Todd DeAngelis leading Joey Peterson, roughly 1985.
I recently went on a singletrack fest group ride and encountered a curious situation. Strewn about were different people's takes on appropriate set up for the all day affair. I saw 26", 29", 27.5"; full suspension, single speed, hard tail, no suspension. Big packs, small packs, frame packs, and no packs. Like all mountain biking, everybody has an opinion. But then I saw it.
A brand new Marin carbon 29" hardtail - with Trail Boss front, Nine Line 2.25 rear, and Volt of course, but...
Drop bars.
Ewwww.
Yes, I admit, I shuddered a little bit. But the wise historic owner went on to say that he could easily swap tires, putting on something smooth and comparatively narrow and have his road bike too. The bike weighed nothing. Then I got to wondering if that'd been his setup more or less since forever. They were WTB drop bars on there after all. Long since discontinued, never since forgotten. New old stock someone here had snuck his way. It got me thinking. Dangerous, I know.
Are drop bars coming back?
I can't say. But I can say that if you look at the pictures above and below, you see the same story from roughly 1985-86. Light, nice mountain bikes also with WTB drop bars. Could make some sense. Here's to Yogi Berra's Deja vu all over again. Happy 2015.
