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Back when I was a lad, and 8spd hadn't been invented, my first bike was a 20" wheeled Specialized Hard Rock Mega. It was bright red, and a mini Ned Overend lookalike, and was very, very cool to 6 year old me. And to think I could have ended up with a Raleigh Activator. Luckily a guy my dad was working with at the time was all into mountain bikes and suggested we go to Edi Bikes, back when that was a proper shop that actually stocked lots of interesting things and the people working there were helpful and friendly to go and have a chat with. So the Specialized it was. That bike did so much, and even on that I was going on 20 mile rides in the hills.
After a few years I'd grown and it was time for something new, and where else to go but Edi Bikes again? After all they'd provided first my mum's Specialized Hardrock Ultra, and then my dad's Cannondale M300. I can still remember going into the shop and trying various things for size, and then settling on the Trek which was reasonably well spec'd for the price, and pretty light too. Certainly a lot lighter than the equivalently priced Edinburgh Contour 400 which had a frame which must have been made of solid bar rather than tube!
I loved this shade of Ice Green when I got it and still do, and it makes me smile that I've got a matching (with Ice Purple fade) 950 to match this:
The first ride was up Glen Tilt, a place which was a firm favourite for being reasonably close by, quiet, and lovely. Sadly these days it's far from quiet and instead feels like the M6 with so many people up there. It's nice that people enjoy the hills but I wish they could do it without destroying what makes these places special; like not leaving litter, or chopping down bits of tree so they can act all macho and have a camp fire. Anyway, it was a good ride, and the start of many more. In the end I had this bike for about four years, did thousands of miles on it and raced DH on it twice before the parts were taken off and built onto the Marin DH FRS frame it was replaced with.
That first ride up Glen Tilt in spring 1995:
The original spec was a mix of Alivio drivetrain, STX rear derailleur, and Araya rims on Acera-X hubs. Yeah, they didn't last long. I killed a freehub down the side of Loch Sheil which took some careful coaxing to get back to the car at Polloch. I'd say that my legs were clearly too strong for it, but it was Acera-X and an ant could probably have broken it. Early cheap stuff was just rubbish. And thus started the upgrade journey.
Riding out to Scoraig in the north west:
It was an LX M563 rear hub we went for, built into a Mavic 217 rim, not that that lasted long. My dad broke a few (his bike was always heavy as he had panniers on the back with photography kit, spares, tools and stuff for me initially), then I broke one, and after trying a Velocity Deep V on Sandy Wallace's suggestion, settled on the much better Mavic 121 CD, the original one still with me on this rebuild. My dad's first Hope Fatso failed on the flanges like they all did so he ordered a new wheel for his bike with another one and a new D521 Ceramic, and when Hope returned his wheel with the new hub it got put on my Trek. Sadly this one would eventually end up stolen but a couple of years ago I spied an NOS Fatso on ebay which I snapped up for a good price, and then thanks to someone on the Retro Specialized facebook group also got a matching NOS 121 Ceramic. Now I can build wheels reasonably well, but with not racing DH any more I'm a bit rusty, and I never really worry about getting them more accurate than +/-1mm in any direction given the abuse they take anyway. For this one I decided it was worth more than my wheel building could give and so handed it to my mate Steve at iCycles who did a great job, as expected. I'm sure some will see this as sacrilege to put such a nice NOS wheel on a bike like this but as I've never worried what other people think, that doesn't really concern me. XT QR's finished the setup.
NOS Ceramic and Fatso goodness:
Well loved 121 CD and M563 hub out back:
It originally came with Trek's own Big Kahuna tyres but most of the mileage was done with either Specialized Ground Controls, or Panaracer's Smoke/Dart combo, but I mainly remember it on the GC's. I also found an old pair in the back of the shed, which helped. If only I'd kept the Specialized Fear Master and Controls I had on it last!
XT QR's
The drivetrain was classic Alivio MC10 cranks, STI shifters and front mech with the STX rear mech. First to be upgraded on this was pretty much, well, everything. My dad's Cannondale had already been changed to 8spd M737 XT STIs with XT mechs, but when V brakes came available he upgraded to M739 STI's and M950 XTR V's, meaning his original STIs were looking for a new home and quickly did so on this. I can still remember his frustration at having got it all working perfectly, apart from the mech not having enough movement to be able to get into the 8th cog, cue a last minute Saturday afternoon trip to Edi bikes (we spent a lot of money there in those days) for an XT one. Next up were some M563 LX Cantis with some birthday money to replace the Alivio (or maybe even Acera-X) ones it had come with. Then for Christmas one year I got some M739 XT STIs and matching XT V's and these M737 items made their way onto mum's Specialized so she could get 8spd. Those XT V's were utter garbage and lasted about five minutes so some XTR ones made it on.
