Show us ya back catalogue

Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
It's a bit of a tale, but I don't care. Sadly, no old pictures, but my catalogue is fairly extensive, although the early days weren't exactly expensive.

I blame my Uncle for all of this. He bought me my first real bike when I was 5. Red, tyres with square knobs, banana seat. Only thing I wished it had was the three speed shifter on the top tube.

That was followed by a Toyworld BMX (shut up @moorey, we both know I'm old) with plastic disc wheel covers. Roadies who bitch about deep section wheels in cross winds clearly didn't grow up on these.

Then there came my first Grown-Up bike. A second hand 26" Malvern Star with a permanent buckle in the rear wheel. Destroyed the rear hub on that thing twice. Replaced it with a Target MTB with oversized tubes and wicked hydro-dipped looking paint job. This one taught me how to maintain a bike, mainly because Dad had NFI and I couldn't afford to take it to a shop.

Then shit got real. Year 11 I landed a Macca's job and wandered into a bike shop. Wandered out with an Apollo, size 2-sml, but with full bull horn bars, and wait for it, suspension forks. Only one in the school bike rack with those suckers. Rode my first century on it. Morphettville, up the Torrens to Cudlee Creek, over to Handorf, Bridgewater, back down to Morphettville.

End of year 12 brought me an apprenticeship, the first pay packet of which started paying for an metallic Blue Trek Y3.
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And the games began. Brought it home with Indys, v-brakes and whatever shock that is. 3 months in to owning it i took it on a 3 day guided riding tour between Tumut and Jindabyne. By the time I had finished with it, it had Bombers, Fox Vanilla Air and Magura HS-11s.

Then my first custom bike.

This frame was actually a complete bike at the time I bought the Y3. A couple of years down the track the bare frame was sitting forlornly on the floor. So, I put the original parts back on the Y3, and sold it to my brother, who later fuckwittedly thought it would be safe in an apartment block communal shed. He didn't have for long. Anyway, took the Bombers, shock and Maguras, and had some Velocity Deep V rims built onto a no-name front hub and a Sachs Rear hub (ripped that to shreds too). Spinergy Xyclones brought Juicy 7 disc brakes. The thing looked fucking impressive. It will be resurrected.

Then, 20 years and three roadies later.......
 

Calvin27

Eats Squid
Guess if this is the old crap, or new good bike?

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Old crap bike. 2013 Synapse - one of the few disc braked bikes at the time. Ran some really crappy bengal brakes that might decide to stop on a good day, replaced with avid bb7s that would do it's usualy banshee thing. Several rotrs later managed to keep it under control with the odd outbursts. OEM wheel never stayed true despite being a whopping 32 spoker. Replaced those and the 21 spokers seemed to stay straight. Rear dropout tried to kill me descending mt dandenong and the wheel fell out. Finally the BB never actually stopped making noise. Gave up on this thing so hard. Sold it during last lockdown.

On the flipside, this thing was the first brand new serious dually I bought and it has never let me down. Done XC, gravel grinds, send it down blacks where it has no business and it just keeps working. Crashed many times as weighs in at a cool 12kg flat without much weight weeniing going on. Not sure if it's the scandium frame, but I don't know how it can be that light for basically run of the mill parts.

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My daily mtb is too dirty and gets no love so I'll save face by not posting pic of the dirty thing.
 

pink poodle

気が狂っている男
Wish I still had the MkII Nomad tbh. Or maybe I don’t. Fond memories, maybe it wouldn’t live up to them but it was so good at the time.
Yes...yes you do. I still love riding mine. Some days you want to be able to plough and trick all at the same time.

Rose tinted glasses are real dude!
Old dj bikes still hold up though, that NS is awesome
Rose quartz lense provides an interesting view on those medium low light days.


I don't have many photos, but I do have a list as best I can remember.

