A New Bike-Packer—Or A ‘90’s Mountain Bike?

Because I am in, ahem, midlife, I am old enough to have owned and ridden a mountain bike made around the time Rock Shox, Marzocchi, Manitou and a few other hitherto-unknown companies were bringing internally-sprung front forks to the general public.  A few bike-makers were developing frames with suspension in the rear triangle. But that feature, and suspension (what Brits called “telescoping”) front forks were still extra-cost options or modifications.

At that time, in the early-to-mid-1990s, mountain bike frames like my Jamis Dakota typically had 71 degree head angles, which are a bit more slack than road frames (73-74 degrees) but more aggressive than ‘80’s machines that, like the balloon-tired bikes from which they evolved—and many of today’s “hauler” and “rough stuff” bikes—had angles ranging from 69 all the way down to 66 degrees.

Bikes like my old Dakota, I believe, were attempts to inject some road-bike responsiveness into mountain bikes, some of which were, frankly, sluggish. But those bikes from three decades ago were comfortable and stable enough that they were often used for loaded touring (sometimes after switching the flat handlebars for dropped bars), as Trek and other bike-makers stopped making dedicated touring bikes around 1988.

Well, someone at the Dutch bike company Van Nicholas seems to have ridden—or simply recalls—one of those mountain bikes. Their new Nootau, billed as “the ultimate bike-packing machine,” is built around a titanium frame with a geometry nearly identical to a just-before-suspension off-road bike.

Of course, the Nootau’s componentry has almost nothing in common with what was in use around the time “Smells Like Teen Spirit” blasted across the airwaves. Like most of today’s new bikes, it has a threadless headset and stem, which were available but not standard.  But, unlike the cantilever brakes on vintage mountain bikes, disc brakes stop the Nootau.  Discs enjoyed brief popularity, mainly on tandems, during the late 1970s and have been revamped during the past few years.

Perhaps the most striking difference, however, between the Nootau’s equipment and that of vintage mountain bikes is in the drivetrain: the Nootau has no derailleurs. Instead, its single-sprocket crankset is mated to a Rohloff rear hub with 14 internal gears. (I’m trying to wrap my head around that: I’ve had Sturmey Archer and Shimano three- and five-soeed internally-geared hubs.

I may not have the opportunity to ride a Van Nicholas Nootau. I must say that I like its look—and relish the irony of how much its design resembles that of my old Jamis Dakota.

The Real Pista

In an earlier post, I recounted my misadventure with my first "fixie" conversion:  a Peugeot U-08 on which I tried to lock down a fixed cog and lockring to the stock Normandy hub by the force of my youthful hormones.

Before that, I wrote about what might have been the wildest bike I've ever owned:  a KHS Aero Track.   Since then, you've read about my many adventures on Tosca, the fixed-gear Mercian I now ride.

While Tosca's frame has track geometry, more or less, I never intended it as an NJS-approved (or -approvable) velodrome bike.  Instead, I think of it as a cross between a track bike and the British "club" machines from the 1930s through the 1950s:  Something I can ride for a couple of hours, or more rather than the minutes or seconds it takes to sprint around banked curves.

And, yes, it has a "flip-flop hub" (as those club bikes often had) brakes (!) and water bottle braze-ons (!!)--and bags, even.  

But I once had a track bike that had  none of those things. It wasn't even drilled for brakes. (The KHS was.) It had a "flip-flop" hub--for fixed gears on both sides. The bike I'm going to write about was intended as a track machine, pure and simple.

It's a name you've all seen, but in an iteration you haven't seen unless you probably haven't seen unless you've been cycling for a couple of decades.

It's---drumroll--a Bianchi Pista.  But not the one that all of the hipsters in Williamsburg were riding around 2005.  That, while probably a decent bike, is a Chinese knockoff of the Pista I rode for about five years.

This BIanchi Pista was made in Italy, in the same factory as their other racing bikes.  Its tubes were Columbus Cro Mor, which were said to be stiffer than the SL tubes of my Colnago.  

Actually, given that and the tight track geometry, the Pista wasn't quite as stiff or harsh as I expected it to be.  Mind you, it's not what I'd ride on a hilly century, but I found I could put in an hour or two without feeling that my dental work was going to fall out.

Then again, I very rarely rode it on anything rough.  Most of my rides on the Pista were in Prospect Park, only a couple of blocks from where I was living (in Park Slope, Brooklyn) during the time I rode it.  For laps starting in Grand Army Plaza, the Pista was great.

But, eventually, I got tired of that and, if I recall correctly, needed some cash for some harebrained venture I came up with.  The guy who bought it from me had aspirations of actually becoming a professional racer. (I don't think he did, but that says nothing about the bike, really.)  He talked me down a bit in price because he didn't like the color (which, of course, I loved) but still preferred it to "Crest toothpaste green", as he called BIanchi's Celeste finish.

When I first got the Pista, I had my Mondonico--my first purple bike--and, by the time I sold it, I was riding my Land Shark--my first purple-and-green, and my first custom, frame. Also, at the time I bought the Pista, I was just starting to do some fairly serious off-road riding on a Jamis Dakota and, later, my Bontrager Race Lite.

Bontrager Race Lite: Reminiscing About Heidi After A Blizzard

Well, the blizzard wasn't quite as bad here as it was on Long Island, or in Connecticut or Massachusetts.  Still, we had around 10 inches (25 cm) of snow in my neighborhood.

The ephemerally alabaster landscape surrounding me got me to thinking about Heidi.

I'm not referring to  Johanna Spyri's novel or the movies made from it.  I'm also not reminiscing about an Alpine romance from my youth.

Rather, I am going to talk about this Heidi:

That is what I named her.  She was one of the first of my bikes I named.  And, being a true mountain bike, the name fit her.

She was built around a Bontrager Race Lite frame. Before Trek bought him out, Keith Bontrager was building Race Lites in California from a combination of butted chrome-moly tubings.

The way he built those frames was all but unique: Instead of brazing frame tubes into lugs or fillets, he TIG-welded them with gussets.  While not as elegant as lugged or fillet-brazed frames, they were about as strong as any joints could be with thin chrome-moly steel tubing.  

That construction, and the frame's geometry, made for what might have been the sweetest ride anyone ever achieved on a hardtail steel mountain bike.  I never knew that a mountain bike could be so responsive until I mounted the Race Lite.  It had that resilient, even smooth, ride associated with some of the best steel road frames.

Keith Bontrager was a Physics major in college, and he said he never took aesthetics into consideration when designing or building his bikes or components.  Still, I always felt that Heidi was attractive, in a very rugged sort of way.  As much as I love purple and green, I liked her look even better after this makeover:

When I changed the fork, I changed the decals (Bontrager made replacements readily available) as well as some of the accessories.  The bike's original build, which you see in the first photo, consisted of parts that came off Heidi's predecessor:  a Jamis Dakota I upgraded as I wore out the original parts.

Mind you, I liked the Dakota and rode the heck out of it.  I might not have bought another mountain bike had I not gotten such a good deal on the Race Lite frame.  I gave the Dakota frame to someone who, I think, sold it for a "fix".

Anyway, I rode Heidi for five years.  Then, I drifted away from off-road riding and (reluctantly) sold her to someone out west who promised to ride her in the hills, where she belonged.  I simply could not bear the thought of turning her into a "beater" or utility bike.