The other night, I was out for a stroll in the in the neighborhood when this pristine Trek 9800 circa 1995 stopped me in my tracks.
It's not every day you see a mid 90's Trek MTB still in a fully functional state since most of them didn't live to see the year 2000. At least the ones that were ridden the way nature intended anyway.
Oh man, this bike really floored me. On anthropological level, it's a perfect example of the long faded mountain bike boom, whose mushroom cloud of off road fun sucked me in hard back in 1993. What I really liked about this particular bike is that with the exception of the out of place White Brothers sticker on the seat tube (usually when people "upgraded" their Judy springs the sticker went on the fork to let those around know that you mean business) and the carbon fiber power sticks, there really isn't a part on this bike that was indicative of all the bad mountain bike gear of the last century.
No Girvin Flexstem, AMP Fork, or $200 purple anodized CNC'd cantilever brakes that couldn't stop a turd from rolling down a hill.
Everything on this bike is rock solid and if you look close you'll notice that nothing on this bike (except for maybe the carbon fiber power sticks) has been upgraded since 1998. You can tell by the empty cable hanger dangling from the seat clamp that this bike probably got a V-brake update in 1997. The screaming yellow Judy SL is definitely from 1997 as I had the same one on my own bike back then. And if I can recall correctly the Trek 9800 came stock with the non-colored Judy- the one where the revolutionary damping cartridge would blow out the moment the fork felt a bump for the first time.
Then finally, the WTB SST 1998 saddle is a no brainer for year and I'd put the Race Face stem at about that time too as '98 was when Race Face was starting to become a hot product south of Canadia. What I like is that this guy probably had no reason to get a new stem and had upgrade fever but not a strong enough strain to pony up to Race Face cranks.
As I finished going through the upgrade timeline on this bike, I started to get a weird feeling.
What kind of self respecting mountain biker would suddenly stop upgrading his bike after 1998?
Seriously, there's not a part this bike from the 21st century. What could have been the circumstances that prevented this guy from going through way too much trouble and expense to try and force disc brakes on to his bike?
Was he in prison?
A coma?
Or maybe, just maybe, he was a guy who hasn't touched his mountain bike in 10 years but summoned up the courage to ask the hipster receptionist at his office on a date under the pretense that he too enjoys urban cycling?
Take at the beat street mixte on the other side of the bike rack. Notice how it's sharing a lock with the Trek. Well, you can't really say sharing since the u-lock really doesn't have the chick bike on lock down since it's merely shackled around the seat post. Then again I doubt a bike thief would even bother to take the time to simply remove the seat post in order to embarrass himself by dashing off on a girl's bike.
Then look close at the Trek's chain. The entire bike is immaculate except for the rusted out chain. Has someone been keeping their bike on their balcony for a few years too long? Can the bike even shift gears?
While species cross breeding can certainly be a good thing to maintain a good gene pool, I hate to say that even if our fella played every one of his cards right, he still struck out on the night.
Because there's no way a girl is going to be in the mood after cruising around town on seat set up at such a horrific vagina busting angle.
Are you with me, girlfriends?
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