be poor for the next 10 years. If you want to PayPal me a non-refundable $100 deposit, I’ll take the ad down and hold it for you for a couple weeks.
That last line right there. That was the very first indicator that I was dealing with a real classy gentleman. Tim proved to be an outstanding human, a real pleasure to deal and visit with, but more on all that a bit later.
For now let's break down the rest of the above.
20 years of riding it on Mt. Tam? Well, now we're talking! So it turns out Tim is a Mill Valley local, one of the many small towns at the base of Mt. Tam, and the one where Wilderness Trail Bikes was founded (and still remains). He is the original owner of this particular Sovereign, having ordered the frame and forks from Paul, and had his local shop build up the rest. Now, obviously components have chopped and changed a little over time, but the bare bones were still very much there.
As for Greg Biber, while I don't know a lot about him, Google did throw up the following links and images:
WTB - Interbike has been mayhem for ages. For WTB's beautiful 1992 booth, construction of all the pieces took place at 134 Redwood Avenue, WTB's headquarters at the t
www.wtb.com
There's a strange allure to snow atop Mt. Tam, it's so fleeting and transitory that before you know it, you find yourself drawn to it like a tourist trap self-exiting your car from the highway. It's almost embarrassing but locals flock to it, stunned into pilgrimage. Fred heard the siren call...
www.wtb.com
So that appeared to check-out, and was yet another exciting part of what was turning out to be a pretty interesting bike.
As for the work done to the bike and the repaint, it was certainly a shame the original paintwork was long-gone. But, hey, black is hardly the worst colour for a bike! I can live with black! I was however curious what colour it had been originally, so asked Tim for more info, as well as if he could recall what work Greg had done on the bike before the repaint.
While I awaited his reply, I hit up
@raidan73 for some confirmation and advice. I wanted to make sure what I was about to buy indeed appeared to be everything I hoped it would be. Adrian has been immensely helpful throughout this saga, so I just want to go on record to thank him.
Cheers Adrian! Sorry this thread is all old news to you!
(There are plenty of others on this forum who've already assisted with parts and advice for this project too, but I'll get to everyone else in subsequent posts!)
Jesus. This is getting long.
And, I know, I always do long!
Right, let's leave it here for tonight.
The story is about the turn a tad dramatic during the second act, so now seems like a good a time and place as any to take a bit of a breather...
PS. Below are a couple of cool photos Greg took, of the original WTB 29er he built, on a snowy Mt. Tam from one of the articles linked above.
