Fat Chance Yo Eddy - 1990 MBUK Summer Special super bike tribute

[Prodigal Son]

+1 on the stem and post matching.

Imo that´s a road bike thing. Mountain bikes from their inception were always built w/mismatched parts: moto brakes, road derrailleurs, touring cranks not to mention tinkering like hand built cassettes and suntour post heads glued to wide aluminum tubes.

 

[Factorycol]

+1 on the stem and post matching.

surprisingly hard to achieve on a 1990ish model. probably for the reason stated above.

Imo that´s a road bike thing. Mountain bikes from their inception were always built w/mismatched parts: moto brakes, road derrailleurs, touring cranks not to mention tinkering like hand built cassettes and suntour post heads glued to wide aluminum tubes.

I'm not sure that's 100% responsible for my OCD on this, I didn't have any road heritage back in the 90s. I just like matching stuff, I can't even wear non matching jersey and shorts indoors on the turbo trainer when I'm on my own.

But yes, i suspect that logic is why not many companies who made seatposts in 1990 also made stems, and vice versa. It only seem to become a main stream thing as the decade moved on.

 

[pw_pw_la]

What was catalog spec stem back then?

Not that I give a rats about catalog, just curious to know what a typical Fat of that era would have come with in the stem department.

I do love the references you make to the 90s you in your choices! Especially as you say you're not riding it, so really you could have anything you want on it, as long as it looked right.

I respect that level of commitment to a plan and ideal!

Personally I preferred the ATAC to the Ringle, but now I'm racking my brains for another option...

If you couldn't find just the right thing in black, a silver (or ti) stem would still look nice, too, I think. If only because it would still match the seatpost, which is a silver and black mix, as well as the crankset, for the same reason. The bars are black, after all.

 

[ad9]

The Canadian distributor for Fat Chance was Veltec. My 91 Yo Eddy came with an American Bicycle stem, a TCO seatpost and Xt or Xc pro groupo. The stem was polished.

 

[M-Power]

The Canadian distributor for Fat Chance was Veltec. My 91 Yo Eddy came with an American Bicycle stem, a TCO seatpost and Xt or Xc pro groupo. The stem was polished.

https://www.retrobike.co.uk/gallery2/d/2159-4/1990.pdfCheck the 90 Catalogue one comes with an American stem in black.

 

[Prodigal Son]

What was catalog spec stem back then?

Not that I give a rats about catalog, just curious to know what a typical Fat of that era would have come with in the stem department.

I do love the references you make to the 90s you in your choices! Especially as you say you're not riding it, so really you could have anything you want on it, as long as it looked right.

I respect that level of commitment to a plan and ideal!

Personally I preferred the ATAC to the Ringle, but now I'm racking my brains for another option...

If you couldn't find just the right thing in black, a silver (or ti) stem would still look nice, too, I think. If only because it would still match the seatpost, which is a silver and black mix, as well as the crankset, for the same reason. The bars are black, after all.

Fat City Cycles sold frames and forks. I don´t think they sold complete bikes so there was no official spec. Most of time it was salsa, syncros and ringle but one could ask the shop for control tech. To me, bike fit rules everything else and from the amount of post showing, a 120mm 15 degr. stem gives me the right vibe. Those Yos had long top tubes and unless you undersized, 135mm stems were too much. Also, the old fat chance handlebar was 62cm which also calls for a shorter stem. But again; the builds were always personal and you would throw whatever was your taste.

 

[Prodigal Son]

The Canadian distributor for Fat Chance was Veltec. My 91 Yo Eddy came with an American Bicycle stem, a TCO seatpost and Xt or Xc pro groupo. The stem was polished.

Veltec probably did the spec, not Fat City Cycles. If you bought your Yo from Cambria Cycles thy would suggest something else. That´s the beauty of mountain bikes in the 80s and 90s; you would build however you liked it.

 

[ad9]

Agreed the spec was probably from Veltec, perhaps Fat City and American used the same rep to sell their wares to distributors.
I picked up the bike from Veltec, the stem and post were in a bag attached to the frame.
In terms of building the way you liked, that was not my experience, quite often you had to take what the shop had to sell. If you wanted a stem with a particular length or rise you probably had one or at most two options. Salsa stems maybe one time and 3 months later they may have some Answer or Syncros stems. The US was a different story I know, the border complicated these things.

 

[Prodigal Son]

Agreed the spec was probably from Veltec, perhaps Fat City and American used the same rep to sell their wares to distributors.
I picked up the bike from Veltec, the stem and post were in a bag attached to the frame.
In terms of building the way you liked, that was not my experience, quite often you had to take what the shop had to sell. If you wanted a stem with a particular length or rise you probably had one or at most two options. Salsa stems maybe one time and 3 months later they may have some Answer or Syncros stems. The US was a different story I know, the border complicated these things.

Yes; before the internet it was all about the shop, physical shops ruled the earth.

 

[Factorycol]

I've got the MBUK magazing from the summer of 1990, that the Yo Eddy with this paint finish featured in. They only ever talk about the price as a frame / fork only, because as discussed above I'm pretty much 100% certain they only came into the UK as framesets. When I bought this bike it has a Salsa on it, and I'm pretty certain from memory it was tested in MBUK with a Salsa stem. But to be fair they put red/white/blue Bullseye hubs on a bike with this paint job so I'm not relying on them for any kind of guidance on style