What were GTS LTS bikes designed for?

[T'boo Ted]

indeed, i remember we all lusted aftrer a boomerang back in 96. scott scharples (and i'm assuming mike king and nico volliouz have to go watch the video again) had one for the worlds in 95... those ones had the regular (long?) ti linkage

 

[merckx]

The DS bit stood for dual sport - all-mountain in it's early days.

When it was first released, it was more a race bike - team LTS.

Did it win a DHWC?

nico won the worlds in cairns on a LTS DH. in fact i am so glad he did...it meant shaun palmer had to settle for second.

T'boo...i was up there for 96 also (spectating) my friend bought a boomerang frame from eric carter after the race. we were all pretty excited! haha. they were really hard to get hold of at that point, i don't think they were being retailed.

 

[Rampage]

What were they thinking with that seattube? :roll:

 

[T'boo Ted]

The DS bit stood for dual sport - all-mountain in it's early days.

When it was first released, it was more a race bike - team LTS.

Did it win a DHWC?

nico won the worlds in cairns on a LTS DH. in fact i am so glad he did...it meant shaun palmer had to settle for second.

T'boo...i was up there for 96 also (spectating) my friend bought a boomerang frame from eric carter after the race. we were all pretty excited! haha. they were really hard to get hold of at that point, i don't think they were being retailed.

I remember nico used the regular lts dh and mike king used the sts version, because the sts version didn't allow the triple clamp (assuming boxers for them) to get full lock on...

 

[MADJEZ]

They must have been into bendy seat tubes back then !

 

[Maxipedia]

A little correction on the Dual Sport part of things, if you allow me.

DS LTS models came in 1998 and the coolest kid in town was Freeride. Things got as ridiculous as Cannondale actually copywriting the term "free ride", what resulted in a hilarious reply letter from Rocky Mountain's Grayson Bain and the birth of the infamous fro-riders.

What I am trying to say is that everybody wanted a slice of the cake, but they had to come up with names of their own for their freeride themed bikes. GT's freeride line was called Dual Sport and had triple clamp Judy XL's and RST Hi5's instead of the Z2 bombers on the "normal" versions. As another example, Gary Fisher's freeride bikes were called Level Betty Fun Hog.

Remember that back in that day there was no all-mountain or enduro and DH bikes had 150 mm travel and just two years before 80 and 100 mm was considered "long travel". Freeride bikes were often rebadged "DH" bikes with a front derailleur and a QR triple clamp fork.

Mx