What's the late 90s steel frame of choice?

[pictonroad]

I've got a clear picture in my head of the hierarchy of steel from the early 90s. Where is gets woolly is the transition years, late 90s to early 2000s.

How does it play out in the V brake years before frames started having disc mounts as standard? Frames that have brake bosses but are designed to take a suspension fork.

Stumpjumpers were aluminium by this point so not them. Does the Trek buyout rule out the Bontrager frames?

Some of the really niche stuff was probably unchanged since the early 90s so I'm discounting them.

Or is it the case that by 97/98 the equivalent Rockhopper (full Ritchey double butted tubes) made in Taiwan was actually as good as the hand fettled stuff from the early 90s?

 

[grahame]

I REALLY like may late 90s DeKerf Mk1 Singlespeed frame, though it may be a bit "boutique" as an answer to your question.

 

[Thias]

I my head the steel frames very much went out of fashion at that time frame. Alloy and full suspension was all the rage for high end bikes. The demand for steel frames petered out, so the manufacturers basically stopped making high end steel frames. There might have been some niche brands but I can't think of any.

 

[murphy79]

Kona was building the "US made custom " Hot in 853 as late as '98/99. And the Explosif (Taiwan) was also still steel until '99 (also 853 at that point) before going alloy the following year (actually returning to steel in '02).

 

[PhillB]

This is an interesting question that I have been thinking about too. It certainly seems to be as Thias suggests, that Ali and Full Suss were in demand and steel took a back seat. I am more a fan of late 80's, very early 90's bikes, but, I do have one late 90's steel bike - a '98 GT Bravado that was made from Reynolds 631 and has v brakes, which I really like. I'm interested to see any other suggestions

 

[pictonroad]

It's a conundrum. I've got some lovely parts including pace forks and XTR V brakes to build up but I'm not sure what steel frame to shoot for.

 

[LumPi Panda]

Ritchey P20.
Good luck finding one mind, you could always try prying mine out of my cold, dead hands.

 

[yo-Nate-y]

WTB Phoenix or a nice Kona for the more budget minded. There are great late 90s Salsa ala Cartes and Serotta-built Fats too

 

[Scott-S]

I know it's subjective but through my eye bikes lost their beauty when they moved away from the narrow steel tubes to fatter aluminium ones.
I love my 91 Lava Dome for its simple shape

 

[sam_white]

Diamondback Axis R, 1997 Ritchey Logic tubing, Kona Explosif and Hot from 1999, also Orange P7 and Clockworks. Just a few suggestions.