“To those of us of a certain age, this is the epitome of old-school bike porn; a US-made Zaskar LE (made with 6061 alu instead of the regular Zaskar’s 7005, alloy fans) from the early/mid nineties.”

I thought the early Zaskars were 6061 American made, then later Taiwanese made?

And the Zaskar LE was just the same frame just with better finishing kit?

And the Pantera was 7005 tubing?

Discuss.

Early (American made) Zaskars were 6061, you’re right there. I’m not sure about the Zaskar LE but I had an idea it was a lighter frame as well as different kit – this could be wrong!

LE was a lighter frame, not just the kit, fancier dropouts too if I remember correctly, mine is a bog standard 97, not an LE.

My Zaskar is a 98, American made with a 6061 frame.
Not sure on the LE’s though.

I’ve got a 2000 Zaskar X which is 6061 US made.

Nope… Up to about 96 the Zaskar and Zaskar LE were the same frame, except one had XT and one had XTR. After 96 the LE morphed tweaked slightly…. LE was “light edition” IIRC

Can’t remember when they stopped making them in the US in favour of “over east” but it was late 90’s ish

I did have a US made Zaskar in yellow but sold it, and regretted it. That was deffo 6061 and US made.

Now got a 7005 97 Pantera

I used to know most of this, knowledge must have dribbled out of my ears with age 🙁

As far as I remember, some years the LE was a lighter frame (thinner walled), other years it was the same frame but with better kit, XTR?

I think they were all pretty much 6061, the dogs nads ones were USA made tubes and factory assembled in the US – they had a double ping pong paddle sticker on the seat tube.

Others were US made tubing and assembled somewhere else that was cheaper labour than the GT factory. Might have the US Made sticker but not the paddles sticker.

You can tell the year by the frame number on the drop out – first 4 digits give month and year (can’t remember which way round without checking mine at home).

The cheaper Avalanche was the 7000 series version of the Zaskar for a few years, it had a rounded end to the top tube rather than the flat of the Zaskar – handy way to tell if some dodgy EBay seller has resprayed an Avalanche and stuck Zaskar decals on it.

Most of that is probably right but I’ll admit to poor memory on the exact details.

Mines a July 1998, it’s an odd metallic blue I’ve not seen many of. Would have loved a ball burnished though. Still a brilliant bike to ride. Only the frame is original now – works well with 100mm Recon Silvers.

Interesting… What size stem and bars are you using with 100mm forks? I had some Tora’s on my Zaskar which felt rubbish more than 100mm with an 80mm stem and 680mm bars.

Trying to plan how I rebuild the Pantera. It’s gonna be 2×9 as that’s what I’ve got in the box. Just not sure whether to got for some 100mm suspension or some carbon forks. If I go suspension then I’ll be looking for an A2Z adapter for the back. If I go rigid carbon (or hell, some nice looking P2s) I’ll be sticking with v brakes as I’ve got a set of STX RC that will polish up reet nice.

Aphex – SID’s at 90mm ish with a 70mm stem, rode really nicely. 680mm bars.

Oh yeah SID’s… Totes forgot about them. Probs some bargains around. Cheers for that. Lovely looking bike.

1×9 and 34t up front?

34 up front 1×10 with clutch mech and n/w ring = no chainstay protector. 8)

Actually, thinking about it, those Sids are surplus to requirements now, email in profile if you’re interested, they’re splendid forks.

My first Zaskar was a ball burnished one which had a chainstay mounted u brake. Nightmare!

It was also equipped with Suntor as I recall. I still have the original Suntor XC Pro front mech in service.

Not sure which flavour of alloy it was made of though.

50mm stem and 720mm bars. It had a short stem back in the 90s – some chunky TransX thing that looked like someone had drilled a couple of holes in a block of aluminium.

With the sag set on the Recons it’s probably 80mm when sat in the saddle. I’ve still kept the V-Brakes, I’m slow enough they work well enough. I’d seen a few adapters years ago and they made alarming creaking noises. Would be nice not to be grinding rims during winter.

Thanks for the offer Picton but I’m in Australia and postage would probably be ridiculous. I am over in the UK in July though so if you haven’t budged them by then, I may well hit you up on the offer. Muchos gracias!

allan23 – Member

I used to know most of this, knowledge must have dribbled out of my ears with age

As far as I remember, some years the LE was a lighter frame (thinner walled), other years it was the same frame but with better kit, XTR?

