# Old Ross MTB



## OFSFrank (Feb 29, 2004)

A friend of mine begged me to take this off his hands. An old Ross Bear Mt. It's cr-mo with decent components. Suntour thumbies, Suntour 3000 derailures. 15sp. An interesting Tracer crank. Dia Comp 990 Ubrakes front and rear. It's super clean and everything is in fantastic shape. It's a much nicer bike than my first MTB. My bud at the bike shop said they sold a gazillion Ross's back in the day. I'm guessing the bike is pre 1990 because of the brakes alone. It's got a strange ID number with an upsidedown "R" then K6L11C52
Can anyone tell me anything about the bike? I was going to chop it up to a single speed but thought better of it because it's so clean. And theres a race next year with a vintage class so it would be cool to have an old origional bike to ride.0


----------



## cegrover (Oct 17, 2004)

Sounds interesting. Any photos?


----------



## OFSFrank (Feb 29, 2004)

Sorry about the reflectors.









http://gallery.mtbr.com/showphoto.php/photo/140442/cat/500/ppuser/238900


----------



## MendonCycleSmith (Feb 10, 2005)

I've got nuthin' for you, but I had to say, cool bike, and those stems always made me feel kinda dirty, in a voyeuristic sort of way... :thumbsup:


----------



## grawbass (Aug 23, 2004)

Cool bike. I like those stems, would be perfect for a drop bar project. Anyway, its definitely pre-1990, I'm guessing 85ish.


----------



## bagpipes (Feb 3, 2007)

There is a girls version for sale on craigslist (Columbus) with the same set up. You can always e-mail the owner and ask him / her a few questions about it. They may recall when it was purchased etc.

http://columbus.craigslist.org/bik/501162493.html


----------



## bagpipes (Feb 3, 2007)

A bit of history on Ross Bikes.

http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-39115.html


----------



## stan4bikes (May 24, 2006)

*I'm amazed..*

It's incredible how many Ross's show up here. I just picked up this white one for $10.00, bought it for some parts (brakes, levers etc.). Those stems ARE obscene. I have two others that I've posted before, a chrome Mt. "something" and a Composite frame from the mid 90's.

There must be thousands of these bikes out there! Not all top of the line or real desirable to collectors but great bar/grocery bikes :thumbsup:


----------



## vintagemtbr (Jun 6, 2004)

I had the same white Ross you have Stan. It's a heavy bike compared to my older Ross.That looks like the original rear tire. That blue Ross is interesting. Is that carbon or aluminum?


----------



## grawbass (Aug 23, 2004)

vintagemtbr said:


> I had the same white Ross you have Stan. It's a heavy bike compared to my older Ross.That looks like the original rear tire. That blue Ross is interesting. Is that carbon or aluminum?


It's made of fibrous carbon. I seem to remember a couple of those frames selling real cheap on ebay a while back.


----------



## stan4bikes (May 24, 2006)

*further info..*



vintagemtbr said:


> I had the same white Ross you have Stan. It's a heavy bike compared to my older Ross.That looks like the original rear tire. That blue Ross is interesting. Is that carbon or aluminum?


 The white one had both original tires on it but the front one wouldn't stay on the rim, I'm also going to change the back just to be safe. But I bought it to part out anyway.

The blue one is a Carbon Composite and yes, I think I paid around $30.00 for the frame.. They were made for Jeep as addons to the 4x4 line like VW/Jetta did with Treks. As far as I've found, the frames were made by Kestrel.


----------



## lazyracer (Apr 11, 2004)

The "Bear Mountain" was a 1985-1986 era low-end model, sold as a low price leader $200-300, and had marginal chinese knock-off parts. This was the first batch of offshore "taiwan-ese" production bikes, there were a lot of quality control issues with the frames, paint & components. Take a close look at the rather sloppy welds on the frame and see what I'm talking about. I'm not sure what level of quality you could expect for that price point.

I'd replace or get rid of the brakes, hubs, cranks and bottom bracket on that thing if you are going to ride it much.

(I worked as Ross L.A. Warehouse Distr Mgr 1986-1988, raced on their Mt Bike team 1983-1984) ho-hum ....


----------



## vintagemtbr (Jun 6, 2004)

(I worked as Ross L.A. Warehouse Distr Mgr 1986-1988, raced on their Mt Bike team 1983-1984) ho-hum ....[/QUOTE]

Why did Ross use a smaller diameter stem? The Mt Hood I own has a .0833 stem and I can't use a 1" Tioga T-Bone or anything else like it. Would Stan's white Ross have the same size stem?


----------



## lazyracer (Apr 11, 2004)

*[/QUOTE] Why did Ross use a smaller diameter stem? The Mt Hood I own has a .0833 stem and I can't use a 1" Tioga T-Bone or anything else like it. Would Stan's white Ross have the same size stem?[/QUOTE]*

The smaller diameter stem is consistent with the "BMX" standard for that time period, and also allows for a thicker (stronger) steerer tube diameter, not a bad thing when the steerer could likely be mild steel rather than cro-mo. Back when there was no suspension, the forks took some heavy abuse.

You will find a number of MTB models during the 1980's also used this same steerer standard, inluding various mongoose, diamond back and schwinn models, among others. Most of these bikes were assembled in Taiwan, very likely in the same sweatshop factory.

'lazyracer'


----------

