This is the latest Alex bike loaner for when I come back to work on the west side. It's way different than the normal loaner. Past loaners included a Quickbeam, an 83 Trek 520, a P/R, an 83 Trek 620, the original RBT urban bike, the cycle truck, the Ivy Cycles, and others I'm forgetting.
Riding all these great bikes over the years has really impacted my bike education. In fact, I ended up building versions of most of these bikes at one time or another.
This is a Rocky Mountain frame that Alex just recently fitted with shocks. He thinks the frame is a 95 or a 96 (Glen? what say you: the distinguishing characteristic that Alex figured you would recognize is how the chain and seat bridges were fitted to the stays, which was wedged in and tacked, instead of brazed).
It's got a Rohloff, Mary bars, and freaky Cane Creek weirdo v-brakes.
I couldn't get much of a feel for it on the 1/4 mile of trail that I rode today, but I think it would be fun to bomb down some hills on.
Those brakes are great! Much nicer looking than "normal" v-brakes.
ReplyDelete- Ventura
1998-2001 is what I think it is. The seller said 2000ish.
ReplyDeleteThose brakes make my head hurt.
ReplyDeleteThe brakes are Cane Creek (used to be Diacompe) Direct Curve V-brakes.
ReplyDeleteI used them because you can swap all of the hardware and let the cable enter from the right side instead of the left side. Few V-brakes give you that flexibility, but it made the cable routing on this bike a lot easier.
pulling the vbrake off and swapping the hardware seems more difficult then putting on different cable stops.
ReplyDeletejust sayin...
I think those bridges had some brass rings placed inside,got forced into place by some gigantic hydralic arm and then were run through an auto-braze multi torch thing. Sometimes they got tacked with a mig-welder while the hydralic arm held them in place. This all took place in Taiwan, occaisionally we would have to rebrazed a little when the bare frames were qc'ed in Canada. I think I have pictures of all this.
ReplyDeleteJohn, if you're looking for a downhill to bomb and haven't visited the I-5 Colonnade, do so at once! Alex has my email and phone number, I'd be happy to join you.
ReplyDelete