I think they were all pretty much 6061, the dogs nads ones were USA made tubes and factory assembled in the US – they had a double ping pong paddle sticker on the seat tube.

Others were US made tubing and assembled somewhere else that was cheaper labour than the GT factory. Might have the US Made sticker but not the paddles sticker.

You can tell the year by the frame number on the drop out – first 4 digits give month and year (can’t remember which way round without checking mine at home).

The cheaper Avalanche was the 7000 series version of the Zaskar for a few years, it had a rounded end to the top tube rather than the flat of the Zaskar – handy way to tell if some dodgy EBay seller has resprayed an Avalanche and stuck Zaskar decals on it.

Most of that is probably right but I’ll admit to poor memory on the exact details.

Mines a July 1998, it’s an odd metallic blue I’ve not seen many of. Would have loved a ball burnished though. Still a brilliant bike to ride. Only the frame is original now – works well with 100mm Recon Silvers.

Interesting stuff, but where does that put my 6061 Avalanche from 98ish? I’m not wholly convinced that the Avalanche and Zasker have the same geometry either as the GT triangle in that Zaskar up there looks quite different from the geometry on the Avalanche that I have.
Can anyone remember that web site that had specs and geometry listing for loads of bikes? I think it was a tyre manufacturer, but it was brilliant.

I had a 99 Zaskar LE frameset in Cosmic Sunrise. Just about the best looking frame I’ve ever seen and deffo best I had.

Wish I’d never sold it tbh.

It was 6061 made in the USA and very tough. Difference between that and the normal Zaskar were the seatstay bridge as mine was shaped instead of a flat section, and the drop outs were sculptured like Ritchey style instead of flat ones.

Not sure if the actual tubing was different.

I bought the frame to upgrade my first real mtb which was a 95 Pantera. Ironically the Pantera frame is now hung in my garage begging to be rebuilt, where as the Zaskar was sold in a moment of madness.

And back when I bought it

I’ve posted this before but it remains my favourite bike and one I’ll always regret selling.

Interesting stuff, but where does that put my 6061 Avalanche from 98ish? I’m not wholly convinced that the Avalanche and Zasker have the same geometry either as the GT triangle in that Zaskar up there looks quite different from the geometry on the Avalanche that I have.
Can anyone remember that web site that had specs and geometry listing for loads of bikes? I think it was a tyre manufacturer, but it was brilliant.

The triple triangle could change appearance depending on frame size.

I’ll admit to not being certain on the details. Just went to have a look on Retrobike as they have a catalogue archive, the 1998 GT one says the Avalanche is 6061 so I was wrong on material – can’t tell what difference to the Zaskar there is as it’s a German catalogue that was scanned in and my German is non-existant. Bikes look pretty similar though, I’d guess in the absence of knowing better it would be butted tubes or some other 90s marketing gimmick that made the difference 🙂

Here’s my Zaskar, I bought it like that new from a shop so know it’s a Zaskar but never understood why it looked like the LE colour but not the LE stickers.

cor, selling that would irk me almost as much as selling my mint BMW E30 does…

Mine is going on the wall when I get round to polishing it.

This was my favourite incarnation:

Cheers for that, I’ve just been out to have a look at it and there’s no ping ping bats.
I’d always assumed that the two were different, and as others have said GTs of that era were brilliant. I was buying a road bike at the time and saw the Avalanche, I spoke to the sales guy who said that the owner was selling it. I bought it as part of the package with the road bike and had it ever since. It’s sitting outside the house as we speak. I might have to get it built up again for some rigid fun.

I did actually check with the chaps at CSG (the distributors) at the Bike Place on Monday before I put this up. What I took from that conversation is that originally the Zaskar was 6061, and then it changed to 7005, but the LE remained 6061. They were both made in the US.

Later on, 7005 Zaskars were made in Taiwan with the LEs remaining with US production out of 6061. IIRC the Taiwanese frames could say “made in the US” if you bought a whole bike, and it was assembled there. But it wasn’t, it was made in Taiwan.

And from selling them in the nineties I also recall that the separate frames you could buy sometimes had different features to the whole bikes, so a Zaskar LE bike could have a different frame to the Zaskar LE frame you’d buy separately.

Not that it’s at all complicated or anything.