If only we’d realised at the time how much better and more reliable Maguras were, we’d have saved a fortune. Even the shim kits Shimano sold barely improved the longevity of their V's. It was all great kit for a ten year old but my dad's attitude was that he didn't like constantly fixing bikes and he wanted them all to be the same, thus if he had XT and XTR we all pretty much had it, or at least had stuff that was comparable in reliability and, more importantly, compatible. The final upgrade to the drivetrain was, one Christmas, a set of XT M739 cranks with the proprietary 4 arm ring and UN72 BB. This is possibly my favourite crank of all time, and why I have them on all my old bikes. Nostalgia counts for a lot!
The controls were pretty much OEM for the life of the bike; Trek's own Cr-Mo stem and aluminium flat bars, a plain aluminium stem, and this Viscount saddle that the mice got to. Grips were Trek's own ribbed things but they went the way of the mice too so instead I fitted a set of similar ODI Attack's here, plus my original X-Lite Enduro ski bar ends in a rather scratched shade of red. The headset was a plain black Trek thing which actually lasted pretty well, probably thanks to my dad regreasing it regularly with Finish Line's finest Teflon (I can still smell the stuff even now!). Just now it's got an M900 XTR headset I got cheap but it's missing its lower seal (hence both why it was cheap, and why it didn't go onto the 950), but it looks a bit wrong to me so I'll either fit an STX one I have sat in the spares box, or an LX one if I don't have to pay silly money for one. Aesthetics from memory are important! The pedals fitted just now are the MKS Carbon 260s I had for a bit with some Specialized toe clips (long gone, sadly) before getting some Shimano PDM747 SPDs which I do still have and recently rebuilt, they've just not made their way back onto the bike yet. A Specialized Mountain bottle cage completes the extras (if anyone has a few more of these I'd love a pair to finish dad's Cannondale off with).
South side of Glen Affric:
Somewhere in the north of Scotland. I originally thought it was around the Kyle of Tongue or Bettyhill but it's way too flat:
Great Glen one very hot summer's day, I distinctly remember the cold coke and ice cream at Invergarry before we headed back to Achnacarry:
Lochinver, probably summer given the rain, either 1995 or 1996. I also like old cars, and would love to have a restored one of these sitting in the workshop, maybe with an engine swap so it could pull the skin off a rice pudding:
I'm glad this frame never got sold, lost or stolen. It's great to have it built back up as I had it, it contains a lot of memories.
After a few years I'd grown and it was time for something new, and where else to go but Edi Bikes again? After all they'd provided first my mum's Specialized Hardrock Ultra, and then my dad's Cannondale M300. I can still remember going into the shop and trying various things for size, and then settling on the Trek which was reasonably well spec'd for the price, and pretty light too. Certainly a lot lighter than the equivalently priced Edinburgh Contour 400 which had a frame which must have been made of solid bar rather than tube!
I loved this shade of Ice Green when I got it and still do, and it makes me smile that I've got a matching (with Ice Purple fade) 950 to match this:
The first ride was up Glen Tilt, a place which was a firm favourite for being reasonably close by, quiet, and lovely. Sadly these days it's far from quiet and instead feels like the M6 with so many people up there. It's nice that people enjoy the hills but I wish they could do it without destroying what makes these places special; like not leaving litter, or chopping down bits of tree so they can act all macho and have a camp fire. Anyway, it was a good ride, and the start of many more. In the end I had this bike for about four years, did thousands of miles on it and raced DH on it twice before the parts were taken off and built onto the Marin DH FRS frame it was replaced with.
That first ride up Glen Tilt in spring 1995:
The original spec was a mix of Alivio drivetrain, STX rear derailleur, and Araya rims on Acera-X hubs. Yeah, they didn't last long. I killed a freehub down the side of Loch Sheil which took some careful coaxing to get back to the car at Polloch. I'd say that my legs were clearly too strong for it, but it was Acera-X and an ant could probably have broken it. Early cheap stuff was just rubbish. And thus started the upgrade journey.
