Best Production Year...

[Avanti_Racing]

i personally think that most of the 05 bikes look like shit, what year do you think had the best range of bikes, i think 02 because all the linkages were simple, strong, effective and most the prices were reasonable, all the bikes since then have had flash gadgets and heaps big linkages and cost an arm and a leg to buy, what you think?

[Rik]

1998:
STS LTS. Need I say more?

[road warrior]

Lobo's were better, or is that what you are referring to? They were 98/99.

I would say around the 98/99 mark aswell. Bad ass San Andrea's with ZZYZX forks. GT Lobo's, Intense M1's were the shit....oh and the Kooralbyn nationals, what an age to live in.

[Superman]

i liked the 03 bikes like the RM7 and A-line. only for the monsters :twisted:

[Butch]

01 to 03 models(team shore , team downhill, bighit and Aline) personally, 98 -99 must be built like a brick dunny , i want to see sum pics of those models , anyone ? ?

[Daver]

1995- one bike that did everything compeditively

[road warrior]

1995- one bike that did everything compeditively

are you talking about the Giant ATX 990? Because Tomac owned everything on one of them

[floody]

1995- one bike that did everything compeditively

are you talking about the Giant ATX 990? Because Tomac owned everything on one of them

Not necessarily, he's talking about the fact that back then you could race the XC, DH and Slalom on the same weekend on the same bike, and barring mechanical failures, be basically competitive in them all (with maybe a few small tweaks between the events).

1997 was a premium year, there was a lot of new stuff entering the market, more and more affordable DH stuff...And the (aluminium) GT LTS-DH...

OT: A guy at the race I went to on the weekend was riding a mint 1995ish DBR Vertex (black one, true temper tubing), with a few modernised parts (forks, bars, stem etc) on it. Beautiful bike, you don't often see quality like that now everyone has gone aluminium though! QUALITY Steel bikes were another reason I liked the early-mid 90's period.

[road warrior]

are you sure? That's pretty unspecific.

[floody]

are you sure? That's pretty unspecific.

I was there :lol: and yeah, I personally used to just switch to a shorter stem + azonic risers and fatter tyres for the gravity events, I'd run some skinny tyres and flats/long stem/bar ends for the XC. I used to race the DH, XC and slalom if possible, the only restrictive factor being time.

[road warrior]

I was there too, on my 990, though more like 97 when I was on that bike, I was throwing on CTR linkage plates for DH and taking them off for slalom then throwing on a harder spring for XC....though I had really given up XC buy that stage

[McBain]

STS LTS. Need I say more?Oh snap?

Looked nice, fell apart in a hurry. Mate of mine had 2-3 of them within a 6 month period.

[floody]

I was there too, on my 990, though more like 97 when I was on that bike, I was throwing on CTR linkage plates for DH and taking them off for slalom then throwing on a harder spring for XC....though I had really given up XC buy that stage

Yeah, I was racing pretty much exclusively DH by that stage as well, but I must say, I don't honestly think I was giving much, if anything up to full suspension by running a HT back then! Riding a HT meant that the I could make up heaps of time on the often pedally or alternately very tight DH courses at the time, and a definite advantage off the line and in the berms for slalom...

Oh and I would sling on a rock ring for trials on the same bike...Maybe even rigid forks If I had a lot of time...

But yeah, its amazing how things have changed!
1996-7 - An average top end DH dually would have had 80-130mm of front travel (excluding Hanebrink suspended bikes), and a similar amount in the rear... Geometry would have been much steeper, lower BB, shorter wheelbase...XC style frame sizing ie Seat Tube and Top Tube lengths.
Rims were ~30mm or less wide, big DH tyres were 2.35 wide, stems were slightly longer, bars lower, seats smaller.....

2004 - Average DH bike would have what, 8" front and rear, 2.7" tyres, long wheelbase, higher BB, more slack angles, rims are huge, stems are tiny, big fat seats....

[road warrior]

rock ring, haha I haven't heard that in ages.
Heaps of bikes were running with more travel on the front the rear and nowadays we are seeing the reverse.
I remember people saying 6 inches was more than you would ever need, and laughing at 8 inch travel bikes. Now we are exceeding those limits in racing and freeriders are riding on 10 inches plus.