MadNachos

The bikes we made for the Olympic team for track and road and for MTB it was the probably the LTS but we made a run of super thin walled 6061 frames with crazy butting that could only be ridden hard for a season....those were badass. They got sold in Mexico for a huge loss as our lawyers would not let us sell them. But maybe some of the trials bikes that Gary made? Hard to say. So many good ones.

danco

I got an earier GT Road bike in about 1995.
Aggressive geometry,, alum frame, RSX shifters and derailleurs.
illeur.it was stolen, And I have been trying to replace it for decades.

Darth Lefty 

In case anyone wants to stay up-to-date with their old heroes, Hans Rey is on social media and he still rides and promotes GT bikes. He was in Danny MacHaskill’s recent “Do A Wheelie!” video for Adidas 510 shoes. He has a home somewhere in SoCal where he set up a bunch of rocks in the front yard to do trial stuff by the driveway.

https://www.facebook.com/hansrey

gm1230126

Wrong GT launched there Road bikes line in the 1994 model year...after announcing Project 96 in the fall of 93. Project 96 was a joint venture that would have GT supplying all the road and track bikes to the USCF thru the 96 Atlanta Olympics. The extended their agreement with USCF through 99.

MadNachos

Yep, sounds about right, I was involved and this seems right on point. Perhaps a bit earlier but it was so long ago...but I was there. Cut the PO's and watched them being made. Then broke a few for testing.

Smokinapankake

In early - mid 90's ('94-'96 ish) I worked at Fishers Cyclery in Salt Lake City Utah. In the basement they had a GT Xizang that was half chromoly and half titanium, thus we called it the half bike. It was bolted together, as I recall, with an aluminum yoke at the seat tube/seatstay junction. The rear end was steel, the front triangle was titanium. I've never seen another and have never even seen one in a catalog scan. I wonder if you could give some insight into this model, MadNachos?

Fishers closed down some years ago; they had some really neat stuff in the basement. I wonder whatever happened to all that stuff?

mgopack42 

Thought I would show a picture of my one and only GT. I bought it from an old roommate,who raced it. ZASKAR LE, with a ball burnished finish and a funky NoLeen fork. It was my commuter bike for a while, until a fly by night mover "lost" it.

AdventureManCO 

Man, glad to see you are still posting! Any pictures you might have of any of these super cool one-offs and prototypes? We'd LOVE to see them!

When I was a kid, there was a bmx shop around the corner from my house in El Cajon, CA, off of Jamaca (851 Jamacha Rd) that is now an appliance outlet store. Similar to how some bike shops mainly sell Trek, or Specialized, this particular bmx shop sold primarily GT/Dyno, and a few other small brands like Robinson and Elf. Also remember seeing a beautiful PK Ripper frame on top of the glass case that all of us as kids drooled over. This was probably around 1996 or so. I remember pouring through the 1996 or 1997 GT bmx catalog back then...that was when the Speed Series box stay construction had come out. Such cool bikes. My 'want' bike as a kid was a GT Mach One, but I remember Interceptors, Performers, and Fuelers.

Very sad what happened to GT bmx after that. Still, the brand holds a special place in my heart as a kid, even though I had never gotten the chance to own one way back when. Today, I think I could very easily make room for a fillet brazed GT Edge in my size

MadNachos

The brazed frames were all made in a small shop in CO, I am trying to remember the name of the hippie that made them....hell of an old school frame builder. Meh, it's been too long, but I can picture his face. Lil dude hehe.

Edit: Forest. Pretty sure his name was Forest, hence the hippie reference.

LesterOfPuppets

I swear we had a GT roadie at work in '97. I might have to look it up...
\
Looks like '94 was the first year for GT road bikes, I think.

MadNachos

If that was actually a GT prototype it is an odd one that was probably sold via Riteway to big dealers at an 'open house' or perhaps it was sold to a shop in Mexico where we sent a lot of oddball frames that we didn't want to assume the liability on...so they would be sold to a certain distributor in Mexico with the agreement that they can't ever be sold in the USA. A lot of thin Easton tubed Zaskars were disposed of in that fashion. They lasted a season of NORBA. Lawyers said 'cant sell' hehe. But that bike you mentioned? If it was a GT prototype I never saw it. We tried everything so it wouldn't surprise me though. I have ridden a full Ti RTS as well as a LTS with a Ti front triangle. When the shop is full of talent stuff gets made just for shi*s and giggles. Like a LTS tandem.

GullyFoylesbike

The one contribution I have is that a cyclocross version of the Reynolds 853 Edge frames does exist - a true grail frameset for me.

AdventureManCO 

MadNachos

Thought this would be a fun one to add in here. GT titanium mtb, just popped up on the local classifieds list -

Smokinapankake

Here's a scan I found online:




Interesting frame....

polymorphself 

The link in the OP doesn't work anymore and the thread doesn't seem to explicitly state, but what happened in 96/97 that was so bad? I was racing BMX around 97 and had a Robinson myself. If I recall that was a sort of spinoff from GT. I was pretty young then and not hip to industry stuff. But I do remember that at the time the hobby seemed massive and healthy. We traveled to the Grand Nationals sometime in the late 90's which my cousin raced in and placed pretty well.

I hope the folks over on the BMX side of the forum see this thread. Or maybe I don't, sometimes the other forums scare me, not sure how they behave over there

georges1

When I was 18, I took a mountain bike course at GT with my cousins in 1996, and had the chance to ride a psyclone built with reynolds 853 steel tubing and a karakoram in true tremper, very good bikes with very good geometry, responsive and very easy to ride. A year ago in 2023, I fell under the charms of a Zaskar Team frame, but the pricetag including shipping and import costs were too high. The fragility of the easton 6061 tubes and their tendency to become brittle with age led me to go to a rival American brand. I was also lucky enough to ride a LTS and an I-Drive some years ago, two very good full-suspension bikes.