Prototype Onza titanium cast Hi output cranks

Word on the street is some people are still hoping these cast titanium cranks will come out. Onza was once one of the coolest brands in the industry. They sponsored the Yeti race team, Herbold and many other teams while coming up with all kind of cool things you had to have and then they disappeared and the logo showed up on weird trials bikes in UK. These titanium cranks where never released, many tried to make a reliable titanium crank even years after Onza HO cranks failed and horror stories of broken titanium cranks just riding along on a road bike still shocks the industry.

Manitou Prototype double triple crown fork

Once upon a time everyone in the industry (or MBA) thought that the future of the suspension fork in all categories was double triple crowns.With the past behind us we now know that double triple clamp forks only stuck on DH style bikes, but there is no doubt a triple crown fork looks badass on a XC-bike or light full suspension bike. Maybe it will come back next year.

Look Fournales suspension fork

Here is a crisp foto of a euro suspension fork, the Look Fournales. Nothing really beats a good classic suspension fork but you can be sure there are always alternatives popping up all  the time. The Look Fournales is not a bad fork and is quite light.

Ringle SuperBubba in rare splatter anodized color

Here is a picture of a Ringle rear hub in a rare splatter anodized finish. I think these finishes where released in limited quantities since they are super rare. To be honest with you I think the splatter on this hub looks quite bad, I have seen way better anodized splatter but maybe back then this was as good as you could have made the anodization.

Bontrager Trials bike

Trials used to be a popular discipline besides X-country and downhill racing, famous racers used to compete in trials just as they would compete in X-country, downhill and uphill. These days trials are more for the rad Redbull drinking kool kids. The above frame is a Bontrager made trials bike with some interesting components such as bash guard and double tripple crown rigid fork. I really like the front U-brake too, U brakes rocks!

American Road bike

American was a custom frame builder in America. They where most famous for the ultralight sub 3 pound 30.000 dollar Beryllium prototype MTB frame that some German collector bought back in the early 90'ies. One trend in those times was to make a road bike if you where a die hard MTB builder, it was sort of a statement towards the road bike riders who preferred frames by 50 year old brands with Italian heritage. Compare the above frame with a Pinarello from the same year and the difference is big, but IMHO this frame is as elegant as any Colnago is in a sort of wicked way.

Specialized Demo

One of my favorite frames in recent times, the Specialized Demo.

Magic Motorcycle crankset

This is the famous Magic Motorcycle crank-set (that is also famous for unbonding and cracking). IIRC this crankset had a price over 500 dollars, that was quite a lot of money for a crank-set back in 1993.

Haro Extreme

Haro is a cool brand that originally only made BMX bikes. It was created by a BMX racer who made his own BMX bikes for flatland riding. This is an early Haro mountainbike that uses a composite frame, alu front and steel rear. The idea was to have a stiffer front and a more forgiving rear end (sort of mini suspension).

Corratec Team Bow

This is probably one of the most ugly mountain bikes I have ever seen (we will see more of them I have quite a lot of them in my ugly bikes picture folder). But in all its ugliness it is an interesting bike. First of all, this is a euro MTB so it is speced with early Italian Formula disc brakes back when V-brakes where the norm. Other interesting things is the color, the deep red anodized rims and the bar which is an inverted riser bar that instead of rising, drops down and has integrated bar ends. Form follows function, what function does a bent top tube provide?! And why use a stem with a rise if the handlebars are lowered?

Funk Aluminium fork

Funk is an interesting brand that is still operating, check them out at www.funkcycles.com. Funk was most famous for their aluminium frames. But they also made this rigid fork and a suspension fork (which I asume by today's standards are utter  crap).

TwentyFourBicycles Le Toy III

The Le Toy III by TwentyFourBicycles is the most badass hardcore hardtail there is. It was released before dirtjumping became mainstream so it was sort of the first freeride hardtail or downhill hardtails on the market. The frame is very interesting, it has BMX style bottom bracket, gusetted rear triangle, massive downtube, can take V-brakes and disc brakes and can be run as singlespeed or with gear. It can also be set up with 24" or 26" wheels and could swallow the 3" Nokian Gazzaloddi tire without any problems. I prefer the III over the fourth version.

Ritchey SuperComp

Here is a nice vintage Ritchey SuperComp from the 80'ies. Notice x-tra long stem, level top tube and position of the rear brakes, typical of 80'ies mountain bikes.

Mountain Goat,Road Goat

IMHO the phase when custom MTB builders began making road frames are a personal favorite of mine, because most frames borrowed details from the MTB frames that where unorthodox for road bikes at the time. This Mountain Goat for example shares the wishbone rear stays with the mountain bike frames. Mountain Goat MTB frames are quite skinny so the difference between the MTB and road bike Mountain Goats are actually not that big.

Moots Smoothie

This is a Moots Smoothie. It is a titanium full suspension frame. This particular bike has an interesting choice of handlebars and saddle and an interesting setup of those.

