BoTM March 2010 - Downhill Special - Nominations please.

[LeeDevelopment]

Not the best of photo's.... sorry

 

[elite504]

but c'mon what should be classed as a Retro Down Hill bike is this
FULL SUSPENSION
SINGLE CHAINRING with CHAIN GUIDE
DUAL CROWN FORKS or LONG TRAVEL SINGLE's

If a bike can be used for XC, even with minor modifications, it's just not Down Hill. These bikes are designed for throwing yourself down a mountain, they are heavy buggers with long travel forks.

Whilst I agree that a DH bike has evolved int a very specialist machine, the way that a road or tri bike has on the road, you can't ignore the first attempts at retro DH as the sport eveolved. A lot of what makes retrobiking cool, is the R+D, the dead ends, the experiments. You'd exclude Nporternz's airline DH4 as it has stops for a f/mech? Chris2lous cool green RTS, despite its pedigree, And leedevelopments Foes machine for having triple capability. ..yeah right.. .
Comment taken on board, but I think 90% of entires will sidestep this. I think you're after seeing machines as close to the cutoff as possible, and the retrobike pool is just too deep for that.

 

[cchris2lou]

as ususal it all comes back to what we see as a retrobike .

last year i sold all my v brakes and decided that FOR ME , retro would be canti only and frames close to the early 90s .

My yeti and RTS are in fact closer to 1995 but they are both designed for cantis and they are 1200 miles away so cant really sell them for earlier versions .

When Vouilloz first signed for GT , none fot he RTS 1 were ready so he got a RTS 2 and started training on that .

 

[JeRkY]

Some nice bikes, Jerkys PACE is way up there for me.

Got to say though some bikes on here just shouldn't be on here. I can understand what a lot of people are saying that early DH was competed on hard tails and even totally rigid, but c'mon what should be classed as a Retro Down Hill bike is this

FULL SUSPENSION
SINGLE CHAINRING with CHAIN GUIDE
DUAL CROWN FORKS or LONG TRAVEL SINGLE's

If a bike can be used for XC, even with minor modifications, it's just not Down Hill. These bikes are designed for throwing yourself down a mountain, they are heavy buggers with long travel forks. Downhill bikes are for riding DOWN dedicated downhill trails and race courses. Take some of these bikes out of the DOWN and they are b*stards, try going uphill on one of them. We need to set some kind of 'what is a DH bike'

As the sport of MTBing started to have more specialised disciplines DH bikes became very distinctive. If we have no specific guidelines then it would be like entering Jerkys Pace in a XC BOTM Special

hehe, you really wouldnt get very far up an incline on the pace

I agree with you though, I am all too happy to see early down hill bikes represented, however the bikes that can be taken as straight out XC machines are to my mind pushing it a little. The RTS's in particular stand out to me. Without even a nod to customising for the purpose of going down hill fast, they are out and out XC machines. OK they may have a DH race pedeigree, but surely not with XC SPD's fitted.

The LTS DH's/Lobos & Yetis are fine (although common as muck )

Yes there is still the continual consideration of what is retro, but there is also the consideration of what is specifically designed with the intent fo smashing down a mountain side.

 

[stevet1]

Whats going on with the seat cluster on elites yeti?

 

[Tallpaul]

So If we have no specific guidelines then it would be like entering Jerkys Pace in a XC BOTM Special

Entrants should really take a step back and think 'did I build this bike for the sole purpose of going downhill, fast?' Frankly, the answer for some is no (as evidenced by their spec and use). These entries should be withdrawn and saved for a more suitable month (never mind the fact we've all seen some of them entered several times before :roll: ).

 

[velomaniac]

I agree that if it does not look like it was specifically designed or prepared for DH then its not DH. If anything ridden down a hill classes as DH then the old Schwinn Cruisers used by our Klunker forebares should be up for nomination also

 

[hoegaardenadds1]

Entrants should really take a step back and think 'did I build this bike for the sole purpose of going downhill, fast?' Frankly, the answer for some is no (as evidenced by their spec and use). These entries should be withdrawn and saved for a more suitable month (never mind the fact we've all seen some of them entered several times before :roll: ).[/quote]

that sums it up for me.

 

[Gadro]

Entrants should really take a step back and think 'did I build this bike for the sole purpose of going downhill, fast?' Frankly, the answer for some is no (as evidenced by their spec and use). These entries should be withdrawn and saved for a more suitable month (never mind the fact we've all seen some of them entered several times before :roll: ).

Bang on

 

[Easy_Rider]

Definite split in the camp here, i'm leaning ever so slightly towards the later camp, if you want to enter your bike, at least make it look like it can run a DH course, even an early course. Drop the seat, put flats on and maybe some risers and a DCD and jobs a good'un

But then it's only BoTM.

someone mentioned letting the voters decide if a bike is a DH bike or not, trouble with that, there is a significant portion of the group of voters who just vote for their favourite bike without regard to the theme, seen this on Picture of the Month several time.