Saracen Trekker 1988

GLB

Dirt Disciple
Bought new 18 Nov 1988 from Cycleland Bromley after I lost various road bikes in a fire and decided I probably wasn't going to race any more.

Stayed in the shed from August 1997 until last weekend, when my son dragged it out and suggested I look at this site.

Apart from tweaking a tight rear hub cone, pumping up the 1.9" Panaracer Smoke Lites (yes I know it should be a Dart on the front - does any one know if the reissued 2.1" Smokes and Darts would fit this frame? The clearances look a bit tight to me) and squirting some lube at it I haven't done anything to it. The mud on it is genuine N Kent 1997.

At the weekend I'm going to strip out the hub and headset bearings, clean, fit new ball bearings and regrease. The front hub feels a little rough, but we'll see. The headset may be a little tight, or maybe it's just resistance from all those cables?? New inner cables are all on hand too and fortunately the colour-coded outers are in good nick.

The chain is knackered as are the larger sprockets. The 2 smaller chain rings are slightly worn, but the drive train runs smoothly enough as it is, so I'll give the transmission a good clean and lube and think about how to replace the cassette and chainrings later on. It's the type of cassette held together by a threaded 13T top sprocket rather than a separate lock ring. If the splines are the same I may be able to replace the 5 larger sprockets keeping the (virtually unused!!) 13T sprocket to lock it all together. Any views on this possibility are welcome. Otherwise I'll think about new hubs.

It's all original. I cut down the handlebars way back when to about 22" and fitted Onza bar ends. I changed the original saddle for a Turbo, and must have tried a Brooks B17 saddle for a while. That's survived and I've refitted it, having settled on various Brooks saddles for all my bikes. Not ideal for plunging through rivers and mud and horrible things like that, but I don't do that any more. Don't think I ever did much. I put on a Sigma computer BC300 when I first had it, but it died and at some point I put on the Huret clockwork belt driven mileometer. I think the heavyweight chrome rear mech guard might be around somewhere, as well as the reflectors on their colour coded brackets and the pedals too. I put on newfangled SPD's pretty much as soon as they came out I believe.

I've been enjoying riding it in the evenings this week. It's heavy, and a bit dead feeling to my mind, though I mainly ride a skinny fixie so it's a bit of a culture shock. It's not actually much worse than my Marin Point Reyes, and at my age I like to dawdle. Seems like the Trekker does too. The brakes are amazing! Much better than I remember and I love the sort of whooshy sound the tyres make when you brake really hard on tarmac. And I nearly did a stoppie last night....

Sort of like a kid again...
 

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Hello and welcome to the site :cool:

What a bike :razz: ,Im loving the double U brakes which IMO are very unique to a tiny window of our MTB history. I must admit that U brakes when set up correctly work a treat as you mention.

I would love to see more pics of this beauty especially brakes and decals.

And you have the original Saracen Bottle cage with little roller, how cool is that.

You will have to pop your pics above to the link below (a must ;)) with 46 pages dedicated to early saracens :cool:

http://retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic. ... &start=675

Cheers

GM :cool:
 
It's great to be appreciated. I thought the bike, like me, was out of date and neglected, but actually it's retro and original. I do so love this website!
 
those bars look soo comfy.

bike looks great. clearly had some love over the years
 
Well, no, not a lot of love actually. I still wanted to go fast when I first got it and thought it felt like a total slug. About the only money I spent on it was the lightest tyres I could find to try to wake it up a bit. Still, I was able to keep my MTB mad son company until he was able to go out with his own chums and then it sat in the shed from 1997 to last weekend, pretty much forgotten. Now I don't want to go fast any more and love it a lot more!
 
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