Bike #4: The Nashbar Mountain Bike

I got my fourth bike in 1983. At that time my family was pretty into bicycling, and the Bike Nashbar catalogue was a staple in our home. When Nashbar introduced their first mountain bike (then called a "dirt bike"), I was all over it. And because my parents were always very supportive of my bike habits, they got me one:


Although it may seem primitive by today's standards, this bike was pretty sweet at the time. Bullmoose handlebars, Dia-Compe cantilever brakes, first-generation Shimano Deore XT drivetrain (with the "stag" graphics), and a Bio-pace crankset. As you can see I had tricked this bike out with a rack and bike computer.

I rode this bike everywhere. I knew every dirt path and gravel road in my town, and I even got to take this bike up to our family's favorite camping area Merck Forest and Farmland before mountain bikes were banned there. During the summer between eighth and ninth grade (1985) I took this bike on a American Youth Hostel group tour through Maine. Perhaps I should have switched out the knobby tires because I was always bringing up the rear behind kids on narrow-tired road bikes, but there was no question this was a fun bike to ride once we got to the campsite.

I got a lot of service out of this bike, including riding it in the foothills outside Claremont, California while I was in college. I brought it home and eventually got a new mountain bike, so I let my brother borrow it and use it in Hanover, New Hampshire while he was at college. This bike was stolen from outside his house. I still wonder if I will run into it while I am up in the Vermont and New Hampshire area. Its glory days are gone, but it built the foundation on which my mountain biking enthusiasm rests.