Troy Brosnan posted a photo of the top tube of an old Iron Horse Sunday against a clear blue sky, at the top of a trail. Forgive me if I missed someone, but that adds him to Connor Fearon, Laurie Greenland, and Mr. Samuel Hill, Esq. to make a very rad list of ex-top ten riders who had a go on the old green pony in the last year or two. Sam, Loz, and Connor did it for promotion also, with a shiny edit to prove it. And more than a few very talented bike builders have re-created the Sunday, either from scratch or with an old frame to modify. I watched all the videos these guys made riding that bike, and I’ll watch Troy’s too if that’s what he was doing out in the bush today. You probably will too.
Which made me wonder: are there any other comparable examples of sports equipment that, combined with an outstanding athlete, dominated a specific discipline of a sport in such a way that the equipment itself stays culturally relevant, even after more than a decade or two? Are there legendary skis? Or tennis rackets? Should I be searching for YouTube videos of the greatest javelin of all time, and the right arm that chucked it? Or Jordan and Magic shooting hoops in the driveway talking about Spalding’s greatest ever era of balls?
This is the strange and insignificant type of superlative that only the internet can produce in both quality and quantity. Blow my mind people!
unpopular opinion:
that cloud chasing just marks an athlete’s transition to has been status
intense M1, so good other brands put their stickers on it.
Shane McConkey and the Volant Spatulas and then K2 Pontoons. He was arguably responsible for the existence of modern powder skis as we know them today.
In snowboarding, the Winterstick Swallowtail and the Dupraz D1 come to mind. The latter hasn't really changed since the early 2000's and the former has retained its basic outline for 50 years. Both are still relevant designs, though I'd much prefer the D1, myself.
I think this somewhat fits the topic but also kind of doesn't:
Alexander Ovechkin, the all time leading goal scorer in NHL history had a falling out with his long term equipment sponsor CCM a couple of years ago over the fact they discontinued the stick model he spent the majority of his career using. Because of the need to constantly "innovate" and give the masses something new (where have we heard this story before?), he tried using the newer CCM sticks and it got to the point where he was using other brands to no avail. At this point he had 8 goals in 43 games. Enter a small company in Canada that raised their hand and said they could replicate his old stick for him. The result? 23 goals in 36 games. When he finally surpassed Wayne Gretzky for the most goals ever scored, he did so with the no name stick that only has a little number 8 for graphics.
This right here is really, really good. Mind = blown.
I feel like the V-10 and to a lesser extent the Trek Session exist in a similar realm but don't get the recognition because they've existed forever and have had incremental changes. The demo kind of fits that as well but has had a lot of bigger changes over the years and bike doesn't always resemble itself year to year.
Without Sam Hill there is no Ironhorse Sunday lore. Every piece of legendary sporting equipment or similar has an athlete to go along with it.
Jeremy McGrath and the 1993 - 1996 Honda CR250 immediately jumps to mind for me. Those bikes are still revered in MX culture, and are forever being purchased and restored to the point where they are fetching big money and becoming very difficult to come by. Much of what began to make DH cool in the late 90's was direct trickle down of MC's supercross dominance in the mid 90's, spearheaded by Palmer of course.
Post a reply to: The Sunday Revival: what else compares?