Rocky Mountain pt. 80

at some point i will do a post about all the bikes i've owned, but this seemed like a good place for a post on all the rocky mountains i've owned.


Nimbus. i bought this bike in about 1994 - i think - and i was excited to get it because i knew how rare and special it was. one of the very first aluminum bikes to use butted easton tubes. i believe only 200 were made. it had a first generation manitou, grafton 3d violet front hub, ritchey cranks, and that super cool white syncros stem. the bike came stock with a white syncros fork, which i'm thinking must be one of the most rare bike parts out there.


now it has a marzocchi xc500 - i fork i never liked; it never worked the way it supposed to. or didn't work the way i had read it was supposed to. it just didn't seem to have any rebound damping at all. and i'm a big guy so i needed pretty heavy spring rates. anyway, i took care of that after a bit.


that is a manitou sx. or an sx-r? i can't remember. i do remember that i had to buy the more expensive one because it was the only one the shop had with a cable stop on the brake brace. why didn't I just buy v-brakes? good question. changing the fork is pretty much all i did to this bike. i swapped out the ritchey cantilevers for shimano xt, but never changed the cranks, wheels, or anything else but tires.

anyway, i left it out in the yard one day between school and leaving for work, and it wasn't there when it was time to go to work.


Avalanche. i figured since i had a rocky stolen from me, then it was ok for me to buy what was probably a stolen rocky. i got it from a pawn shop, which doesn't guarantee that it was stolen, but from the stories i've heard, i wouldn't be surprised at all. it was probably a '86, purple and orange with chainstay U-brakes. it was tange steel, came with a set of the original syncros barends (one of which had been broken and repaired, poorly), mismatched wheels, and that sloping top tube, long seat tube geometry which to me, always looked better than the flat top tube look that so many other old timey bikes had.

one of my biggest regrets was what i did to this bike;


i first had jim molden (local bike builder) move the brakes up to the seatstays, then i stripped the paint, and painted it like a 1991 blizzard - maybe my all-time favorite bike. i found a 1" threaded judy to fit it, and painted that too. where those period correct frame decals came from, i can't remember. i sure don't regret what i ended up with, because it looked fantastic, but right now, i really wish i still had the orange and purple avalanche.

anyway, after this, i built a brand new wheelset for it, and then sold it on ebay. i did make it clear it was not a real blizzard. i'm not sure why i did that either. i should probably take a bit more time to consider whether or not i really want to sell my rockys, because i regret another one a little bit too...