My love for bikes from the late 80s and early 90s is certainly no secret.
I have a passion for it, Why.......because it was my retro, my teenage years, when life was less bogged down with responsibility!
Like many here, i was fortunate to work with bikes, i rode a bike, i raced a bike, i read all the mags and talked to as many people i could, making
new aquaintances and even good friends along the way.
Nothing impressed me more than the Frame Builders..the guys that built the frames. These machines werent just bicycles.......
NO WAY......a bicycle was something you bought in Halfords to take your kids out or to get to work cheaply. No, the guys im talking
are craftsmen and to me they are even more than that...they are Legends that without them realising it were helping shape the future of the mountain bike and the sport as we knew it. They understand about tubing, how the use of a tube or
profile or shape of a tube can change the way a bike handles or feels, they tweek, they experiment with angles, they add gussets
for strength.....these guys werent just building bicycles, they were redefining the bicycle, they were building us the best usable tool to do
a job, and do it dam well.
For as much as i enjoyed the mountain bikes, in the early 80s, and being lucky enough to be able to watch all the developments
through this time, the different designs, different materials, the brake placement, the chainstay lengths, the head angles, e-stays, flex stems all of it,
to be there at that age and watching the mountain bike evolve was amazing, by the time the 90s had hit us, the mountain bike had arrived, it had found its place in
world and was here to stay.
And things were still moving forward as always, only now from where i was sat it was no longer about what was the best chainstay length or best place to put a U brake,
all this sort of stuff was done, the focus was changing to strength and weight.
In my world there were two men that i considered to be at the cutting edge in this regard, not only were they pushing the boundaries in frame building and design,
they were also bringing us ride-able works of engineered ART.
These men of course, are Chas Roberts and Keith Bontrager.
I have a passion for it, Why.......because it was my retro, my teenage years, when life was less bogged down with responsibility!
Like many here, i was fortunate to work with bikes, i rode a bike, i raced a bike, i read all the mags and talked to as many people i could, making
new aquaintances and even good friends along the way.
Nothing impressed me more than the Frame Builders..the guys that built the frames. These machines werent just bicycles.......
NO WAY......a bicycle was something you bought in Halfords to take your kids out or to get to work cheaply. No, the guys im talking
are craftsmen and to me they are even more than that...they are Legends that without them realising it were helping shape the future of the mountain bike and the sport as we knew it. They understand about tubing, how the use of a tube or
profile or shape of a tube can change the way a bike handles or feels, they tweek, they experiment with angles, they add gussets
for strength.....these guys werent just building bicycles, they were redefining the bicycle, they were building us the best usable tool to do
a job, and do it dam well.
For as much as i enjoyed the mountain bikes, in the early 80s, and being lucky enough to be able to watch all the developments
through this time, the different designs, different materials, the brake placement, the chainstay lengths, the head angles, e-stays, flex stems all of it,
to be there at that age and watching the mountain bike evolve was amazing, by the time the 90s had hit us, the mountain bike had arrived, it had found its place in
world and was here to stay.
And things were still moving forward as always, only now from where i was sat it was no longer about what was the best chainstay length or best place to put a U brake,
all this sort of stuff was done, the focus was changing to strength and weight.
In my world there were two men that i considered to be at the cutting edge in this regard, not only were they pushing the boundaries in frame building and design,
they were also bringing us ride-able works of engineered ART.
These men of course, are Chas Roberts and Keith Bontrager.
