Let's see your old mountain bikes

My old DS1

You could make the Armageddons a little slacker with those eccentric shock mounts. Those were pretty cool (when they didn't slip). You had to use a skinny little shock though like the fox vanilla RCs to hit the far end of the range. That's pretty much the only way I could get that romic in there. And once I'd ridden some other shocks, dealing with one of those old vanillas was hard to do. Regardless of setup, it still never rode as well as the discos......for a lot of other reasons too. My disco was kind of a semi custom deal a friend of mine got made. I actually kind of wish I still had it. It really was a pretty dialed ride.

Krispy needs to get in here on the karpiel talk. He messed around with those things as much as anyone.

That first photo of you is only 1999? You look so darn cute!

Oh how far I have come. Started on something pretty decent though. Bought from a shop that had rented it out.

I got to watch a disco come apart before my eyes. We were at the old UCSC Farm fly out jump. It was basically an eight to ten foot lip out of a gravel parking lot to a tiny landing about fifteen feet away. One guy was jumping his friends brand new (Second ever made?) Brooklyn Super Trucker, which took a lot of pedaling to go far enough. Then he got back on his own Karpiel and pedaled just as hard. When he landed the head tube and the front of the top and down tubes all came off and I watched the tires bounce off of each other in the air over his head. I'm not so sure that Jon always heat treated his frames.

I don't have any pictures, but one could argue that my first mountaindike was a Shwinn Sidewinder in about '83. It was basically a straight tubed beach cruiser with five gears and two brakes. I learned to jump on that bike and began my freestyle career basically riding flat land in the neighbors driveway. That was followed by an '88 Dorado Sherpa.

Yeah Jan Karpiel or some idiot working for him sent out a few frames his final year in business without heat treating them. Fucker should have been sent to jail over that. Fortunately for my face, that was years after I'd sold mine, which were fabricated correctly. His bikes were fine up until the last few years when he'd gotten himself in a position where he essentially owed the whole planet money. He started doing some sketchy shlt after that.

BCD Inedible... Durango NCS 2003 racing Junior X!



Giant Faith DH mode- 2005?

2001ish intense M1 with Marzocchi Shivers and progressive 5th element shock, deemax wheels, profile cranks

Norco 4Hun, Marzocchi DJ1, 24" rear wheel, BMX crankset

@sspomer - nope not Hi5's ... RST's amazing 461DH ... that would have the brake arch snap with just a twist of the bars. hahahaha

5 inches of elastomer goodness. hahahaha

The orange Wheeler frames cracked for nothing as well ... so I was upgraded to the 2000 model frame (which is still in the garage today) - This had RST cable disc brakes ... and a 4 inch travel Marzocchi JrT up front. That was a great fork for its time.

Here is a bad quality scan I have of some old pics of me racing DH on my old Schwinn 4 Banger.... Circa 2002
a full 4" of travel!!! Oh YEAH!!!!

#thisthreadrules #bestthreadonvitalmtb

My 2000? Kona Roast,
2002 Marzocchi DirtJumper IIs
Mavic DH521 r/rim, Sunn Ditch Witch f/rim
Michelin Mountain Dry II tyres, 2.15”
Race Face Prodigy Forged Chainset, Wellgo pedals
Hope Enduro 4 brakes, 203mm! front rotor, 165mm rear
FSA Sky Pilot headset, Easton Vice 85mm stem, Truvativ Holzfeller bars
WTB Rocket V saddle
XT/LX shifters, LX mech.

Dug up a few of my old dirt jumpers and trials bike. Good times on these rigs!

2001 Spesh Bighit
26" front, 24" rear
Gazzalodi 2.3 front / 2.8 rear
Sun Doublewide rims
Marzocchi Shiver
RF Diabolus cranks
Hayes HFX HD brakes (i think)
Ran a 42t chainring on the front, and I definitely pedaled this beast up hills
~50lbs

The whole "wide rims and plus tires" being a new trend bugs me...

My dialed (at the time) 2007 Banshee Scream. Wasn't my first real bike, but the oldest have a photo of.

Yo, Spomer! Related to the first post in the thread: that fork is a Manitou X-Vert Ti (1998-1999/150 mm). The X-Vert Carbon came later, had the prolonged lower, just like Kovarik and the Intense boys used them in 2001 and 2002. They were also dry as hell and they needed a lot of servicing.

Otherwise, sorry that I don't post anything of my stuff yet, but I just travelled 900 km from Vienna, it's a bit late here and I have a busy schedule these days. But I will be back at some point with my Tazer, my M1, my Lobos, my Stab, my Jekyll and my Chameleon, among others.

But maybe you'll like this story until then: https://www.facebook.com/notes/transylvanian-mtb-museum/the-gt-man-and-…

Cheers and have a good one!
Mx

My first proper DH bike, 04 Mondraker Petrol:





And my 05 Demo 9:



Good memories on both of them.