Some Bike History
The history lessons laid out in pictures are not going to be necessarily chronological, so where we left off in 1989 we're now moving forward a little to 1993.
I started college in the fall of 1992. Late spring of 93 one of my new college friends finally mentioned and invited a bunch of us to his parents cabin a mere hour away.
From that point on, most weekends at school meant weekends at the cabin.
In the fall of 93 I came back to school with a pickup truck and a greater ambition for riding mt. bikes. I spent my summer working full time at a golf course primarily to outfit my mt. bike hunger.
Luckily my college friends had done something similar. Now we all had bikes and wanted to ride them - everywhere and especially at the cabin.
Over the summer I had built the box you see in the bed to keep things dry and protected on my long trips to where ever. The rest of the bed turned out to fit five bikes quite nicely. Being in college and having very little cash, we built our own racks out of 2"x4"s. Literally each rack was made completely of 2"x4"s. Obviously there were the runners, but the areas where the forks connected to the runners were simply blocks of wood cut to fit between the fork blades. A hole drilled through the block and an old skewer was all that was needed to anchor it all down.
So we threw the bikes in the back and headed to the cabin - a lot.
Being our sophomore year we still had a lot of time on our hands. With that extra time I did a lot of bike maintenance. I used to repack hubs on a nearly biweekly basis. If you expand the picture, you'll see my cranks are off (my bike is the purple Diamond Back sitting upside down). Not sure why or what I was doing, but I did that a lot back then.
Somebody snapped a picture before our ride.
Our ride took us to Little Pine State Park. Though I don't remember any specifics about that particular ride, I know I've ridden around there many times through the years.
Across the road from the park is a nice fire road climb that switch backs into the sky. It's a real lung buster for sure. After traversing the top there's a gnarly downhill Jeep road that drops you out pretty close to this point in the picture. I've had lots of good times bombing down that Jeep road.
What I also find interesting about this picture are the front tires on at least my bike and the green GT behind it. Back then everything was rigid. Suspension forks had just come out, but were way too expensive for us college types. In place of squishy forks, we discovered squishy tires. The tire manufacturers had finally stepped it up and started making huge 2.2" tires. I think my friend Aaron with the green GT is even running one on the back of his bike. They were a revolution in cush'.
Yeah. "Those were the days."
- b
I started college in the fall of 1992. Late spring of 93 one of my new college friends finally mentioned and invited a bunch of us to his parents cabin a mere hour away.
From that point on, most weekends at school meant weekends at the cabin.
In the fall of 93 I came back to school with a pickup truck and a greater ambition for riding mt. bikes. I spent my summer working full time at a golf course primarily to outfit my mt. bike hunger.
Luckily my college friends had done something similar. Now we all had bikes and wanted to ride them - everywhere and especially at the cabin.
Over the summer I had built the box you see in the bed to keep things dry and protected on my long trips to where ever. The rest of the bed turned out to fit five bikes quite nicely. Being in college and having very little cash, we built our own racks out of 2"x4"s. Literally each rack was made completely of 2"x4"s. Obviously there were the runners, but the areas where the forks connected to the runners were simply blocks of wood cut to fit between the fork blades. A hole drilled through the block and an old skewer was all that was needed to anchor it all down.So we threw the bikes in the back and headed to the cabin - a lot.
Being our sophomore year we still had a lot of time on our hands. With that extra time I did a lot of bike maintenance. I used to repack hubs on a nearly biweekly basis. If you expand the picture, you'll see my cranks are off (my bike is the purple Diamond Back sitting upside down). Not sure why or what I was doing, but I did that a lot back then.
Somebody snapped a picture before our ride.
Our ride took us to Little Pine State Park. Though I don't remember any specifics about that particular ride, I know I've ridden around there many times through the years.Across the road from the park is a nice fire road climb that switch backs into the sky. It's a real lung buster for sure. After traversing the top there's a gnarly downhill Jeep road that drops you out pretty close to this point in the picture. I've had lots of good times bombing down that Jeep road.
What I also find interesting about this picture are the front tires on at least my bike and the green GT behind it. Back then everything was rigid. Suspension forks had just come out, but were way too expensive for us college types. In place of squishy forks, we discovered squishy tires. The tire manufacturers had finally stepped it up and started making huge 2.2" tires. I think my friend Aaron with the green GT is even running one on the back of his bike. They were a revolution in cush'.
Yeah. "Those were the days."
- b
posted by JenBob at
7:38 AM
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