Course_Out
Retro Newbie
Hello fellow retro riders!
Only just joined the forum, stumbling across it while googling old school MTB's. Although I am only new to mountain biking, I have been involved with BMX since the 90's and have an affinity for the clean lines of the older style bikes.
After a lay off of a couple of years I got into mountain biking, riding new hardtail bikes and having a lot of fun. However I found I was getting a bit bored of my local trails, so built a single speed full rigid Diamondback. I can't find a pic currently, but it was no thing of beauty, and way too tall for me. Still loving the retro style I tried my hand at building a cheap "clunker" out of an Apollo beach cruiser (no idea of the age)
From this:
To this:
Using spares from the shed mainly. Rode quite well, but the flex under power was pretty scary so I sold it on. The search was on for a new project, with gumtree and ebay coping a hiding, as always.
An Apollo Himalaya turned up on gumtree about 2 hours drive away. After some back and forth with the unhelpful advertiser I discovered I was going to be in the vicinity anyway, so I decided to go have a look. Advertised at $120, my wife and I went to a rather shady looking unit block where an eastern European gentleman and his daughter met us. After some haggling, some good natured jibes and a few laughs what seemed like a really sketchy situation turned into me walking away with the bike for $90. My wife, as ever, was greatly amused by my poker face bargaining skills, and my ability to make every buying expedition an adventure into absurdity!
So enough rabble, what the hell did I buy? Well...
(excuse my corgi trying to hog the limelight)
Bit rustier than I thought...
Biopace chainwheels!
So it is basically an early 90's (pre 1994 given the biopace I think?) Australian Apollo. It seems Apollo also exists in England, but these are a different brand as far as I can tell. In Australia Apollo made many high quality bikes during the 80's (BMX) and early 90's (MTB) with the higher end full chromoly BMX's (and possibly MTB's? I'm not sure?) made in Japan by Kuwahara. Some earlier Apollo's are also direct copies (homages?) to GT, particularly their 26" BMX.
So plans for this? Well it isn't really worth anything, but it does have sealed mech hubs and rather nice and straight Araya rims, so I figure so far it is a win. The plan is to run it as a single speed mountain bike, maybe giving some local cyclocross racing a go and generally burn around the local trails. To this end I have collected a few bits and pieces including:
Crossmark tyres (freebie from a mate who's gone to a 29er, yay!)
Single speed cassette conversion
32 tooth front ring (74bcd)
28" wide bars and lock on grips
New levers as the current nylon ones have the shifter built into them
The plan is to keep the budget as low as possible and, given the poor condition of the frame, basically clean it up as best I can and ride it til it fails. The only thing I might do is replace the spoke nipples as the fronts are quite rusty (thinking purple maybe?), as I think if (when?) the frame dies most of the parts could be transferred to the next bike.
Currently I am waiting on bits to turn up, so here is how it sits now:
There's that corgi again!
Thanks for looking, any comments or questions are welcome!
Only just joined the forum, stumbling across it while googling old school MTB's. Although I am only new to mountain biking, I have been involved with BMX since the 90's and have an affinity for the clean lines of the older style bikes.
After a lay off of a couple of years I got into mountain biking, riding new hardtail bikes and having a lot of fun. However I found I was getting a bit bored of my local trails, so built a single speed full rigid Diamondback. I can't find a pic currently, but it was no thing of beauty, and way too tall for me. Still loving the retro style I tried my hand at building a cheap "clunker" out of an Apollo beach cruiser (no idea of the age)
From this:
To this:
Using spares from the shed mainly. Rode quite well, but the flex under power was pretty scary so I sold it on. The search was on for a new project, with gumtree and ebay coping a hiding, as always.
An Apollo Himalaya turned up on gumtree about 2 hours drive away. After some back and forth with the unhelpful advertiser I discovered I was going to be in the vicinity anyway, so I decided to go have a look. Advertised at $120, my wife and I went to a rather shady looking unit block where an eastern European gentleman and his daughter met us. After some haggling, some good natured jibes and a few laughs what seemed like a really sketchy situation turned into me walking away with the bike for $90. My wife, as ever, was greatly amused by my poker face bargaining skills, and my ability to make every buying expedition an adventure into absurdity!
So enough rabble, what the hell did I buy? Well...
(excuse my corgi trying to hog the limelight)
Bit rustier than I thought...
Biopace chainwheels!
So it is basically an early 90's (pre 1994 given the biopace I think?) Australian Apollo. It seems Apollo also exists in England, but these are a different brand as far as I can tell. In Australia Apollo made many high quality bikes during the 80's (BMX) and early 90's (MTB) with the higher end full chromoly BMX's (and possibly MTB's? I'm not sure?) made in Japan by Kuwahara. Some earlier Apollo's are also direct copies (homages?) to GT, particularly their 26" BMX.
So plans for this? Well it isn't really worth anything, but it does have sealed mech hubs and rather nice and straight Araya rims, so I figure so far it is a win. The plan is to run it as a single speed mountain bike, maybe giving some local cyclocross racing a go and generally burn around the local trails. To this end I have collected a few bits and pieces including:
Crossmark tyres (freebie from a mate who's gone to a 29er, yay!)
Single speed cassette conversion
32 tooth front ring (74bcd)
28" wide bars and lock on grips
New levers as the current nylon ones have the shifter built into them
The plan is to keep the budget as low as possible and, given the poor condition of the frame, basically clean it up as best I can and ride it til it fails. The only thing I might do is replace the spoke nipples as the fronts are quite rusty (thinking purple maybe?), as I think if (when?) the frame dies most of the parts could be transferred to the next bike.
Currently I am waiting on bits to turn up, so here is how it sits now:
There's that corgi again!
Thanks for looking, any comments or questions are welcome!