Down The Trail – Superbikes of the ’90s
Remembering our favorite stories from 20 years ago
We described the Interbike trade show in 1997 as “Disneyland on dirt.” We scoured the trade-show halls and found some of the coolest superbikes that existed. Some of them became legendary, and some of them proved to be vaporware that never even hit the trails. In either case, they’re fun to look at two decades later. Looking back on this coverage, our editors were very happy that some of these ideas died before they hit the trails.
Foes Leaf Spring concept DH bike: Brent Foes used leaf springs instead of coil shocks for this one. The com- plicated series of links and pivots operated his cus- tom downhill shock and swingarm. It looked a bit like the internals of a fine Swiss watch. foesracing.com
Ti Cycles.
Red Hot monocoque carbon.
RST X-Mo
Spooky Project X built by “Frank the Welder.”
Porsche bike—FS Evolution: Germany’s premier sports car-maker expanded its rear-suspension offerings to the mountain bike world and added an inverted hydraulic fork.
GT Project DH bike: This was Mike King’s prototype descender. The transmission was a seven-speed Shimano Nexus hub that was powered by the cranks. The internally geared hub then drove its one-cog rear wheel via a left-side chain. www.gtbicycles.com
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