1988 Muddy Fox Courier 'B52'

[spatuluk]

Hi all!

After foolishly not deleting my saved searches, I recently acquired a Muddy Fox Courier from fleabay. Here's the pic from the listing:


So, what's wrong with that picture? I found out when I tried to work out it's age.. Lugged? 87/88/89. Decals? 1988. Components? 1990? Colour? erm.. I tried searching for it in catalogue scans, but it doesn't seem to be in any of them. Couriers were never red, and lugged couriers didn't have Shimano components. Maybe a parts bin special in 1990, but the decals are wrong. Are U brake mounts compatible with canti mounts? I have no idea... maybe an upgraded and resprayed courier?

Then, when switching the search to images, I found an image of a red courier that linked to this post in the Tushingham B52 resource thread on this very site! It seems to be some sort of Shimano demonstrator that was yanked off of the B52 production line for Muddy Fox. The link being the twin bottle cages more than anything else, as they're a rather unique feature, and I don't think they'd be a necessity for demonstrating Shimano kit.

So, back to ebay and a bit of squinting later, and I reckon the Courier I was looking at had the telltale two bottle cage mounts. I bidded, and was convinced it'd get a crazy bid put on, but it never did, and I won!!

It's still in the post (was gonna get my parents to pick up, but they went on holiday. Selfish gits!), so I don't know what state it's in, but you can rest assured that I'll post some pics when it gets here. Some part hunting will certainly be in order, if I can find an original spec.. :?

 

[MatBH5]

Re:

Good score. I was watching this as it was just up the road from me. Sounds like you did a lot of good detective work. A very interesting bike. Looking forward to updates when it arrives.

 

[lae]

Re:

Nice find! Neither canti nor V-brakes can be fitted to U-brake posts - with a U-brake, the posts are above the rim; with canti/V, the posts are below.

 

[lrh]

Re: 1987 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

Nice spot. I also scored something nice/rare last year for cheap on eBay through obsessive detective work

Looking at the parts on this and the other (Exage Mountain, Mountain LX) all point to late 1988 or more likely 1989, the only period those bits were available. Chainset and pedals are probably the only changes to yours.

Possibly some sort of special edition circa 1990 using unsold Tushinghams?

 

[spatuluk]

Re:

If it were 89/90, why use decals from 1988?

It's kinda weird.. I'm hoping Sinnerman will turn up and bless my thread with his knowledge, as he seems to be the only person who knows anything about them.

In the meantime, I'm gonna do more detective work.

 

[spatuluk]

Re: 1988 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

Found a few pics of 1988 Couriers, and noticed they (and some '89 models) had chainstay mounted U brakes, whereas 1990 Couriers didn't. As far as I can tell, they weren't Shimano.

As for twin downtube bottle mounts - some Arayas had them from 89 onward, and the bikes demonstrating Exage in the 88/89 Shimano catalogue also had twin mounts, but don't appear to be lugged (hard to tell for sure - the scans are rubbish), so probably aren't related.

Still no sign of anything with seatstay mounted U brakes.

 

[spatuluk]

Re: 1988 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

I found another image of a red Courier. Non-drive side, unfortunately, but interesting to note the same stem and fork, as I was thinking the stem looked like it'd been upgraded due to lack of pulley:


It looks as though the frame doesn't have the paw prints at the top of the seat stays, like other MFs of that era have, which is a shame. :|

Roll on mid-week!

 

[drcarlos]

Re: 1988 Red Muddy Fox Courier oddity

This is a special edition courier, that essentially is nothing special Tange MTB frame and Exage Mountain parts) until you scratch the surface. Then you find out it is the twin of the B52, basically the same bike painted up as a muddyfox and a little piece of Orange history. These were the development bikes that the orange founders had made for the Tushingham B52 and for some reason MF decided to do a run (maybe the factory could only do a minimum batch and tushingham only wanted part of it and MF decided to pick up the rest??) of special Couriers with Shimano parts instead of Suntour.

Carl.

 

[SaracenSteve]

Re:

Class info Carl. i always wondered what they were. Only seen one other for sale.

 

[andyz]

Re:

All revealed in this link:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=253737

It is late '88 I believe, I have the one in that link.
I'm so glad that someone on here bought that one.