Mongoose D50 (I think was the model) was my first mountain bike. It was an ugly as fuck aluminium (kind of) Y frame (3 tube style) front triangle and a steel 1 piece rear triangle. The main frame had a fish scale like pattern ground onto the raw aluminium then a polished clear coat (this was also a popular finish on shitty outdoor tables at the time) and the rest triangle was painted black. I didn't have any interest in mountain bikes, instead I was looking to buy a nice(ish) bmx for skatepark and general crusing. 2 of my friends had mountain bikes and were all "get a mountain bike! You'll love it..." and they were right. This was a total piece of shit, not good for any sort of riding. I really should have followed the advice of the cool bike retailer with a good reputation rather than the used car salesman of bikes with the shiny arse bike. Then one day I was at the train station and a man who liked amphetamines offered me enough cash to make it worth moving on.

After that came many better bikes.

Avanti Manic (with RS psylo)

Norco 125 (purple one...no idea why I wanted 2 DJ bikes at the same time?)

Keewee Stealth (first venture into custom building my own bike)

Norco A-line (the first release...big and white!)

Giant faith (midnight blue monocoque, maybe 2005?)

Norco Atomic (2007 switched out the forks for Fox 36 160mm)

Eastern Slash 7+ coil (custom)

Norco A-line (2007 metallic blue. The frames were recalled)

Norco Rampage

Norco Manic

Eastern slash 7+ air (custom)

Giant Glory freeride (2008 - dark grey, totem air, really good spec, a lot of which ended up on the Azonic)

Azonic Eliminator 2 (renamed the penetrator! So much rear travel and something like 500 different rear end combinations...I used 3.

Eastern slash 7+ air (custom)

Mountain cycle battery (full custom build)

Scott voltage fr10 (first edition. Did some modifications on this - avid code brakes, fox float 180 forks, fox dhx5 air shock)

Santa Cruz Nomad V1 (so many different builds on this frame. Still got it in the garage. Might call it Lazarus if it makes a comeback. I've got parts, could be fun)

Adrenaline (maybe? It was a brand briefly imported by dh direct) black and yellow bike that was called the flying death banana.

Canfield Balance (the old school steel framed slope style version. This was a really sick ride)

Intense 951 (this as the first time I had purchased a second hand bike. Gotta love when your mate buys a bike, rides it 5 or 6 times, and realised he isn't into dh...)

Giant glory (the last of the 26 inch)

Eastern Slash 7+ air (brought back one of the earlier ones)

Intense 951 (due for a resurrection)

Pivot m4x (second favourite of all the bikes)

Mini Rocker Taylor

NS Snabb E

Pivot m4x (favourite of all the bikes)

Santa Cruz Nomad V2

Polygon Trid zz

Transition Scout

I think there is one or two missing, but that's close enough. I think 9 of these were stolen.
 

komdotkom

Likes Bikes and Dirt
I don't have pictures of them all, but here's a few
Gary Fisher Roscoe, one of the few left in captivity (the all snapped the chain stays I think), he's in storage under the house and is never being sold. I have toyed with the idea of getting Gary out for a bit of nostalgia but then I remember how shit it was. Upgraded and downgraded with multiple configs over the years but is currently stock except for 1x conversion and X0 10spd. The shock is borked too which puts me off doing anything with it. I still love the colour schemes of this era Gary Fisher stuff, would love a 2008 Superfly

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Then I wanted a 29er so I purchased a Trek / Gary Fisher Paragon. It was pretty shit standard so I got a set of wheels built at TWE and proceeded to spend more than the purchase price on upgrades. It was a good bike but not great for long rides so it got sold

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I replaced the Paragon with a Hong Fu carbon 29er which I think is just a copy of an Epic. Built his with Sram XX, SID dual air (the best kind) and a XX monarch shock. Combined with LB carbon wheels it was really light and did a few thousand km's before being replaced. Plenty of people have had issues with chinese carbon bikes but this must have done 50 runs down Cressy, 5 trips to Buller and 100km a week without breaking. I've still got it and it's the 'town bike' which is used for people who need a fill in bike for a while.
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But I wanted something burlier, so I got an Intense Carbine 275. Pictured the day I finished building it, but it ended up with custom tune Pikes, Monarch Plus, TWE carbon wheels, Hope M4 brakes, X01 11 speed. I should have kept it but sold it to one of my staff recently for $2k, given the current second hand bike market I really should have tripled that price. Great bike but the rear suspension geo was a bit off, too much pedal kick back and poor climbing.
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Then I wanted another Intense, so bought a Spider 29C. At the time everyone was banging on about how good the new Fox Fit4's were and the current XTR so I fitted all of that. Fox forks didn't last and got switched for DVO's, put a Vyron dropper on it and didn't change much else, sold to a mate last year.

