Taiwanese Fat Chance?

Checking my Facebook posts this morning, came across this update from MOMBAT.  

MOMBAT?  That short for the Museum of Mountain Bike Art & Technology.  That's one museum I'd like to spent an afternoon visiting.  It's housed at First Flight Bikes in North Carolina, and if I ever find myself in that part of the country, will drop in for sure.

Back to the update.  Seems they're selling off a few of their vintage bike collection, and one caught my eye, being the Fat City fan.  Fat City Cycles super expert I'm not, but know a fair amount about the history and models - as well as owning a '86 Fat Chance and '91 Yo Eddy - from back in the day.

Fat City bikes were all hand made in the U.S.A.  First at their Somerville, MA location, then later via a joint venture with Serotta, in New York state.  That's what I thought anyway...

According to this ad, Fat City dabbled with frames made in Taiwan for the Canadian market. Out of the many Fat City related articles, catalogs, and other stories over the years - I've never heard of this.  True?  If so, doesn't surprise me since Fat City was growing at the time.  Interesting story anyway.

Picture of the '91 Taiwanese Fat Chance, courtesy of the MOMBAT site.  Click here for more views and details.

I can't confirm or deny the off-shore frames for Canada story, but found it kind of interesting and adds another piece to Fat City Cycles lore.  Would I buy this bike?  Probably not.  But for a collector, a possible cool bike to own, just for the history of it all.  If interested, it could be yours.  Act now.

Steelman Manzanita

I occasionally cruise the Steelman site ogling all the handmade works of art. Noticed this Manzanita model mountain bike today. Super nice. Steel hardtail with 150mm travel fork. That matt green paint looks fantastic.

It's old school, new school, and just all around cool. I'll take one. I wish. Please send money...

Bring a Trailer - Throttle Yard

Even though my interest in all things moto has dwindled greatly over the last few years - it's still there - just hibernating until time and money are a little more free (if ever). With globalization and other factors, modern cars have become snap on bodies with shared platforms. I'm exaggerating a bit, but there is some truth to that. I get way more of a kick looking at older, more interesting cars. This site, Bring a Trailer, collects reader submissions of interesting vehicles found on eBay, Craigslist, and other sites. Fun to cruise though occasionally - cool site.

Related site, Throttle Yard, similar deal for motorcycles. Fun to peruse and let the two wheeled imagination wander for awhile. Modern motorcycles are fantastic - insane performance and super reliable. Still, the old stuff is more interesting to gawk at. Interesting designs, concepts, and history. Give it a go.

Steve Banks Collection - Vintage Mountain Bikes

While checking out the latest edition of Bicycle Quarterly magazine, came across an article by a fellow named Steve Banks. With that, a link to his site that contains a pretty cool collection of vintage mountain bikes. Models from Cunningham, Fisher, Ibis, Breezer, Mountain Goat, and other brands from the very early days of mountain biking - complete with photos and in some cases video, describing the history of the bike.

If you're into vintage mountain bikes, worth a peek. The bikes are also for sale, according to the article and website. Maybe start your Christmas shopping a little early.

1990 Durango Worlds Revisited

Via a link posted off RetroBIKE, pointing towards MountainBike Action - a great series of articles written by Zapata Espinoza - reflecting on the 1990 UCI World Championship held in Durango, Colorado. A great look back into the early days of mountain biking, with Ned Overend and Greg Herbold assisting for the retro ride.

I started riding mountain bikes in 1984 and have watched the sport progress to where it sits today. In a lot of ways, the '90s were the heyday of mountain bike racing. It was a great time of colorful riders, increasing sponsorship dollars, media attention, and rapidly changing technology - especially in the suspension arena. Was it better back then? Sounding like cranky old guy, yeah, in some ways it was.

I was also involved with motorcycle motocross during the '70s and it was a similar vibe. This "thing" was just past the infant stage, starting to blow up and get really cool. Both scenes had an overflow of interesting folks and developing technology. I'm really glad I was part of both worlds and have some great memories from each front.

If you were riding mountain bikes during that era and/or were a race fan, you'll enjoy the stories and pictures. If all of this was before your time aboard two wheels hitting dirt, you may get a kick (or laugh) out of what mountain bike technology was about in 1990. Pic above as example: Don Myrah on the Fat Chance, rocking the toe straps and Campy gear. Almost brings a tear to my old school eyes for many reasons.

Link to 1st article here. 2nd article here. 3rd article here. 4th article here. 5th article here.

Enjoy. No need to live in the past, but certainly fun to visit occasionally.

New Ibis Site

I like a fair amount of different bikes and bike related companies - for various reasons - however, I'm only an actual fan of a select few companies. To say you're a fan of a company may sound weird - then again maybe not. There's a few criteria that seems to permeate my list of favorites - make cool stuff, be run by people that "get it", and have sense of humor about it all.

One company on my list would be Ibis. Ibis was founded by Scot Nicol, back in the early days of mountain biking. Later, during the '90s, some would argue their "heyday", they came out with an incredible collection of bikes - mountain, trials, road, tandem, full suspension designs - really well done, ultra cool stuff, with a whacked sense of humor.

