PCB: Thanks for that information; that was quite enlightening! I graduated high school in 1990 and just 2 years earlier bought my first real mountain bike, a Peugeot Tundra Express. About $400 if I recall correctly. By 1990 I was dazzled by all things MTB and especially the high end stuff, and so I took the marketing hook line and sinker. But working in a shop as a mechanic starting in 1991 I indeed started to see Shimano as the evil mega corporation and Suntour as the noble little guy. However, by the time I left shop life in 1998 I was over it. Seeing very few broken shimano shifters, and the fact that they always worked and worked well cured me of my Suntour love affair.

As far as this bike goes I’m having a hard time with the notion of changing anything just because it is such a nice time capsule. The conflict comes from knowing if I don’t dump all the old componentry and convert to newer well performing hardware, the bike will just become (or continue its life as) a garage queen.

Ive got some bar wrap in hand (just came in today) so will give that a go before making more drastic changes.