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Asininedrivel

caviar connoisseur
I still love the colour schemes of this era Gary Fisher stuff, would love a 2008 Superfly
Agreed. Really (really) wanted a 2010 Hifi Pro (that white / green one) and still reckon the 2010 Rumblefish is one of the best colour schemes I've seen. Trek managed to visually boring them pretty successfully in 2011 when they dumped GF as a standalone brand.
So nice. I bet you wish you never sold it.
I'm have a 456 evo2 (26") which I really like, and actually ride it more than my dual sus bike!
Only thing that lets it down is the straight headtube, which they was fixed with the 45650B
Snap, and correct. I missed it so much I bought another one from here, then spent too much money trying to turn it into my old one.

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Ultimately a bit too small (again) and the temptation to use parts for other projects was high, so it got broken up earlier this year. They are great little frames, but as you say the straight steerer is starting to limit fork options a bit.
 

Sethius

Crashed out somewhere
02 Apollo ldx
05 norco manik
04 santa cruz chameleon
06 brodie gigolo
05 iron kumicho
05 da bomb 4play FS mk1
06 da bomb mindbomb
06 da bomb 4play FS mk2
05 kona stinky
05 demo 9
06 Cove peeler dh
Duncon cocker
Haro 24inch race bmx
Solid mission 9 x2
Dartmoor wish x4
Dartmoor hornet
Dartmoor roots
Dartmoor shine x2
Dartmoor Cody
Dartmoor 26p x3
Armybikeco wehrmacht (no. 1 regret selling)
Armybikeco demolition x2
GT gravel grinder thingy.
GT sanction
GT sensor carbon team
Banshee rune v2
Finishing off last glen MX V2.
Polygon trid zz


Bikes wanted collection:
Sinister mx
Mountain cycle shockwave
Alutech keilor wc
Nicolai ufo st (a modern mullet would be wow) one of the best I've ever ridden.
 
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Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
I'll admit I might be slightly jealous, but I don't understand the way some people turn bikes over so quickly. I hold on to mine until they're well and truly cooked. Can't imagine the day I have to retire my Procaliber
 

Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
You can own more than one at a time.
Well, yes, I get that. I have multiple frames/bikes that are beyond the use by date. I'm talking about those who replace a functional bike every 6-12 months. My mate does that, but he works in a bike shop. The purchase of my MTB is the first time I've bought a new bike before the old one was finished with. I view my bikes as a long term relationship.
 

Sethius

Crashed out somewhere
Well, yes, I get that. I have multiple frames/bikes that are beyond the use by date. I'm talking about those who replace a functional bike every 6-12 months. My mate does that, but he works in a bike shop. The purchase of my MTB is the first time I've bought a new bike before the old one was finished with. I view my bikes as a long term relationship.
Yeah shop life was a majority of my life until 2018, Minus a short 2 year gap in the middle since 05.
 

Sethius

Crashed out somewhere
I think you need to have a crack at another dartmoor wish. 5th times the charm?
I would happily! And I may have owned a 5th,i can't remember if Ive had 2 or 3 of the current generation model, it's abit blurry. Was a few work paid bikes on top, but they weren't enough to pay up for it.
 

fastrider gus

super huck
This thread excites me... i shall need to do some digging!

This is from my early days as a Farkin-er, my first decent MTB after snapping a fair few of apollos. Still got it hanging in the shed.

I lost a lot of photos of my bikes in that farkin crash and when the trusty old family computer died but i have most from about '05..


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