C4 Weird elevated chainstay carbon frame

This is a nice old school vintage MTB carbon frame that has elevated chainstays on one side and regular stays on the other (I prefer both stays to follow the same style IMHO). I have some faded memories of this frame from back in the day, something says to me that this is an Italian made frame. Oh, and it must have weighted a ton, just look at the bottom bracket area.

Santa Cruz Bullit

In its prime time, the Santa Cruz Bullit was the bike to have. It was part freeride, part downhill and part regular MTB, a sort of do it all bike that went well with people who was pumped on freeriding, hucking and having 5" of suspension. Santa Cruz is well known for many of their paint finishes through the years, this golden metallic paint job is easily in their top 5.

Juchem custom

Juchem is a German bicycle manufacturer I think. Most German brands are heavily influenced by American brands, typically Klein, Fat Chance and Yeti. In the above picture you can see where inspiration came from very clearly right down to the Klein look alike rear facing dropouts with weight saving holes drilled in them.

Intense Uzzi DH

The Intense Uzzi DH was the DH version of the Uzzi bikes from Intense. Unlike the M1-SL that was a pure DH frame the Uzzi DH could take a front derailleur and could be built up relatively light (for a long travel suspension bike).

Risse Racing Lassen

Risse Racing is probably most famous for their replacement shock for the AMP B2/3/4/5 family of frames and a 12" travel long travel full suspension fork. Perhaps a little bit less known are this ultra rare Lassen DH frame that has a welded front section and a CNC machined rear section.

Mammoth Mountainbikes RC 201

There are some MTB companies with roots in the skateboarding business such as Santa Cruz. Another company was Mammoth Mountain Bikes that was connected to the Tracker company (which explains why you could find Mammoth MTBs inside rad skateboarding shops back in the day). Mammoth does not have the same following as Fat Chance or Yeti has today but it is not totally forgotten.

Small Yeti ARC

I was emailing some guy on the net who said he had a vintage Yeti ARC for sale. I got the above picture as the answer with a price tag above 1500 dollars. In hindsight I should have bought it (considering it had a full Grafton/Ringle set), but it was too small, and in the weird x-tra small size where the top tube merges into the downtube and it was cracked at the top of the seat tube. But at least I kept the image.

Yeti Thermoplastic prototype

This is a Yeti Thermoplastic prototype frame. Thermoplastic material was supposed to become the next greatest material in the 90'ies but it never seemed to take off besides GT who used the material successfully in their LTS and Lobo frames. IIRC there are a few thermoplastic prototypes made. I was going to buy the one that race driver Paul Tracy had but in the last second decided not to. I think the price given to me was 3500 dollars back in 1999.

Litespeed Machette

This is a vintage Litespeed Machette DH bike made out of titanium. What makes this frame unique is the flat ovalized top and down tube. Litespeed has made many ugly bikes especially during the later years but I sort of like the look of the Machette especially with the cool carbon fiber HED downhill wheels.

Tank Cycles Zeus DH2

I wonder what market this bike was made for?

Mountain biking in Stockholm

I think this is a cool picture. These days if you ride your bike there Police would probably arrest you in no time.

Santa Cruz Chameleon in transparent red

Here is a nice older generation Santa Cruz Chameleon frame in my favorite color, transparent red. The Chameleon is an interesting frame that first came out around 1997, this is the third incarnation of the Chameleon, the fourth had an eccentric bottom bracket and the current one, the fifth has a different geometry and adjustable dropouts. All Chameleon frames can be run with or without gears.

Kestrel 500 SCi

I have always been interested in this old school Kestrel 500 SCi frame since it is using smaller 650c wheels than regular road bikes and does not have a seat tube. The idea was to make the bike more aerodynamic by reducing wheel size. Since there are no firm rules on bikes in the triathlon world they can compete on all kind of crazy bikes, such as this Kestrel with sweet Kestrel EMS fork all in Ferrari red from somewhere around the early 1990'ies.

Amazing Nicolai Freeride monster bike

I think this Nicolai frame was called the Nucleon. It is interesting because it was designed around an internally geared hub (A Rohloff Speedhub in this case) that is mounted inside the frame, by running chains from the frame mounted hub, in theory, pedal actions should not affect suspension movement (or something like that). Also notice the Marzocchi Super Monsters and Maxxis Hookworm tires. I guess this bike easily weights 45-50 pounds (or more).

Weird Rocky Mountain freeride bike

Back in 2003 this was a perfectly adequate cross country bike, back then freeriding was the norm and you had to have at least 7" suspension travel. Or not.

Some interesting details:

• Old school jumbo DH saddle
• Steel cranks (probably weights 5 pounds
• Shimano airline shifters
• Looks like 24" wheels
• Custom paint job (looks like shit IMHO)
• Nice frame protector on the upper half of the fork
• Ugly steering damper mounted to the stem/headset