So 20 odd years ago I used to ride and race a KHS Montana pro, back in the day they were great, light nimble. Cut down bars and I covered it in purple bits.
A year ago I wanted to build something for winter/work and ended up building something too good for that so I was on the lookout again for a tatty but good enough for a bike snob.
Looking through eBay I found a buy now £35 KHS Montana Descent. ( US module I think, UK only had team, pro and comp.)
It was 7 miles away and I made a cheeky £25 offer, it was accepted! The frame is the same as my old pro and the bars are as narrow. Lx wheels purple canterlevers. All the other bits were cheap replacement parts.
Not to worry in the shed were some x7 gear levers and x9 mech. I had just taken off a 9 speed cassette and chain of my best Bike, so on that went.
Bit of grease on in the cables and the dicomp ss7 brake levers, and.
BANG its sooooo good, all the memories came flooding back. All I had to buy was a new seat post ( someone had cut the one down) and some second hand grips, with purple lock on ends!

Who out there has not spent much on a memory bike and got that old smile again.

Not going quite so far back, but my son has had another growth spurt, so has finally accepted he can’t tog about on his 24″ wheeler with his knees hitting his chin, so a root around the garage produces my old 1st gen Kinesis Maxlight XC, the one in Easton Ultralite, and fully matching EA50 bars, stem and post. An early Reba Race upfront, and a set of XC717s on Deore wheels. A mix of 9 speed Deore and LX, and some BB5 brakes with Speed Dial levers. Ritchey saddle and Speedmax semi-slicks surprisingly not perished and he’s good to go. Far to good to ride to school and back, but all I had to buy in was chain, cables, brake calipers and adapters. I did have to give it a quick spin round the woods to check it out and bed the brakes in. Lovely bike.

Schwinn Homegrown USA c. 1998
As new it was all xt/xtr lovely silver titec finishing kit, tiny narrow bars, Judy SL forks (when they were £600 top of the line kit not the budget junk they became).

Now a lightish parts bin special with some 680mmbars that’s still lightning quick and climbs like no bike I’ve had since.
Fast, smooth single-track is brilliant
Descends nicely too on the less technical bits of the south downs.

Battering through lumpy stuff or the steep and nadgery it sucks compared to a modern bike though.

Every now and then I take this out for a trot. It’s huge.

I kind of dread it because I never know where it is going to take me. Too often I end up along some singletrack with my knackers rattling on the toptube, or even ending up doing the Ledmore loop (140miles).

But really it just proves you can take any bike anywhere. 🙂

1995 Cinder Cone, Bomber Z2 lights, Hope Ti glides and Titec, Onza finishing bits. It rides like a dream on trail centre or local stuff and sharpens the skills when it gets steep or rough! 😀

^ +1 Whenever I swing my leg over a 90’s 17/18″ steel Kona I’ll take it all day grinning.

Grabbed an old Lavadome a few years ago, XT vees, arguably too-long Toras on the front but it rode reaaaally nicely. Had a Cindercone before and it was identical except had P2s. Old steel Konas with rigid forks are as much fun, in a different way.

Converted to single speed (partly out of curiosity, partly to make even lighter partly because STI shifters were like treacle) but sold it soon after as SS didn’t suit me. Sometimes wish now that I’d whacked some thumbshifters on it and persisted …

Not the most scenic photo…
kona

No photos alas but I used to have one of the early Gary Fisher X-Caliber – the very yellow one – yellow frame, yellow forks, yellow rims. The Hayes disk brakes were woeful as was the Manitou fork but it did have short chainstays and a longer top tube with a shorter stem – god knows why that never caught on 😉

I have fond memories of wrecking the rear mech near the start of the Newnham 90 and doing the whole thing with 3 gears selected by the front mech