SpeedofLite 

From Bicycle Guide, April 1986.

Wildwood 

Trials - a vastly overlooked aspect to our sport(s)!

edit: Needs X-Games exposure, or something.........side event at Gravel rides?

bulgie 

Funny that they didn't mention the first custom trials bike made at R+E Cycles — mine! I made it in '81 or '82, I forget. It also had 16" chainstays (well 15.9" actually, designed as 405 mm, a tad shorter than the Montaña), despite mine being 26" wheels F&R. 13 inch BB height, bash plate, and a steep head angle. Made of Reynolds 531 road bike tubing, it was pretty light.

The fact that mine resembled John Olsen's design is no coincidence — I started riding trials because of JO, and I competed in the trials meets that he put on. At first I rode trials meets on my 1933 Excelsior, converted to a klunker with drum brakes, TA 5-vis cranks, the usual klunker stuff, built up in '79. It was terrible, awful and very bad for trials, but I had a blast anyway. When I made my custom, I pretty much stuck to the 'Gospel of John' (Olsen) — except for the 24" rear wheel. I didn't want the limited tire and rim choices that go with that. It took some fancy metal tricks to make a 40.5 cm chainstay with great mud clearance around a 26" balloon knobby. I'll admit I kinked a few 531 chainstays before I learned how to make such a tight bend in thinwall tubing. The answer was filling the stay with Cerrobend, a low-melting-point metal alloy that turns your tube into a solid metal bar for bending. Then you melt out the alloy, which melts in hot water (156° F), and you're back to thinwall tube, but with an impossibly-tight bend, and no ripples or kinking. Like magic!

I used that bike for general-purpose MTB rides too, but my riding buds like Glenn Erickson, Donn Kellog and Tony Starck (no, not Iron Man) also tended to like gnarly single track, so my short wheelbase bike was good for that kind of riding. And I could ride over the fallen logs in the trail that those guys had to cyclocross-carry over. (They were all faster than me anyway even carrying their bikes, oh well...)

My prototype trials bike never "went anywhere" as in turning into a production model. We never even built another custom like mine; all the early-'80s R+E MTBs where pretty standard long/shallow geometry, more like my Excelsior than my trials bike. I was the only person at R+E who liked trials or went to the meets, and they all thought the 13" BB height and short wheelbase were just dumb, dorky as hell. So I was a bit surprised when Angel came out with a trials bike in '86.

By then I was gone, I'd gone to work at Davidson in '84. Glenn Erickson had also moved on, sold his share of R+E to Angel and went out on his own. No one who worked in the frame shop back when I built my trials bike was still around, so there was no "institutional memory" of it. A true evolutionary dead end. In my not-so-humble opinion though, it was a huge success. Super fun, lightweight, radical design that was perfect for its particular playground, which was jumping over logs and picnic benches at low speed.

John Olsen went on to build even weirder trials bikes, with no saddle at all for example. I don't think he sold them, I think it was just for him and friends. He moved away and we lost touch, but I'll always be grateful to him for teaching me the Way of Trials. Great memories!

I drifted away from trials, got into Norba XC racing, made a more conventional (though still radical in its way, light Prestige) XC race bike at Davidson in Winter '84-'85. Technically I was a Norba Pro briefly, even won one race in the pros, but that was a fluke. I wasn't near fast enough once some actual fast guys took up MTB racing. With no space at home for multiple dirt bikes, and an acute need for cash, I sold my trials bike, though of course I regret that now. I wonder if it's still being ridden? Maybe it's good I don't have it — I sure wouldn't do any of the stuff I did on it back then. I'm very aware of how much more breakable my bones are. Nowadays when I ride offroad, I get off and walk over practically anything! My 20s self would be disgusted.

Thanks for the walk down Memory Lane though.

Mark B

SpeedofLite 

Thanks for the nudge, bulgie.
I had forgotten how to access other characters.
¡Viva Montaña!

bulgie 

Are you kidding me? (I can't tell.) I worked there for 5 years, I think I know how to spell it!!

From their website:
"
"These are just a few of the things that you'll find here at R+E Cycles. When you buy from us, you're buying the whole company."
"R+E Cycles 5627 University Way NE Seattle WA | 206.527.4822 | info@rodbikes.com"

EDIT: OK I see where you got that "R&E" nonsense: from the Buycycle Guido article. John Derven seems to be a nice guy and all, but he was probably under a deadline. He also made a couple key mistakes when he wrote up the frame I made for my wife in their "Hot Tubes" section. Over 30 years ago and I'm still not over it, apparently! (No, really, he is a super cool dude, just maybe needs a fact-checker now and then.)

Mark B in Seattle