Originally Posted by
prj71
I would have left it at the dump.
Haha! Fair enough. One person's treasure is another person's trash.
Originally Posted by
cyclezen
Cherry! I'd dust it off, lube the drivetrain. check the brakes, adjust the saddle, and ride the snot out of it !
280 lbs? No Problemo! This is the perfect Heavy Gravel/Light XC Trail bike. There's nothing you could do to break that frame.
The Headshok is the perfect low travel suspension fork for gravel roads/mostly smooth forest roads.
With racks would also make a fine tourer for 'come-all-conditions'.
at 280, I might consider having the wheels/spokes checked by a wheel guy, for balanced tension.
Tires might be a little old/hard, but then you could get some great, less knobby gravel tires, wide (42+, maybe 48). A lot of good 26 gravel worthy tires out there for around $50/pr.
You'll be pleasantly surprised by how quick that bike would be with nice tires.
There are a lot of riders jones-in for something like this to convert to dirt road use.
Yeah flat bar and old school drivetrain - but you can;t expect everything, and this stuff is bulletproof and will work well for more years than you'll care to keep it.
If you don;t already have something like this, the hand of god just dropped this in your lap.
pump up the tires, get aboard for a ride around the neighborhood, and see what you think...
Ride On
Yuri
Thanks Yuri! I think I'll try this approach. If I were to buy a mountain bike this is EXACTLY what I would be looking for. Since the hand of god dropped it in my lap, I'd be a fool to let it go to waste.
It's funny, when I was 16 I bought my very first bike with my own money. I read the year 2000 Trek and Giant catalogs over and over again, knowing I only had enough money for the lowest of the low end. I bought a Trek 820 for $300. Having this bike then would have been a dream come true.