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That head angle is so steep it made me think the forks were on backwards for a moment. Doubt it will go for more than a few hundred quid though.
I reckon he’ll get a decent whack for it. Folk buying that aren’t necessarily buying it to ride it (as it was intended anyway) but almost as an art piece.
Head angle looks broken compared to any other photo of a Lobo and how I remember the Lobo bitd.
Straight in the watch list never to be bought! 16 year old me wanted that bike so bad! A Mate ended up with sts lobo. Still call him dh Dave to this day!
I've spent about ten minutes looking at that thing and now my eyes and brain hurt. Everything about it looks wrong. Saddle and grips make it look like a kids bike.
How much did that rear brake affect the rear suspension?
H/A is just what the camera has done and the angle of the pic. Massive tioga Saddle makes it look even worse.
Geometry is off slightly from stock (higher BB, slighlty shorter and slacker H/A) as it's running the 6" boxxer aftermarket extended to 7" travel.
It's a small which were ridiculously short even in 1999 (like shorter than the shortest dirtjump hardtails) I can't see any adult used to todays trail bike geometry getting on with riding a small LOBO these days.
Wonder who's it was back in 1999. UK DH racing was such a small close knit community back then.
That rear brake!
My mate had a Cannondale Super V** (think it was called) in the early 90's and he had an engineering company make an adapter for his Hope brake to fit between the chain and seat stays. A total bodge but I'm guessing disk brakes are much less powerful back then so it didn't kill the frame.
I was a total green eyed monster over his bike.... disk brakes front and rear!
Lucky bar-steward! Lol
** Just googled. Can't have been a Super V as it was a hard trail but the frame had that distinctive V shape the 'Dales had back then.
A Killer V perhaps? Oh how I wanted one of those.
Your mate probably had a Cannondale Killer V. it wasn't anything to do with DH though. Around 1995 The Super-V DH 4000 was Cannondale's first proper DH bike and was in many ways nothing like anything before it. The disc brakes those bikes came with were from Sachs and absolutely awful.
IIRC 1999? GT Lobos came with rockshox (yes. rockshox brakes) cable actuated hydraulic caliper brakes which were also awful and didn't even make a lot of sense.
here's a few pics of one so you can understand how it fitted/worked.
Johnny. I know someone with a killer V in very good condition (I serviced it for him) if you'd still like one I'm pretty sure it'd be for sale for the right price
Here's a picture with less distortion so you can get a better idea of the head angle. Yes, bikes back then were short and high with very slack seat tubes.
BB on my SAN Andreas, especially with the Stratos forks was so high I reckon I’d be able to ride underneath it on a modern bike!
Was a great age though, eagerly waiting for MBi & MBUK to arrive to see what crazy looking things the pros were riding. I always wanted a Foes LTS, or a Gen 1 Super 8 or one of those Yetis with the rail mounted shock (although a mate had one he swapped for an M1 because it was rubbish apparently.)
Mate had an Orange Mr O with ‘zocchi Monster Ts at the same time I had my GT LTS with Judy DHs.
His was like some sort of futuristic marvel at the time, complete with Azonics sofa saddle it weighed 6 metric tons but you could ride over anything...Now we are subjected to basically identikit frame design because they have found a winning formula it’s cool, because generally everything works & works well but the days of buying a bike which may or may not be obsolete within weeks despite being the latest and bestest thing ever? Halcyon days indeed...
very slack seat tubes
In this case it looks necessary just to get the seat to where it would be if the seat tube came up directly from the BB due to the placement of the shock and linkage. I had GT LTS back then, I had a lot of fun on it at the time.
I think part of the very slack kinked seat tube was that it moves the saddle forward when you drop it. The idea back then was that you would be grinding out your arse crack on the back tyre on descents, so having the saddle forward gave a bit more room to move around without smashing your nuts on the back of the saddle.
The "seat" on a DH bike isn't for sitting on. it's there you help you control the bike with your inner thigh. so raising it at a traditional XC seattube angle it'd get further forwards the steeper the terrain. Plus a lot of the suspension designs simply didn't allow room for a traditional seat tube position.
Gotta also remember almost all DH bikes back then were shorter/higher and less stable and required a more rear wheel bias riding style than todays modern juggernaughts. many manufacturers kept the super slack seat tube angles out of aesthetics more than anything else.
That square taper middleburn DH crank was hilarious even back then. Thanks for posting that Hols
That head angle is so steep it made me think the forks were on backwards for a moment.
Putting any mtb fork on backwards would actually slacken the bike's head angle (but also raise BB, shorten wheelbase and ruin the intended steering/handling characteristics)
is that a genuine airlines system? I thought that was a myth....
Geex, I would sell a kidney for a Killer V (polished! Mmmmm....) but doubt the missus would sanction it...
it's green but would polish up nicely with some industrial strength striper, a dremel and autosol