Freeman
Dirt Disciple
I had a lot of fun with this in the last 12 hours. Last night I found it on the curb where someone had put it out for trash. Normally I would not get too excited about finding an old Huffy in the trash, I have seen lots of them, but this one stunned me as it looked as if it was just wheeled off the showroom floor. Also I noticed it had Shimano index shifting, and the tires looked like new too. So I put it in the trunk of my car and took it home.
Once home I wondered how old it was, and it was hard to find information as almost nobody cares about a Huffy MTB, but when I looked the bike over this morning in daylight, I saw a service sticker on it dated 12-98, so it looks like someone could have got this for Christmas in 1998 from some corporate chain big-box department store, I doubt it sat in stock long before it was taken out of it's shipping box and assembled, so my guess it was manufactured sometime earlier in 1998.
It has Maxxis tires and they are not age-cracked in the least, I put air in the tires and rode the bike and everything on it worked perfectly, shifting, brakes.
I would like to know how someone stored this bike for 27 years without having the rubber on it show any signs of aging, and not even having hardly any dust collect on it? There was a little dust on it's top surfaces and a few spider webs which I wiped away with a cotton cloth. It could have had almost that much dust on it sitting in the showroom.
So I got a real kick out of this, a time-capsule of one of the cheapest mountain-bikes available in the late 1990s, which to me was the golden-era of MTBs. I am pretty sure this bike was made in the USA, even the wheel hubs are stamped "made in USA"., and it has a sticker on it about a lifetime frame warranty and the phone number "1-800-USA-BIKE".
Most people collect the high-end and rare stuff, but I think it is important to document the low-end junk too, that most of the general population ended up with. I thought this might help someone someday who is searching the WWW for info about their 1990s Huffy MTB.
Once home I wondered how old it was, and it was hard to find information as almost nobody cares about a Huffy MTB, but when I looked the bike over this morning in daylight, I saw a service sticker on it dated 12-98, so it looks like someone could have got this for Christmas in 1998 from some corporate chain big-box department store, I doubt it sat in stock long before it was taken out of it's shipping box and assembled, so my guess it was manufactured sometime earlier in 1998.
It has Maxxis tires and they are not age-cracked in the least, I put air in the tires and rode the bike and everything on it worked perfectly, shifting, brakes.
I would like to know how someone stored this bike for 27 years without having the rubber on it show any signs of aging, and not even having hardly any dust collect on it? There was a little dust on it's top surfaces and a few spider webs which I wiped away with a cotton cloth. It could have had almost that much dust on it sitting in the showroom.
So I got a real kick out of this, a time-capsule of one of the cheapest mountain-bikes available in the late 1990s, which to me was the golden-era of MTBs. I am pretty sure this bike was made in the USA, even the wheel hubs are stamped "made in USA"., and it has a sticker on it about a lifetime frame warranty and the phone number "1-800-USA-BIKE".
Most people collect the high-end and rare stuff, but I think it is important to document the low-end junk too, that most of the general population ended up with. I thought this might help someone someday who is searching the WWW for info about their 1990s Huffy MTB.