Riding out to Scoraig in the north west:
It was an LX M563 rear hub we went for, built into a Mavic 217 rim, not that that lasted long. My dad broke a few (his bike was always heavy as he had panniers on the back with photography kit, spares, tools and stuff for me initially), then I broke one, and after trying a Velocity Deep V on Sandy Wallace's suggestion, settled on the much better Mavic 121 CD, the original one still with me on this rebuild. My dad's first Hope Fatso failed on the flanges like they all did so he ordered a new wheel for his bike with another one and a new D521 Ceramic, and when Hope returned his wheel with the new hub it got put on my Trek. Sadly this one would eventually end up stolen but a couple of years ago I spied an NOS Fatso on ebay which I snapped up for a good price, and then thanks to someone on the Retro Specialized facebook group also got a matching NOS 121 Ceramic. Now I can build wheels reasonably well, but with not racing DH any more I'm a bit rusty, and I never really worry about getting them more accurate than +/-1mm in any direction given the abuse they take anyway. For this one I decided it was worth more than my wheel building could give and so handed it to my mate Steve at iCycles who did a great job, as expected. I'm sure some will see this as sacrilege to put such a nice NOS wheel on a bike like this but as I've never worried what other people think, that doesn't really concern me. XT QR's finished the setup.
NOS Ceramic and Fatso goodness:
Well loved 121 CD and M563 hub out back:
It originally came with Trek's own Big Kahuna tyres but most of the mileage was done with either Specialized Ground Controls, or Panaracer's Smoke/Dart combo, but I mainly remember it on the GC's. I also found an old pair in the back of the shed, which helped. If only I'd kept the Specialized Fear Master and Controls I had on it last!
XT QR's
The drivetrain was classic Alivio MC10 cranks, STI shifters and front mech with the STX rear mech. First to be upgraded on this was pretty much, well, everything. My dad's Cannondale had already been changed to 8spd M737 XT STIs with XT mechs, but when V brakes came available he upgraded to M739 STI's and M950 XTR V's, meaning his original STIs were looking for a new home and quickly did so on this. I can still remember his frustration at having got it all working perfectly, apart from the mech not having enough movement to be able to get into the 8th cog, cue a last minute Saturday afternoon trip to Edi bikes (we spent a lot of money there in those days) for an XT one. Next up were some M563 LX Cantis with some birthday money to replace the Alivio (or maybe even Acera-X) ones it had come with. Then for Christmas one year I got some M739 XT STIs and matching XT V's and these M737 items made their way onto mum's Specialized so she could get 8spd. Those XT V's were utter garbage and lasted about five minutes so some XTR ones made it on.
If only we’d realised at the time how much better and more reliable Maguras were, we’d have saved a fortune. Even the shim kits Shimano sold barely improved the longevity of their V's. It was all great kit for a ten year old but my dad's attitude was that he didn't like constantly fixing bikes and he wanted them all to be the same, thus if he had XT and XTR we all pretty much had it, or at least had stuff that was comparable in reliability and, more importantly, compatible. The final upgrade to the drivetrain was, one Christmas, a set of XT M739 cranks with the proprietary 4 arm ring and UN72 BB. This is possibly my favourite crank of all time, and why I have them on all my old bikes. Nostalgia counts for a lot!
The controls were pretty much OEM for the life of the bike; Trek's own Cr-Mo stem and aluminium flat bars, a plain aluminium stem, and this Viscount saddle that the mice got to. Grips were Trek's own ribbed things but they went the way of the mice too so instead I fitted a set of similar ODI Attack's here, plus my original X-Lite Enduro ski bar ends in a rather scratched shade of red. The headset was a plain black Trek thing which actually lasted pretty well, probably thanks to my dad regreasing it regularly with Finish Line's finest Teflon (I can still smell the stuff even now!). Just now it's got an M900 XTR headset I got cheap but it's missing its lower seal (hence both why it was cheap, and why it didn't go onto the 950), but it looks a bit wrong to me so I'll either fit an STX one I have sat in the spares box, or an LX one if I don't have to pay silly money for one. Aesthetics from memory are important! The pedals fitted just now are the MKS Carbon 260s I had for a bit with some Specialized toe clips (long gone, sadly) before getting some Shimano PDM747 SPDs which I do still have and recently rebuilt, they've just not made their way back onto the bike yet. A Specialized Mountain bottle cage completes the extras (if anyone has a few more of these I'd love a pair to finish dad's Cannondale off with).
South side of Glen Affric:
Somewhere in the north of Scotland. I originally thought it was around the Kyle of Tongue or Bettyhill but it's way too flat:
Great Glen one very hot summer's day, I distinctly remember the cold coke and ice cream at Invergarry before we headed back to Achnacarry:
Lochinver, probably summer given the rain, either 1995 or 1996. I also like old cars, and would love to have a restored one of these sitting in the workshop, maybe with an engine swap so it could pull the skin off a rice pudding:
I'm glad this frame never got sold, lost or stolen. It's great to have it built back up as I had it, it contains a lot of memories.
