After spending years amassing a bounty of retro mtb gold, Canadian mountain bike legend (and Drop-In star) Dylan Tremblay is slowly trickling out his collection. That’s mostly happening on his amazing YouTube channel. But, over the weekend, BC Bike Fest got an in-person look at 10 of Tremblay’s favourites via a mini-museum pop-up. 20 bikes (10 of Tremblays and 10 from a Vancouver collector) were on display all weekend, giving a glimpse into the sports past.
We asked Dylan to pick five of his favourites, tell us why they’re special to him and why he prefers bikes with a story to pristine NIB builds.
Shaun Palmer replica Mont-Sainte-Anne 1998 Specialized S-Works FSR DH
This ’98 replica of Shaun Palmer’s race bike ties together a lot of the reasons why Tremblay collects, and sees more people getting into the habit.
“I was obsessed with Specialized S-Works, Palmer’s race bike back in ’98. This event [BC Bike Fest] has showed me that a lot of people are interested in these bikes, and have started collecting. People get excited when you see that bike you rode 20 years ago shows up on line, or its an opportunity to have the bike that you lusted over that you couldn’t afford when you were fifteen.”
The details on this re-build are impressive, down to a very hard to track down seat. The Demo, too. Like it’s multiple shock mounting options and adjustable travel and head angle (from 67.1-degrees to 65-degrees is a huge range, but would be very XC these days).
“This showed up on Craigslist in Vancouver, frame only. It was like 100 bucks 15 years ago. There weren’t a lot of collectors then. These days something rare shows up and people are making offers above asking. It might start at 50 and go for 500 in a bidding war.”
Trembley started with the frame and a photo of Palmer racing at Mont-Sainte-Anne. From that, he spent years building up this replica.
“There’s a few differences, like a black coil and some slightly different decals. But it’s 95 per cent there. The seat was actually really hard to find.”
Rocky Mountain Speed
As you might be guessing by the uneven brand distribution in Tremblays selection, he is a bit of a Rocky Mountain fan. That love is not blind, though. “It’s a terrible design” was the first thing Tremblay said about this distinctive look from the wild west days of mountain biking. “There were two or three companies that did similar designs. I think they only did one year. The same year they went…
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