sinnerman":jkx6lefz said:......
Nice bike there, is it going to be finished soon?
As for the roberts/ pug frame stuff here is what Simon Burnley(manager of roberts pug team) said on a conversation with Doctor bond :
Peugeot launched their range of mountain bikes in early ’88 and asked if the team would race them in the newly announced Shimano MTB Series, so we got stock bikes, put some parts on from the ‘cross bikes (road stems to get a lower/longer riding position, pedals/clips/straps, saddles/pins), built some lighter wheels with Wolber rims on Shimano hubs and went to the first race in Peebles on the weekend of 21-22 May 1988. The guys did the rest of that series plus Man v Horse, then went to Crans Montana Switzerland for the Worlds in August; at that time there was a Worlds in Europe and a Worlds in USA.
Now the Roberts built frames were ordered to use at those World Champs, as the stock Peugeots were pretty bullet-proof over-heavy frames and weren’t suitable for racing at the level Tim & David were moving in to.
For 89 Peugeot built some custom frames from Reynolds tubing in their Romilly factory, but totally based on the geometry and spec of the Roberts; I would imagine that is what you saw in the pic of Tim, with the mudguard eyes on the dropouts, as they used standard dropouts and some lugs as per their regular bike line. Unfortunately the Reynolds tubing was also too heavy at that time compared to other stuff out there, but with standard fork crowns, lugs, dropouts etc those bikes were still too heavy!
I can’t remember the exact timeline here, but for sure the Roberts frames were not used after mid-season ’89 (so August 88 to perhaps May/June 89); by now there were three Pro’s (Tim, David, Fred) plus the Ace Team of another 4-5 riders so frames were passed down from Pro’s to Am’s as most were on the same size.
1989 was the year Tim & David went to USA (clashed with the Aviemore race that has recently popped up on You Tube that Kloser won, Fred stayed behind to do that for the team). Tim won NORBA Finals at Big Bear (Overend 2nd, David was with him on last lap and twisted front mech and chain), then weekend after was USA Worlds at Mammoth. Don Myrah won, Tim & David both just in top 10 from memory but 9,000ft was too high! Tim won the hill climb and David broke the speed trap record on the Kamikaze DH.
1990 the bikes were all blue, going from a dark blue to paler blue fade along the frame.
1991 the bikes were black with orange decals (same as pic’s of Tim in our book), & David went to Raleigh and was replaced by Nick Craig.
1992 the bikes were silver and blue (Peugeot – Look Team).