I don't have the dates off the top of head - and the intent of this post isn't to document Ibis history - but around 2000 or so, Ibis was sold to people looking to get into the bike industry. They failed big time and sank Ibis, much to the dismay of fans like me. With the end of Ibis, it joined Fat City and Bridgestone, creating a trio of dead companies that I really dug and thought contributed great stuff to the bike world.

Lucky for Ibis fans, a few years later Nicol resurrected Ibis with a few other smart folks. They've since gone all carbon and use the designed in USA and manufactured off shore business model. To be honest, at first that turned me off a bit to the new Ibis. However, after reading up and seeing the bikes in the flesh, uh carbon, I've since changed my mind. Welcome to the new world. To really prove the point, I bought a Ibis Silk Carbon road bike and it rides incredibly well. It compliments my old school '97 Ibis Hakkalugi, the most ridden bike out of my garage. I also owned a '88 (or so) Ibis Trials Comp that I recently sold off.

If I could afford it, a new Ibis Mojo would be in my garage, with maybe the new carbon Hakkalugi as well. That may be awhile off. A boy can dream though, can't he?

Over the years, Scot Nicol has become a bike industry icon, in a hip indie way, which is right up my alley. I had a chance to hit Interbike in 1995 and met Scot and John Castellano at the show. At the time, they were using Castellano's rear suspension design for the Ibis Bow Ti - a wild titanium bike with 6" of rear travel - with no pivots. Having 'em show me how the design worked was the highlight of the trip.

With all that, if you're not familiar with Ibis, check out the site and bikes. If you already know the Ibis deal, check out the redesigned site for the super cool illustrations. It's the not the usual bike site.

Then again, Ibis is not the usual bike company. I hope Ibis Phase II sticks around for many more years.

Fat Chance Forever?

Considering how much time I spend on the Internet and being the Fat fan, you'd think I've found most everything Fat related on the web. Apparently not so.

As proof - a few links and pictures I dug up while doing some Internet cruising tonight. Instead wasting time staring at a computer screen, I should be suffering on the trainer in the garage. Does looking at bikes still qualify as "training"?

In January, I think so.....

Some nice pics and story on the Fat pictured below at Fatchanceyoeddy.com. Check it out for more views of the Yo Eddy, before and after the restoration. The site appears to have been set up quite awhile ago, still worth a visit.

The site above also included links to a few other Fat related sites, including this German site dedicated to Fat City Cycles - that's been idling in cyberspace for 10+ years, since it refers to the last rendition of Fat City when it was located in Vermont - and still in business. You can find the pics below and other Fat related info at FATFANS.DE. Yes, that's Chris Chance manning the torch. If you're a Fat fan, worth a visit for sure.

Finally, something up to date. Groovy Cycleworks did the frame restore of the Yo Eddy frame at the top of the list. They also offer frame decals, bearing replacements, and replica Yo Eddy forks. Besides keeping old Fat frames flying, they also build some pretty - uh, groovy frames themselves. Looks like a cool frame building operation. I plan to cruise back there to check out all their stuff.

It's amazing that long after it's demise, Fat City Cycles still lives in the hearts of old school mountain bikers everywhere. Not many companies, bike or whatever related, can claim that kind of interest, loyalty and remembrance.

Fat City......R.I.P.

Busted Carbon

No - luckily not a picture of my bike, but one of the many examples of carnage you'll find on the Busted Carbon site - not recommended for the squeamish or worrisome types. Being bit of a gear head and semi-old school, I find the pictures and horror stories of breakage fascinating, especially since carbon fiber is so prevalent nowadays. Even most lower end bikes sport carbon forks. No way a steel fork would have snapped like the carbon example above.

Many of the pics and stories on the site are the result of a serious crash - that doesn't concern me. With impacts like that you're going to be sampling pavement, no matter what your frame is made of. Carbon frame busted in a few pieces, aluminum frame cracked beyond repair, steel frame twisted into a pretzel - who cares - they're done. No frame or fork is indestructible.

What does concern me, as you scroll though the various pictures and stories, are the "just riding along" or low impact scenarios - where the fork, handlebar or other carbon component catastrophically fails - resulting in accompanying x-ray photos for some posted stories. That's scary stuff.

Carbon is the (semi) new wonder material for bikes. When designed and manufactured correctly, incredibly light and strong. There's some amazing things being done with it for sure.

Along with a few old school steel bikes and some aluminum mountain bikes, I also own and ride a carbon road bike. The carbon bike rides fantastic, well enough to make me wonder what a carbon hardtail (mountain bike) would be like (please send money) - so, total retro grouch I'm not. My main mountain bike has carbon handlebars as well, compete with carbon bar ends (call me XC Dork Boy).

Still, when it comes to carbon fiber, probably not a bad idea to check components occasionally to give you a little piece of mind - I hope.

Something to think about the next time you're bombing that 50 mph downhill.