I bought mine frame only late in 1997 and it’s 6061 made in USA. According to the chap in the shop it was one of the last 16″ frames left from the last batch made in california before GT was sold.

allan23
Nice bike – I think it’s a ’99 as I got mine the same year and spent an age deciding on the colour!
I went polished in the end. The LE had different dropouts and rear brace.
But all US 6061-t6 – should be stamped on top tub near the stem if u can see thru the powder coat!

captainsasquatch – was the website you mentioned Bikepedia?

http://www.bikepedia.com/

barney – I’d guess it was around 2000\2001 when they went 7005. Schwinn\GT had their financial difficulties and then were bought by Huffy.

vern0n – cheers, I’d have to look at the top tube. Only stamps I have seen is the size (18) and frame number on the outside of the non-driveside dropout and 6061 stamped on the inside of the driveside.

Frame number starts 0798, as far as I knew that meant July 1998. If they had spare frames they’d occasionally get painted up in the following year colours.

Built in 2013 – now gone as I’m a serial bike swapper/frame swapper:

Its a 1996 – Tried to keep it period or least within the realms of what someone might have done in upgrading it.

It was an 18” which was a smidgen too small. 19” frames were made, I had an RTS Team in 19”, but are really quite rare – even rarer I’m ball burnished. The 20” frames were huuuuge!

allan23 – I’m pretty sure I was still working in the bike shop when they went 7005 – which would be around 1998/1999. Unless they were still 6061 and they just moved production to Taiwan for the Zaskar.

Oh, I dunno. I’ll ask. 😉

letmetoalktomark – one of the guys at the Caratti warehouse had a 19″ xixang – boy, I coveted that…

19″ xixang

What’s with all the interest in 6061? Just for retro correctness, or is it better in some way (which would confuse me as IIRC 7005 builds up lighter)?

I could be wrong, not an expert discalaimers etc… :

Back in the 90s the marketers didn’t have different wheel sizes to blind us into thinking we could get a bike that would make us better.

7005 Aluminium was marketed as the “cheap stuff” 6061 T6 was more expensive (therefore better) heat treated. I think the grain of truth was that 6061 was more ductile than 7005 which was more brittle. 7005 bikes snapped, 6061 bent then failed so you injured yourself in a more graceful way.

Not sure if it was true or just partly true and hyped up into making us open our wallets 🙂

There was a load of stuff about butted and double butted tubes in the brochures as well.

Ha yes and my 7005 frames ended up with hairline cracks at the stress points…. But the Zaskar – 17 years old – still no signs of any such damage so I’d agree the 6061 seems more resilient over time. Glad I kept it 🙂

I wish I had all the parts to built mine up now. Ufortunately it’s a “long term” project. By that I mean, my wife says (you have 2 fully functioning bikes, why do you need 3?” They just dont get it.

So now I’m stealth-buying and stalking the postie and thinking of having stuff delivered to work. 😀

Cheers Allan. Happy retro trails, all 🙂

[list]I have an old Zaskar ’01 that is 6061-T6 Easton ultra light tubing – rebuilt with XTR and Reba U turns.

Respected professionally in Ferrari Red. I just can’t sell it as it I still love it lol.

There was a Zaskar Team that was 6062 lovely.

captainsasquatch – was the website you mentioned Bikepedia?

No, it wasn’t Bikepedia.
I can feel a rebiuild coming on and a raid on the parts bin to see how many of the original parts I’ve still got left.

They had a 14″ Xixang frame in the wall in the bike shop in Braunton for ages (I don’t think they wanted to sell it).

What I took from that conversation is that originally the Zaskar was 6061, and then it changed to 7005, but the LE remained 6061

as an MTBer of a certain age, who lusted after Zaskars but could only afford a Pantera, and who trained as a metallurgist specialising in aluminium alloys and worked in the US in the ’90s, I’m not sure that’s right (or at least the idea that Zaskars were built from 7005 in the US). The move to the Far East coincided with the move from 6061 to 7005 because that was the locally available tubing stock. Alcoa were turning out 6061 by the ton for US Aerospace, so all the US-built frames (not just GT) were 6061. This ended up giving 6061 a reputation for being the ‘better’ alloy because it was associated with the more expensive frames.

That sounds pretty feasible to me. I do remember the marketing types saying 6061 was better because you could heat treat it, but I strongly smelled bullshit even then. Didn’t stop me from lusting after a US made Zaskar tho 😉

you have to heat treat it, and that’s what the T6 refers to (the state of Temper, with T6 being peak ageing). 7005 nominally age hardens at room temperature, but is also treated to T6 to give controlled properties for use. Think my ’94 7005 T6 Pantera is currently doing turbo trainer duties in my brother’s garage!