I picked up what I thought was going to be a scruffy mid 90s mountain bike today with a view to taking the frame, chucking the rest, and building up a reasonably lightweight hack ride.

The reality is though it’s the best part of 20 years old it is all bar a couple of scratches pretty minty.

No it’s nothing mega rare, and no this isn’t a veiled for sale thread, hence my non specifics.

Use it,or move it on and get something else?

Sell it to a geek for a profit and buy

a scruffy mid 90s mountain bike

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Much like my Cannondale SS scruffy mid 90s mountain bike which is unashamedly for sale 8)

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How much do you want for that?

I’d imagine he’d want enough to buy some creosote for the fence 😉

Use it, there is a decent retro scene but unless its something quite tasty then you’re not sitting on a fortune.

Do stick a picture up though.

My entire bike stable is made up of retros; from the 94 Zaskar LE I built in 94 up to the 2002 Dave Yates.

They all get used, that’s the point in owning them.

My wife just found a 91 Marin Bear Valley on preloved. She had one 20 years ago and has been after another for a long time. I would say from the condition of it that under the accumulated dust of a dozen years of storage, there is a bike that has done less than 20 miles. Is she going to ride it? Damn right!

Here’s my DB, rescued from ebay with a hole in the top tube. Sent back to Chas for repair and respray and now ridden as a 2 x 10. The other bike is my daughters Orange C16R, also 2 x 10 and used every week.

I’d use it… I don’t get the whole garage queen thing with bikes and cars. They’re made to be used as far as I’m concerned.

There are some fab rebuilds on Retrobike, people going to great lengths to rebuild bikes that they used to love etc but then not using them. It just doesn’t make sense to me…but then maybe I’m just a bit simple!

pics?

I’d prefer riding something modern myself.

Low front ends, rim brakes…forget it!

Unless you’ve unearthed something really collectable I’d use it, do need more details though.

The trouble with retro stuff is no disc mounts.

A2z make a perfectly usable adaptor. 😉

Plus a well setup pair of maguras will stop you as well as any disc brake.

OK – Il offer 1 tin of Creosote – and Il also apply it to the fence??

Here’s some pictures for you.

1995 Raleigh M-Trax Ti 1000 A Titanium and chromoly frame (top and down tube are Ti) Alivio groupset.

Raleigh M-Trax Ti1000 1 by RichSeipp, on Flickr

Raleigh M-Trax Ti1000 2 by RichSeipp, on Flickr

Raleigh M-Trax Ti1000 3 by RichSeipp, on Flickr

It was built for using, if you want something pretty to hang on the wall, buy some art.

That is truly gorgeous!

You have two options:
Sell it on Retrobike for a profit
Upgrade and enjoy it

I’ll raise a tin of creosote and a throw in a paintbrush and labour. If it was mine, I’d add some quality short travel front forks, and a BB7 disk brake (possibly a V on the back), a new set of wheels, bars and setm.

In fact I did just this for my son’s 1998 Marin Mount Vision, and it was lightweight joy of a FS bike that drew admiring comments from persons of a certain age.

If it fits and you like it and does what you want, I’d keep it and use it. Theres a small faction of Raleigh fans but unless you spent less than £70-£80 there won’t be that much profit in it. Unfortunately not all that is old is gold, your more likely to have people showing an interest in it as they may have coveted one BITD, they won’t be reaching for their wallets though.

That’s lovely. If the drivetrain and brakes are ok, the only thing I’d change is get rid of the grips on the bar-ends.

..and ride it.. perfectly good mtb.

Headtube may not enjoy suspension – it places more strain using forks that telescope. Was that frame available with bounce fitted?

Heres a solution, use it as a MTB not as a hack.
Its fair to nice for hack duties.
put to road bias tyres on it and use it for those on and off road trips.

Nice bike, just use it for whatever you’d intended to before you bought it.

It looks clean, tidy and fully functional so now point spending any money on it.

It won’t sell for much so depending on what you paid you have at best the potential to make £10s rather than £100s.

I saw a bloke on Grand Designs once with a Ducati 996 on the wall of his new house. On the road it’s one of the all time great looking bikes, there it looked ridiculous as it no longer had any context/relevance.

Ride the thing, let it do what it was meant to do.

I’m going to buck the trend… flog it on Retrobike to someone who really wants it and then buy something you really want 😉

Thanks for your comments.

I’ve been for a spin on it this afternoon, and it’s not what I’m after as is.

Will post an advert later in the classifieds 😉

Definitely keep that. Looks lovely. Put some short travel forks on it and modern kit. That will ride lovely.

I had one of those Raleigh M-Trax’s, got it for about £300 on offer in Halfords. That was around 1995, then after I’d kitted it out with STX-RC V-brakes, it got nicked on my first day at uni 🙁

Oh man,THOSE brakes. They were my first purchased upgrade, fitted to a Raleigh. They were so fiddly to adjust, you needed 3 hands.

I think they were why I got into working on bikes.

If you don’t like it, then stick it on Retrobike with those pics and it will be gone.

Canti’s, Lord I’d forgotten how much I disliked working on them until yesterday when I adjusted some on a Bear Valley. No wonder we all bought V brakes.

I think the reason Retrobikers build garage queens is due to the number of hours (in spotty youth-dom) they spent drooling over unattainable mountain bikes in showrooms only to find thermselves 20 years later with enough cash to buy the object of their desires. But only to find post-build that the bikes ride like crap compared to modern kit. I did it with a Bonty Privateer. Built it, almost killed myself on it trying to ride the same trails as I ride on my modern metal.
The Cannondale wasn’t one of the ‘iconic’ bikes. It’s a bit like finding a mint condition Ford Escort Mark 5. Amazing condition but still mundane.

How much do you want for that?

Donno – £130 posted? No plans to creosote fence 🙂

Apologies op for the hijack. Hope you get a decent price for that – it’s lovely!