Mountain Bikes - Who rides and races? Post your bikes.

Curtis Guise · May 15, 2018

I've been riding and racing mountain bikes for almost 25 years and BMX before that. I raced cross country and downhill throughout the 90's and stopped around 2000 or so when I got more into desert racing. I started riding again off and on about 10+ years ago and been doing it allot more the last couple years.
A few years ago I did a couple of the Over the Hump Tuesday night races at Lake Irvine and now I'm going to try a couple of the Thursday races at Lake Hodges in Escondido called Quick n' Dirty QnD Home Anyone else in SoCal race those? When I raced OTH a few years ago I saw Harley Letner out there and the owner of Dirt Bagz.

My newest bike is an Intense Carbine 275 that I got a few years ago and I have a few vintage bikes that I'll post later. A 1990 Yeti Ultimate that I restored. mid 90's Action-Tec team bike and a couple others.

Curtis Guise · May 17, 2018

This is my Action-Tec that I built in the mid 90's when I raced for their team. I mostly raced cross country on it but also raced downhill with it before I got an Intense M1 full suspension for downhill. Action-Tec was mostly known for their titanium parts like chainrings, cog sets and bolts but also made the Pro Shock which is an internal head tube shock with 2-3/8" of travel. It has two coil springs, one inside the other and you can swap them out to fine tune it and has oil dampening. The owner Russ Robinson rode and worked for Yamaha testing suspension before starting the bike company and this design was pretty advanced compared to other early 90's MTB shocks. Russ sold Action-Tec to an employee and they are still in business. Cannondale copied the internal head shock design and there was a legal battle but I'm not sure what the outcome was.

The Action-Tec frame is aluminum and they had them built by Curtlo. When I raced this bike I had Grafton brakes on it and flat bars. I sold it to a friend and he put these bars and V-brakes on it. I bought it back about 6-7 years ago and still ride it.

Offspring · May 17, 2018

This is also mid '90's DBR I built it up from a frame I bought at LaPaz Cyclery, it replaced a Diamond Back Apex that I rode before that. It's had all kinds of things on it over the years and this is the latest rendition, it's super light.

My last purchase 7 years ago. All my bikes sport 26's, lol. I never raced just ride for health and fun but have ridden at Mammoth and Whistler. I still love riding bikes, just getting too old to crash.

Good thread Curtis.

CHASER · May 17, 2018

My Capra.
Skypark at Santas Village recently opened up and is rad. You guys should check it out.

freddy · May 20, 2018

My new Trek. Have started riding again after a long time off the bike. 29 inch tires and rear suspension definitely makes it something different.

Sent from my iPhone using race-deZert mobile app

CHASETHISTOO · May 21, 2018

I have quite a few bikes right now but trying to thin the heard.

Here is my Intense M16 DH bike I race locally at Fontana.

I also have a Full Carbon 2015 Tracer 275 with Enve carbon wheels. I'm trying to sell this one since I dont ride it very often.

Curtis Guise · May 21, 2018

CHASETHISTOO said:
I have quite a few bikes right now but trying to thin the heard.

Here is my Intense M16 DH bike I race locally at Fontana.

I also have a Full Carbon 2015 Tracer 275 with Enve carbon wheels. I'm trying to sell this one since I dont ride it very often.

Nice. It's crazy to me that they have a M16 now. I had the M1 in the mid 90's and they custom built the frame with an 1-1/4" head tube for our a couple people on our team so we could use the Action-Tec Proshock on it. A year or two later I talked Russ at Action-Tec into letting me run a bigger fork so I switched to the big Zzyzx triple clamp fork. The 2-3/8" of travel wasn't cutting it for downhill anymore. That was a fun bike until I built a Schwinn Straight 6.

Curtis Guise · Sep 12, 2018

I forgot to post this. A couple months ago Nicole from Total Chaos and I raced one of the Quick n’ Dirty races at Lake Hodges. It was a fun race. Anyone else race there before or Over The Hump at Irvine Lake?

Bert is my name · Sep 12, 2018

Used to ride d.h. all the time. My favorite spot is mt. Miguel/Millar ranch rd. One main track that splits off into about 6 different tracks down the hill. Shuttle to the top of Millar ranch and follow the powerlines down. Has a couple of nasty drop offs that are rideable if you are insane enough to do. Good mix of fast sections mixed with really tight technical stuff.

mattb · Sep 19, 2018

Haven’t been riding as much as I prefer, but here’s the goods. It’s great seeing how many people here ride Intense bikes. I couldn’t be happier with mine.View attachment 194185 View attachment 194185

mattb · Sep 28, 2018

Just saw that my images never loaded on my last post....

partspimp · Sep 29, 2018

Race bmx on and off since 76. Ya I'm old. Just took up mtb biking in my 50s. Ride a giant glory.

jorick · Oct 9, 2018

CHASER said:
My Capra.
Skypark at Santas Village recently opened up and is rad. You guys should check it out. View attachment 191798

Nice bike! Does it have 27.5” or 29” wheels?

Curtis Guise · Apr 29, 2019

Here's an update about my 1994 Action-Tec Framewerks team bike that I posted about in my second post. The frame was cracked on the chain stay so I pulled it all apart last December and had my friend weld it. Then I took the frame and fork to American Powder Coat in Escondido. They did a great job on it. I also had the Pro Shock rebuilt by Russ who founded Action-Tec. I attached a photo of it taken apart. Those shocks were designed in 1988 (oil dampened with coils). That was a couple years before the Manitou fork came out that only had elastomer bumpers in them for their suspension...

jon coleman · Apr 30, 2019

i started on older sisters 26" girls bike, around 4-5, then it was all down hill from there, first " mountain bike" ( didnt really exist at the time ) was a shwinn spitfire w- alum. rims, cook bro.forks, redline v bars. tecolote was the ' mountains, ' this is my current ride.and yes i take it off some sweeet jumps....

Curtis Guise · Apr 30, 2019

jon coleman said:
i started on older sisters 26" girls bike, around 4-5, then it was all down hill from there, first " mountain bike" ( didnt really exist at the time ) was a shwinn spitfire w- alum. rims, cook bro.forks, redline v bars. tecolote was the ' mountains, ' this is my current ride.and yes i take it off some sweeet jumps...

Nice, I built tons of those Rock Hoppers back in the day when I worked at a bike shop.

Curtis Guise · Jul 11, 2019

I raced 3 of the 7 races in the Quick n Dirty series at Lake Hodges in Escondido this year on my vintage race bike. I'm not in the same shape I was back in the day so I raced beginner and ended up 10th in two races and 8th in another (20-30 racers in each one). I felt allot faster on this bike compared to the one race I did last year on my Intense with 150mm of front and rear travel. A couple friends raced also but it would be cool to see more off road guys out there. I know quite a few race the Over the Hump series at Lake Irvine.

Curtis Guise · Jul 11, 2019

Here's an ongoing restoration I've been working on. I came across this frame and fork cheap because the rear swing arm was cracked. I had my friend fix it and had the red, white and blue theme done by American Powder Coat in Escondido. It's a Terry Grimes Design F-16 frame with an Action-Tec Pro Shock. The frame is one of 213 made. The fork is #13 made around 1989 and one of his early forks before going into full production. And we are guessing the frame was made a year or two later. It has one of the first Risse Racing rear shocks. The original paint was to bad to save and looks terrible. I lucked out and found a pair of RWB Bullseye hubs and just built the wheels.