When did it lose it for you.....

[brocklanders023]

When GT released the i-drive.

As previously posted, I drifted off around 95 and didn't properly come back until I bought my Orange Evo4 in 05 followed by an Orange 5 in 07.

I did, however, dip my toe in 99 and bought a GT 4000 I-drive thing that looked cool. It was terrible, so bad I hardly rode it and sold it on almost mint to a pal some years later.

 

[baldyonabike]

I've always admired the idrive: useless AND ugly. I can't help but feel they were made as the result of a bet between an engineer and a marketing person.

 

[madjh]

I Always liked GT with the Karakoram, STS, the Lobo etc but I-drive killed for ever. I didn´t like it. I chose a GF Sugar instead, it was simply better in geo and suspension system with two travels.

Marin died of aluminum indigestion. The same for Megamo ... that lovely frames made of tange Ultimate Superlight (Team and Radical), they look amazing but them aluminium again.

Yeti was close. The 2012 ARC was shouldless, nice but has nothing special. Now it is different, I love it. The Infinity system has resurrect the brand.

For example RM was always there, very nice frames, good quality, nice paintjobs and nowadays they are still cool (the actual 2022 paint jobs are not the best ... ) , from the 80s to the 20s

 

[Tootyred]

Oh Suntour! If only Shimano had not been such tartingslaps and prostituted themselves to every tin pot company you might have survived......oh and if you hadn't been so poor with money and marketing.....

Superior products, better made and more attractive to boot.

As for the rest....ahead, alluminium, boingy boingy forks and disc fiddling all about wrapped it up for me around 1993.

Never stopped riding, just stopped buying new stuff.

 

[Prodigal Son]

It lost for me the first day i rode my Pinarello road bike. My mountain bikes felt like toys next to the razor sharp handling, speed and comfort on long distance riding.

 

[trailstar82]

It lost for me the first day i rode my Pinarello road bike. My mountain bikes felt like toys next to the razor sharp handling, speed and comfort on long distance riding.

How far can you wheelie it though?

 

[Tootyred]

It lost for me the first day i rode my Pinarello road bike

Yes, but have you tried crashing a rock garden on it! Apples and oranges........

 

[Cheshire1980]

It lost for me the first day i rode my Pinarello road bike. My mountain bikes felt like toys next to the razor sharp handling, speed and comfort on long distance riding.

Rather have both. Great to have razor sharp bikes, own a couple of Pinarello’s myself and love riding them. Equally appreciate going for a forest spin on a 91 Prestige or Orange alu O.
Variety is the spice of life

 

[kingoffootball]

... long before this happened:

 

[2manyoranges]

Although…….in the land of sane bikes…

The discussion and analysis of wide tyres (and the rims needed to support them) has been fundamental and helpful. I started to run 2.10s (yeti fro-s) when others thought it was cool to run the skinniest tyres possible - and on wide Mavic CD rims (remember those?) - and have really benefitted from 36 internal rims with 2.35 tyres run tubeless. A simple change which accords with physics - as with move to 29 hoops.

Combined with slack HTA and other modern geometry - with otherwise standard steel tubing - the move to 29 makes bikes hugely capable. I got back on a race bike from ‘94 (ti Marin) and wondered where the hell the front wheel had gone and why my chin was dragging along the ground….