Remember the Alpinestars Ti Mega? Well, it’s back with modern geometry… sort of

The car world has resto-mods and even born again classics, and now so too does the mountain bike world. There are many many mountain bikes from the pa …

By singletrackandi

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I absolutely loved the Alpinestars Al Mega as a kid!

Remember the days of catalogue/brochures – the Saracen (when they were good first time around) and Alpinestars were my favourite and about as close as I could get to the bikes as a 13 year old!

Wasn’t it the Ti-Mega that had such a floppy rear end that the chain would come off every time you put the power down?

I still wanted one though.

Yeti Ultimate was my dream raised stay bike back then

T45? What happened to the concept of butted tubesets and weight/strength optimisation? Looks kinda cool though….

Oh my word I want one. I have a bit of a problem with elevated chain stays, I love them so much!
I had a Rocky Mountain Experience not so long back and that was amazing to ride.

That’s lovely but it needs more NEON YELLOW!

very cool.

As others mentioned, i used to lust after them. Al-Mega and was it a Cro-mega?

Elevated chainstay for the win! 😀

Looks very nice.

Is the thicker steel because of resisting the twist that the old ones suffered from?

I rode a mates Saracen and it jumped the gears around something chronic as it twisted – but it was a lovely thing IIRC….

There were many back in the day – Nishiki, Yeti, Scott (who had the mad one that flexed upwards), Ritchey IIRC all did them.

pull the trigger.

Did you really write that…. Eww 🤮

I too lusted after an Alpinestars, but ended up with a Fisher Montare raised chain stay effort instead. Beautiful sparkly blue finish. Felt amazing with that rear wheel tucked right under your bum. Seattube snapped just under the chain stay when riding up a steep hill.

I made an e-stay 29er in 2011 out of a Columbus Zona / Gara mix. Managed to find a down tube with long butted section to join the chainstays but limited in overall length so had to be a short rigid fork. Still use it as my commuter with Alfine hub but just about to be pensioned off. Amazingly the chainstays / down tube / seat tube haven’t cracked! 69 deg head angle, 55mm fork offset and 400mm chainstays was radical for a 29er back then 🙂

1992 Al-Mega XT, my first MTb, what a glorious machine, all 21 speed of her with her rigid ally forks. Love at first sight/ride.

I wanted an Al-Mega soooo much. I used to go into Noah’s Ark in Cheltenham and drool all over the one they had above the stairs.

@mick_r – that is lovely…

Lovely stuff Mick 😎
If it’s made of steel it should be the cro-mega we’re comparing it to. I’d love to see a comeback from Alpinestars.

Looks like we both use the same chainstay fixture…. (lump of wood and nails)

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I always wanted an Alpine stars or Mantis or Yeti. But never liked the e-stay Saracens – even though I was a Saracen fan and had the fillet brazed regular stay Kili Flyer.

Its a nice bike but other than it being an e-stay, its got nothing in common with the original frame.

I’ve got a Alpinestars ASR 400 which is a couple of years after the cro-mega. Nice curvy top tube and seat stays. Slightly Stooge ish

@mick_r ooohhh. I’ve gone a bit fluttery. May I draw your attention to this https://form.asana.com/?k=Qz1S6ibQTvMWWrxM4Q4J0A&d=1121725724315322

Plenty more weird bikes where that came from Hannah 🙂

I did send Sanny some photos but maybe he forgot to pass them on….

@matt_outandabout – Ritchey made an e stay bike? I’d be interested to hear more.

I dont remember a ti alpinestars? cro and al, yes.

also, other than an e-stay, it’s not much to do with AS is it?

@cynic-al – couldn’t tell you anything beyond I remember seeing one at the sailing club – which at the time had this chap called Lester Noble who had just set up Orange…

Interesting – I never saw a production one

Hijack:

@mick_r I DMed you a while back did you get it?

Sorry Mols last dm from you shows up as 3 years ago (chainstays).

Back on topic there was definitely Alpinestars e-stay in steel, Al and Ti flavours. Don’t remember a Ritchey but as he did custom then one could have existed. Did he not do some early mtbs with additional direct lateral tubes from ht to rear dropout? (or was that just Breezer?)

The Ti Alpinestars is an absolute thing of beauty especially the forks. Like the Al-Mega they were prone to cracking.

I’m quite liking mick_r’s implementation. Always fancied a cro-mega in my youth.

An SS-able (or IGH) e-stay makes brilliant sense for us putoline fanbois, no need to open a split link to wax a chain (IIRC they’re considered to bendy for gates drive though?)

So like a Ti-Mega, but:
– Not an Alpinestars
– Not titanium
Although does have an elevated chainstay…

So pretty much identical then! 😉

Please see my Trimble above – it’s carbon and with a single main horizontal beam.

Its a nice bike but other than it being an e-stay, its got nothing in common with the original frame.

I suppose the problem is that back in the 90s everything was an “XC bike” at least by current standards, these days your typical (MTB) punter wants a “trail bike” in geometry terms at least, and so what do you really get for adding e-stays to a modern (LLS) trail HT? Some more compliance? Which you then possibly have to design out with thicker tubing to reduce lateral flex?

I suppose the question in 2021 is what application would actually suit the use of an e-stay? We have more niches these days so the basic benefits would maybe be that you could cheat more tyre clearance without needing to make the wheelbase huge (ref Trek stache with asymmetric e-stay) and as I said previously, a frame you never need to break the chain (or belt) on…

So maybe the best use case is different from ‘Tora Cycles’ LLS trail HT, really that frame is just a bit of a “homage” to an old MTB that people in their 40s and 50s will remember fondly. Practically speaking an e-stay makes better sense (IMO) on a slot or EBB frame for winter SS, bike packing or dare I say it Gravel these days?