bikemig 

I think the MTBs from the 80s and 90s are the cat's pyjamas. They were--pre Covid--remarkably inexpensive and they're still a decent deal compared to road bikes of a similar age and quality. Most of them were never used off road which means that they tend to be in very good shape when you find them. They have excellent gearing. Throw on some BMX pedals and you can ride them with any shoes you own, wearing anything from blue jeans to lycra shorts.

In my opinion, they're the best all around vintage bike you can buy dollar for dollar. I also have a really hard time turning them down when they show up on the local craigslist at reasonable prices so I ended up with a small fleet. I own 4 and I'd fall off the wagon and buy a 5th if I ever find the right Cannondale, :

1993 Bridgestone MB 1

1992 Stumpjumper

1992 Trek 950

Late 80s Stumpjumper Comp

sd5782 

Do the early hybrids fall in the same class? I think they weren’t even called hybrids in the late 80s and perhaps didn’t differ much except the tires, but I could be wrong.

gaucho777 

Nice fleet, Miguel. I love the fork crown on your MB-1. What model derailleur is that on the MB-1? Looks like a lot of chain wrap for a small-cage derailleur. I agree that vintage MTBs offer a lot of bang for the buck. I only have one, and it doesn't have any eyelets, and only gets used on the trails. I don't use it enough. The old SIS thumb-shifters work great.

SpeedofLite 

I really like the dirt-drop build of your '92 StumpJumper.
Did you ride this frame with its original mtb bar and top-mounted shifters?
If so, are you just as comfortable with either bar type on the same frame?

bikemig 

Agreed some of the top end hybrids from that era are very good all rounders as well. But a lot more top end MTBs were manufactured in that era as they were hot items. Hybrids not so much and there aren't as many top end ones. Plus in the late 80s and early 90s, there was better tire availability for fat 26 inch tires than 700c.

One of the more interesting "hybrids" were the Bridgestone XO series. Some of them (the XO 1s and some of the 2s and 3s) used road geometry and 26 inch wheels. This is my 1993 Bridgestone XO 2 which is also a great all around bike. I've put a lot of miles on this bike.

bikemig 

Thanks, yeah that bike was a lucky find. I don't think it had ever been used when I bought it. I went to overhaul it and the grease was not contaminated; the grease looked new. The bike is almost completely original. That Ritchey fork crown is neat and the bike is light at 25 lbs stock.

The RD is a short cage Deore XT which can handle that triple but yeah that's pushing the envelope a bit. The short cage RDs were kind of a thing BITD because people thought they were less likely to get hung up on a stick or something riding offroad.

bikemig 

All the bikes are around the same size (19-20 inch frames). I run a shorter stem with the drop bars than I do on the flat bar bikes. With MTBs, I just size the bike by the top tube. The top tube on the Stumpy is a little longer than my road bikes (22.5 for the stumpy, my road bikes usually 22) and I size the stem accordingly.

If going with a flat bar on a MTB, I like the trekking bar on the Trek a lot. It gives you a lot of hand positions. And it's a cheap mod as the existing parts (brake levers and shifters) will work with trekking bars.

katsup

I'm with ya bikemig, late 80's to early 90's are my favorite. I went a little nuts buying all that were nicely priced (pre covid), but had to put restrictions on myself for which to keep, so got down to 3 (2 for me, 1 for fiance).

I ride a 22in, so it's much harder to find ones for myself compared to the smaller sizes.

Roger M

That is a great collection of the pinnacle of 80s/90s production mountain bikes. How do they compare against each other?

That MB-1 is very nice, especially that fork...

clubman 

Not really. For every ~ '90 hybrid sold there were dozens of mtn bikes flying off the shelf. The ride was very different with the low centre of gravity. It seemed that every week you'd go into the high end shops and see new models and marques, funky Girven and AMP suspensions, lightweight components like Synchros, Paul and American Classic, Ti and aluminum frames, some real boutique stuff. An age of rebirth for cycling imo.

bikemig 

I'm partial to the ' 93 MB 1 and the '92 Stumpjumper but they're my 2 lightest MTBs (25 lbs for the MB 1 and 26 and some change for the Stumpjumper; the main triangle is tange prestige on the Stumpy and the MB 1 has tange Ritchey logic tubing which I think is the same thing).

AeroGut

As I recall, Grant Peterson wrote a bit in the early Bridgestone catalogs that basically said if you’re a good enough rider to buy this bike you’ll know how to use a short cage derailleur with a triple crank.

gugie 

80's-90's MTB's are way underrated as a great base for a bike you can do most anything on, and you're a great proponent of that.

badger_biker 

Very nice collection Miguel! I agree that trekking bars are the way to go if not going with drops. I have them on my Cimarron and never grow tired of riding it. The MB-1 is really sweet.

shoota 

Super cool, my dad has the road bike version of this one. It looks exactly the same.

mstateglfr 

Love the lugs and fork crown on the mb1. Crazy to think lugs were still spec'd at that point in the game. Grant is gonna Grant, and a sweet looking bike will be the end result.

guy1138

You're probably the guy to ask: Looking at the 3 tiers of Specialized Mountain bikes from the era, is there much of a difference between the frames, or did it mostly come down to the components? If I'm building an all purpose bike, do I get much benefit for holding out for a Stumpy frame, or is a hard rock just as good?

katsup

The frames are better on the better models. The Stumpjumper has the best frame while the Hard Rock has the worst.

There were different trim levels for each model with different levels of components (Comp, Sport, none).

guy1138

I don't think it's that simple. Looking at the 89 catalog, the description for the frameset on the Rockhopper, Rockhopper Comp and the Stumpjumper is exactly the same. Then the Stumpjumper Comp and Team get a different frame with Tange tubing instead of unbranded.

1989 Specialized Catalogue | Retrobike

katsup

Your original question is if a Hard Rock frame is just as good as a Stumpjumper frame. You can see in the catalog you linked, they are not.

Maybe in 1989, the base level Stumpjumper had the same frame as the Rockhopper. In general, the higher you go up in components, the nicer frame you will get.