Monday, January 24, 2011

Salsa Cycles scans and photos

In the slower months around the shop, we get an opportunity to clean up the shop, build displays and work on the web sites. One task that always get pushed to the bottom of the pile is the scanning of literature. It is interesting but takes a lot of time and doesn't generate revenue..........but I do enjoy reading up as I scan and it is a great resource when we are trying to make a bike "period correct". Over the last weekend, I scanned in over 100 pages of Salsa literature and some pictures that Ross Shafer provided. Pretty cool stuff. Check it out on the Salsa Page.

couple of sample pages:



Sunday, January 23, 2011

1991 Ellison elevated stay bike

Elevated chain stay bikes were supposed to eliminate chain suck which it did but at the expense of a heavier and more complicated frame. Eventually, frame makers decided this minor advantage wasn't worth the extra effort (although it did make cleaning the chain easier!). Ellison was a smaller manufacturer out of Texas in the early 1990's and it looks like he just worked in aluminum. The bike features the 1.25" head tube and a polished finish. Parts are pretty standard Shimano Deore XT with Rapid Fire shifters.

More details and pictures on the Ellison Page:





Tandem Klunker project??

I had originally checked this bike out at a local swap meet last year and thought it was pretty cool. The seller had this and a neat old Peugeot tandem with MAFAC brakes and some Shimano Deore XT (deer head) stuff on it. I made an offer on both bikes but didn't end up taking them home. At the time, I thought the wheels, fork, drum brake and tires would be pretty cool on an old style Klunker frame. I had originally thought the bike had been repainted but believe it to be original after a little research. There aren't any decals on the bike but it appears to be built by Rixe in Germany. The rear hub has a "56" stamped on it which might be a date code. Anyway, still haven't decided what to do with it yet but it is pretty cool.

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Fisher MountainBikes scans

Kinda interesting to see all the different names in the early catalogs: Mountain Bikes, MountainBikes, Kelly-Fisher MountainBikes, Ritchey MountainBikes, Fisher, Gary Fisher and today the Fisher Collection by Trek. We've scanned in some of the older catalogs starting as far back as 1979. check 'em out on the Fisher page.

Here are a couple of sample pages:







Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Vintage Funk Scans

Next up in the snowed-in-scanathon is Funk. Full set of scans HERE but here are a couple of samples.

It appears as if Funk may be back making bikes again so maybe we can get a little more info for the web site. Don't have one of the bikes in the collection but we do have a couple of the suspension forks.





Sunday, January 9, 2011

Retro Bontrager scans

As the year starts off, we often find that we have a little extra time on our hands. The rush of Christmas is past and inventory is finally behind us. This is a great time to do a little work on the MOMBAT web site so I am getting back in the swing of scanning some literature. Started out with 50+ pages of Bontrager literature dating back to the late 1980's and going through 1999. The composite fork manual is an interesting read. You just don't find info like that any more. Here are a couple of pages but for the complete scans, go to the MOMBAT Bontrager page.