OK, I bought this bike new in 1992. It had Suntour XC Expert gears (very early 8-speed with lovely indexed thumbshifters I still have), rigid forks (not the Kona Project 2s you see here), orange anodised bars and a 130mm stem.
Other bikes have come & gone and now I have a dedicated trail bike I thought it might be nice to have this as a general purpose runabout. I hesitate to use the word hybrid...
It was once a cutting-edge XC racer but it never felt fast to me; it's always seemed too compliant and not very rewarding when accelerating. I've geared it up, though, and swapped the wide riser bar for a narrow straight one with bar ends (to replicate the riding position on my wonderful Falcon Team Equipe 'Aryton,' and combined with the road tyres off my daughter's Islabike, it finally feels like it wants to accelerate!
I'm going to do a 30 mile ride tomorrow and see how it feels in its new role.
Other bikes have come & gone and now I have a dedicated trail bike I thought it might be nice to have this as a general purpose runabout. I hesitate to use the word hybrid...
It was once a cutting-edge XC racer but it never felt fast to me; it's always seemed too compliant and not very rewarding when accelerating. I've geared it up, though, and swapped the wide riser bar for a narrow straight one with bar ends (to replicate the riding position on my wonderful Falcon Team Equipe 'Aryton,' and combined with the road tyres off my daughter's Islabike, it finally feels like it wants to accelerate!
I'm going to do a 30 mile ride tomorrow and see how it feels in its new role.