When I was in Melbourne earlier in the week legendary Wellington/Levin shredder Hayden Barnie pulled this recent eBay acquisition out of his shed. I never owned anything quite as rad as this 1988 Peugeot Montana Reynolds 531 doubled butted gem, but my first MTB in 1989 was rocking Biopace chain rings.
Biopace was such a have, but hell it was new and the bike industry told us we needed it (nothing has changed really). How’s the Shark Fin XT U-brake, how would that thing perform in the mud?
Speaking of Shark Fins, this chainstay protector doubled as an anti-chainsuck device. Someone needs to bring these things back! Hell, I’d run one.
Forget 1×11 and 2×10, this thing was rocking 3×6. Yup, 18 gears and zero shifting ramps, performance was key.
There’s actually a story on these shifters in the current issue of Spoke: the classic and much sought-after XT SL-M730 6 speed indexed and friction thumbies.
When Barnie bought it, it was so original it was even rocking its original Ritchey Quad 1.9 rubber.
