Racing Cyclocross in the 90's?

[EB]

Just do a modern build with some orange gravelkings - the tires will scream 90s so loud no one will notice the rest of the build is from the present day.

[thirdgenbird]

I would go period and silver with the bar, stem, and post. Round it out with a chorus 12 group. I’m guessing you have a set of wheels that would look right at home in it.

Edit: good call on the tires above.

[AngryScientist]

Yea, definitely not going period correct purposefully. Just daydreaming about what was the norm for people to run back then.

This will be a 1x build for sure, just trying to decide on a crankset, as that's probably one of the components that has the biggest impact on a build. Function over form for my bikes though; always.

[Gummee]

I started racing CX after the time period listed, so have slightly later stuff:

XTR ?952? with a 110 adaptor with (some flavor or 2x rings on there)
Suntour XC comp brakes (cause for some reason I couldn't get Shimanos to stop squealing)

Then I tried OnZa HOs cause I was working for a c-dale shop and they had a bunch in the back ('cause they cracked) then I tried MAFACs that I found in a shop while on a motorcycle ride, then I tried a few other brakes...

I bodged an XTegra derailleur together: XT cage + Ultegra body = long cage Ultegra. The opposite works too: XTR and D/A for a short short cage XTR deralleur.

Probably ran 9sp STI cause like I said: I started later than the stated time period. Probably ran a 12-28 cassette pirated from one of my mtn bike wheels.

Started on ATACs, but almost yard saled a few times and figured out that the 'gummy' release of the ATACs weren't as good for CX as they were for mtn biking.

HTH

M

[YVR_brad]

I ran 1 x w/ 42 sandwiched between FSA carbon guards, 11-27 on the rear, would definitely favour easier nowadays. For tires, Simworks Homage, the green just looks so good w/ celeste. Froglegg or Mafac would be cool & somewhat era correct.

[br0qn]

cyclofiend has some pics

you might find yourself a 700c marzocchi, controltech stem, st-6400 levers and some zipps like patrick o'grady

[br0qn]

or you could throw it back with barcons ... red paint + tanwalls too

[Peter P.]

Originally Posted by 72gmc

I wouldn't turn that into a time machine with 90's components. I'd get modern components that work and enjoy the frame for what it is.

I agree. While I respect the OP's desires to make a period correct bike, finding replacement parts when the time comes, on an already 20 year old machine, would be Quixotic.

I will admit a periodic correct pristine 90s era 'cross bike would make a beautiful wall hanger, or conversation piece on group rides!

[Chris]

I had that frame. As I recall, I used Ultegra STI on it.

[mickey.d]

In the 8 speed era you were more likely to see someone on a Bianchi running barcons, usually just a rear with a double-sandwiched 40 or 42 up front. You couldn’t buy the sandwich guards, you made them by grinding the teeth off two worn 53’s and using extra long bolts.
If your double crank took a 107 spindle you would end up swapping to 121mm or so for clearance. In North America in ‘96 Vittoria Tigre cross in 28c was about as large and knobby as you could find. My cx race tubs were always built lighter than my road race wheels for better tracking. Otherwise you used parts that you scavenged from your road and xc race bikes.

We weren’t driving from the hoods full-time then like we do now, so people didn’t slam their quills, instead you would run your setup to split the drop difference from your primary road race bike to get a little better fore aft weight distribution. These days you want your hoods equal with your hip sockets, then we would have setup the drops about that height. By 98 or so we had almost all migrated to “modern” drive from the hoods positions, except for old folks, and wider availability and lower prices on STI meant we had mostly swapped to 46/38 double setups. I think ‘98 was when 30c tires started popping up in larger numbers as riders were bringing tufos back from europe. By ‘99 everyone i knew had at least one set of wheels with 34c tires for jungle cross courses and trail riding.

In the days of 28 Tigres, you would throw clinchers on one of your road bikes to use as a pitbike, and swap a rigid fork and 1.5” knobbies onto your XC race bike to use as your 2nd pitbike(or your primary racebike if you couldn’t get your hands on a cx frame).

[ColonelJLloyd]

Originally Posted by gravelreformist

Circa 1999 - note dual brake lever setup and (IIRC) Paul's brakes

Look to be MAFACs to me. Great photo.

[C40_guy]

Originally Posted by AngryScientist

Yea, definitely not going period correct purposefully. Just daydreaming about what was the norm for people to run back then.

This will be a 1x build for sure, just trying to decide on a crankset, as that's probably one of the components that has the biggest impact on a build. Function over form for my bikes though; always.

I ran Record 1x10 on my 'cross bikes. I *think* I used a Chorus crankset so that I could easily mount a Campy specific bash guard.

[benb]

Originally Posted by gravelreformist

Picture quality wasn't quite what it is today, but here's a few from that era when I was racing. Most of us were running 2x9 road setups in 50x38 with 11-27 rear. Brakes were always an issue. XT cantis didn't work great with STI pull ratios. The parts bins were raided for old-school touring Mafac brakes, with some new replicas made for those who could afford them. A few 1x setups but they didn't have the required gear range and didn't hold the chain reliably.

This was the era I started riding in but never had a cross bike back in the day. I did have a fixed gear bike for a while in the early 2000s that had Cantis but it had no shifters, and the brake levers it had worked fine with the Cantis IIRC.

I am curious how this mess started with drop bar bikes with brake levers that didn't work with Cantis & Vs. It was still an issue in 2013 when I got my All City Space Horse, and from a modern perspective the bike industry didn't fix the issue till they switched everything to disc.

But Cross is old.. a heck of a lot older than integrated brake/shifters. Maybe there was no Cross in the US before integrated brake/shifters but is anyone here old enough to remember what came before? It is hard for me to believe there weren't decades of bikes that worked just fine. The first French Cyclocross National Championship was 1902 and the first Belgian National Championship was in 1910! Were there plain brake levers that worked with Cantis and other brakes that cleared big tires for a long time?

[mhespenheide]

Originally Posted by benb

Cross is old.. a heck of a lot older than integrated brake/shifters. Maybe there was no Cross in the US before integrated brake/shifters but is anyone here old enough to remember what came before?

Other people will remember and explain it better than me, but yes -- there are different types of brake levers. The TL;DR version is that there are "short pull" levers and "long pull levers". Even that explanation isn't complete, because once mountain bikes came on to the scene, the definitions of what constituted "short" and "long" got mixed up. But the word "pull ratio" in the earlier post is the key. Brake levers (the things your hands squeeze) and brake calipers (the things that squeeze the rims (or discs)) need to be matched or at least relatively matched to work well together. That's true even when you're working with "short pull" levers and cantilever brakes; some pairings will work better than others because the pull ratios are well-matched.

[EB]

My first proper bike in the 90s was a cross "conversion" and I remember things a bit differently - it was more of a "run what you brung" vibe, and existing frames were "converted" to cross by various means and methods, so long as they had sufficient tire clearance.

People also definitely rode mountain bikes in cross races, I don't think anyone knew or cared about UCI rules, though I could be wrong about this.

To that end, that bike I rode (mostly back and forth to college) was a black, heavy af Bianchi Volpe touring frame with red knobby tires - I don't remember the brand - and barcons. Pretty sure the tires were 28s. I didn't know any better so I loved that thing, and I didn't know how to adjust the cantilever brakes so they usually didn't work well at all.

Amusingly, Sheldon Brown has a page about the Volpe that describes it as a "kind of a faux cyclocross bike that evolved into a touring bike" but the way I remember it was as a touring bike that had been forced into service for 'cross.