Fri 4 Nov

Back in the ’90s I desperately wanted one of these. I managed to bag myself a GT LTS-3. Primitive by today’s standards but awesome (albeit squeaky) at the time¹. It’s funny to look back at this one in particular though. Technology has changed so much: we now have tiny stems, wide bars, disc brakes, bolt-through axles, long travel forks with proper damping, tubeless wheels with dual-compound tyres. Stiffness, strength and light weight. The list goes on and on. Yet the basic outline is the same. So many of the details were right, even then: the slack head angle, the four-bar linkage driving a Fox air shock. The more things change, the more they stay the same. (photo from MTB-News.de, via chirosangaku) ¹ 15 years ago! EEK!

Back in the ’90s I desperately wanted one of these. I managed to bag myself a GT LTS-3. Primitive by today’s standards but awesome (albeit squeaky) at the time¹.

It’s funny to look back at this one in particular though. Technology has changed so much: we now have tiny stems, wide bars, disc brakes, bolt-through axles, long travel forks with proper damping, tubeless wheels with dual-compound tyres. Stiffness, strength and light weight. The list goes on and on.

Yet the basic outline is the same. So many of the details were right, even then: the slack head angle, the four-bar linkage driving a Fox air shock. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

(photo from MTB-News.de, via chirosangaku)

¹ 15 years ago! EEK!