The Vintage Mountain Bike Thread.

komdotkom

Likes Bikes and Dirt
If anyone wants some vintage stuff, Astro is selling up and moving to QLD. He's got some great stuff like AMP linkage forks, Proflex, old Rocky Mountains. Heaps of vintage forks and drive train stuff too.
 

oliosky

Likes Bikes and Dirt
You could be driving a Porsche Taycan on a lease by now if you held onto them ;)
Wooo. So true. Like a really shitty real estate agent type lease. Hindsight is 20/20 my friend....

Englund cartridges were fkn awful too. Its like lets remove the elastomer system which had some slight damping properties to a pure air spring with no rebound control just to save weight.
 

Scotty T

Walks the walk
I never tried Judy's let alone with the cartridges, just heard they were an improvement but sounds like that wasn't true. I went right from the worst fork ever, Ballistic noodle to gen 1 Z1's. So worth the money and weight penalty.
 

ashes_mtb

Has preferences
I never tried Judy's let alone with the cartridges, just heard they were an improvement but sounds like that wasn't true. I went right from the worst fork ever, Ballistic noodle to gen 1 Z1's. So worth the money and weight penalty.
Ballistics were my first forks! Then went to the Judy C’s, and then upgraded them with Englund cartridges. They were much better than elastomers, but still pretty shit.
 

Scotty T

Walks the walk
I had Indy's then went to Marz Jnr T's
Huge jump, on the same bike?

Indy's were a little bit better than Ballistic, when the Ballistic elastomers melted first run down Thredbo I replaced them with Indy ones which kept the fork going until it got so sloppy I threw down serious coin on my first serious fork. It's still on the 'goose I rode last month and still feels buttery with one lifetime service about 5 years ago.

If a scaled up repro true to the original design but modernised was made it would be amazing. Has any other fork had the same coil oil system replicated in both legs since? As far as I know the system was way to expensive and similar results could be achieved much cheaper. @indica I think the early Jr T was the same system?
 

Mr Crudley

Glock in your sock
Indy's were a little bit better than Ballistic, when the Ballistic elastomers melted first run down Thredbo I replaced them with Indy ones which kept the fork going until it got so sloppy I threw down serious coin on my first serious fork. It's still on the 'goose I rode last month and still feels buttery with one lifetime service about 5 years ago.
Quadra 5's were my first suspension fork and I thought they were the best thing ever. About 60mm of useable travel and even looked like Mag21's, well, without the gold finish. Swapped the Quadra's out for Manitou 4's which were pretty good with the upgraded spring and MCU kit over the standard elstomer stack.

My first 'real' forks were the White Brothers SC90's that were a huge upgrade compared to the MCU/elastomer forks and felt super. They were great. I thought the fork seals were specially designed to let in as much trail gunk as possible and they did it really well. That was their kyrptonite. Also had an Englund cartridge in it.

Suspension has came a very long way but I think we appreciated just about any cushion more BITD. Spolit for choice these days.

If a scaled up repro true to the original design but modernised was made it would be amazing. Has any other fork had the same coil oil system replicated in both legs since? As far as I know the system was way to expensive and similar results could be achieved much cheaper. @indica I think the early Jr T was the same system?
True, Marzocchi didn't have many misses and were easy to maintain. Coil and oil sure seems to make sense.

I still have Marzocchi MXC's on the Xizang and there is nothing much going on in there but an oil bath and low pressure air springs. Not sophisticated at all but works well enough if you fiddle with the air pressure and oil weights plus has bonus farty squelchy noises to enjoy :D It is a pity that Marzocchi were borged by Fox but I saw somewhere that the Grip dampener was a Marzocchi design?
 

Cardy George

Piercing rural members since 1981
Indys to Z1s for me. I remember watching a Harley riding slowly over grass, noticing how responsive the fork was and wishing my forks were the same. Enter Z1s on special and dreams came true. Didn't notice the weight, too focused on how much better the bike tracked.
 
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