{"id":246696,"date":"2026-06-04T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/triple-cranks-and-triple-triangles\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T12:00:12","slug":"triple-cranks-and-triple-triangles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/04\/triple-cranks-and-triple-triangles\/","title":{"rendered":"Triple Cranks And Triple Triangles"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Further to Tuesday\u2019s post<\/a> I have now done a proper ride on the repaired GT XCR 1000 from Classic Cycle<\/a>:<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

By \u201cproper ride\u201d I mean I rode to and from the trail instead of just throwing the bike on the car:<\/p>\n

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And no, I don\u2019t mean a ride that you drive to isn\u2019t \u201cproper.\u201d I just mean this gave me ample time not only to confirm the rear shock is working properly and all that stuff, but it also allowed me to experience the bike not just on mountain bike trails but also on pavement and all that other stuff.<\/p>\n

This bike follows the AMP Research B3<\/a>, which I finally returned to Classic Cycle over the winter:<\/p>\n

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Along with the Plimpton Bike<\/a>, which is not relevant here (or, arguably, anywhere):<\/p>\n

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I really enjoyed the AMP. It is a very light bicycle, and it feels very fast, even on the stretches of pavement I\u2019d ride to and from the trail. There\u2019s front and rear suspension, but not a lot of it, making it an easy transition for a rigid (both in the literal sense and the sense of being uptight) rider like me. I also like the way it looks, and the thumb shifters appeal to the retrogrouch in me:<\/p>\n

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The GT is only five years younger than the AMP, but the suspension is considerably more plush. Mostly that\u2019s a good thing, and it still manages to feel reasonably fast on pavement, despite being both heavier and more squishy, maybe because of the i-Drive or something, what do I know? But more and better suspension is not entirely<\/em> a good thing, because by 1999 bike companies had figured out how to make very good suspension components, but they hadn\u2019t updated the geometry to go with it\u2013they were just making the same bikes they always had, only with better suspension. So I could see getting into trouble on the GT, particularly when descending, since even though the suspension really eats everything up and you\u2019re tempted to go a lot faster than you otherwise would, you probably shouldn\u2019t because it\u2019s still liable to put you over the bars if you\u2019re not careful.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s certainly not to say it\u2019s scary<\/em> to ride or anything like that. I mean I\u2019m used to it. This was what I rode for years:<\/p>\n

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[That\u2019s a photo of a photo in my book.]<\/p>\n

Also, fortunately the large frame size coupled with the riser stem and bars Paul was thoughtful enough to equip the GT with all mitigate this effect considerably. Still, you do need to keep in mind when riding it that even though you\u2019re floating over roots and rocks you\u2019re still on a bike with a steep front end, small wheels, and narrow tires.<\/p>\n

As for the bike\u2019s appearance, it\u2019s\u2026you know, a fin de si\u00e8cle<\/em> mountain bike, and I don\u2019t think anyone would argue that those are in any way elegant. I\u2019m tempted to say I would have thought the bike was really cool-looking back in 1999 when it was new, but the truth is I wouldn\u2019t have, and didn\u2019t, because in fact I found mountain bikes quite aesthetically objectionable at the time. But now that it\u2019s basically a museum piece I can appreciate it more, and in a way it\u2019s kind of the bicycle equivalent of M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce. When I was in high school they represented everything I was against, but when I hear them now I think, \u201cYou know, that\u2019s not a bad riff\u2026\u201d All of which is to say so far I\u2019m having lots of guilty pleasure-type fun on the M\u00f6tley Cr\u00fce bike so far.<\/p>\n

And speaking of cool, obviously you can\u2019t beat those Suntour thumbies in that department, but 8-speed XT shifters are pretty damn good:<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m old enough that these still seem thoroughly modern to me, but now that we\u2019re well into the electronic era they\u2019re much closer to those thumbies than to what people are using today.<\/p>\n

Speaking of being old, as an erstwhile BMX kid the name GT has great significance for me, and while I never owned a Performer:<\/p>\n

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[From here<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Or a Mach One:<\/p>\n

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[From here<\/a>]<\/p>\n

I still remember them intimately from poring over magazines, and I did have various GT components, including the tires, which had the letters GT in the tread, and which I color-coordinated with my GT brakes.<\/p>\n

I did eventually get a GT, though I was (technically) an adult by then, and the bike was a GTB:<\/p>\n

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[Photo from here<\/a>]<\/p>\n

These bikes are now highly coveted by the fixerati, but at the time they were wholly unremarkable apart from being pretty much the only complete off-the-shelf track bike you could buy, and I bought it because I was a bike racer and at the time there was still this idea you should train on a fixed-gear bicycle during the winter to improve your spin or something. (Now you\u2019re just supposed to plug your bike into a computer and ride inside unless the weather is absolutely perfect.) I do wish I kept it, not because it was particularly enjoyable to ride (even as a young racer I found it extremely harsh), but only because it\u2019s one of the very few bicycles which has appreciated in value over the years, which is ironic because, as I say, there\u2019s absolutely nothing remarkable about them except the \u201ctriple triangle.\u201d<\/p>\n

So yeah, I don\u2019t miss it\u2026though even I am not immune to the allure of the triple triangle:<\/p>\n

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[Via Classic Cycle<\/a>]<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s<\/em> a cool bike.<\/p>\n

Alas, now GT is just another defunct brand owned by PON Holdings, though their website is still there, and you can browse their generic bikes with their sad vestigial triple triangles<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Oh well, they had a good run.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Further to Tuesday\u2019s post I have now done a proper ride on the repaired GT XCR 1000 from Classic Cycle: By \u201cproper ride\u201d I mean I rode to and from the trail instead of just throwing the bike on the car: And no, I don\u2019t mean a ride that you drive to isn\u2019t \u201cproper.\u201d I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":246697,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-246696","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}