Mongoose Quality Through the Years in General?
 

Could someone speak a little about this please, I'd love to educate myself. Apparently at one time they made good quality bikes. Was that road and mountain? I'd love to know some of their basic history. Thank you. When did they go to more of the big box quality.

All I can tell you is that in 2001 I purchased a couple of titanium framed Mongoose Pro Triomphe mountain bikes and they were are still are top shelf bikes.I think at the time they were about $2k each. So at least back in 2001 their Pro line was a high quality piece. They currently have several thousand miles on them and the about this only thing I have had to do is replace the tubeless tires several times and few chains and last last had to have the Hayes hydro brakes rebuilt. Somewhere along the line they and many other bike builders lost their way into the mass market place were quality took a back road to quantity.

I had a 1995 Mongoose IBOC Crit road bike (I got it secondhand as a frame only) and enjoyed it while I had it. Did its job, but can't say it was anything special. A local rider has a Ti road bike and loves it. My only issue with mine was the odd sizing. It required a 28.0 seat post, almost unobtanium [I used a shim with a "standard" size post], and I never did really figure out the clamp size on the FD. A 32mm was too small, a 35mm too big. So I used a braze on with a 32mm clamp adapter, but removed part of the shim that was in this particular adapter, effectively making it larger.

Mongoose was a well respected (not the best, but high quality) BMX bike company in the late 80s through mid 90s also. My first bike without a coaster brake was a Mongoose Expert. It took a beating and never quit.

They still make quality bikes. The Tyax Expert is a pretty good MTB for $800.

The name just got trashed as soon as their lowend bikes hit Walmart's shelves.

For MTBs they were really cool looking chrome but heavy in the mid 80s.

Late 80s, barely into the early 90s they were still heavy, but got short chainstays fairly early on compared to other mainstream brands.

1996, the IBOC Zero G came out. $750 MSRP for a sub-25 lb MTB? Amazing!!! I couldnt' not get one. I waited 'til 1997 to get a closeout one for $600. Been riding it ever since. Got it down to 24 lbs even with some cheap upgrades.

John Tomac was riding Mongoose in the late 80s and I think his influence helped advance their designs back then.

Thank you. Interesting and informative.

My first high quality mtb was a mongoose hardtail. That was in the mid 90's. Their are some sought after bmx bikes from the 80's. The California is one of them. I don't think I would own one of the new ones though.

Don't some BSO's from department stores come with the Mongoose name on them?

There are two separate Mongoose-branded lines: One for sale through bike shops and a lower-price lineup for sale through mass-merchandisers like Target & Walmart. This may have started after Dorel Industries / Pacific Cycle bought the Mongoose name, considering they do the same thing with other brands they own like Schwinn.

In the '80s, before Mongoose was just a brand name owned by a conglomerate, they made some nice BMX bikes.

I remember the older kid across the street from me taught me about bikes.

Mongoose.

Ashtabula. Fork and crank.

Bendix.

"Red means fast."

This would be in the late 70s early 80s.

Back in the day my family fleet included a couple of Mongoose kids bikes purchased at big box stores. They were not high end but far from junk. Did not give any trouble to speak of and were well engineered for what they were. These would have been purchased new in the early/mid 00's. I sold them eventually to a work acquaintance who was a bike enthusiast, for what I considered to be a fair selling price.

I have a Mongoose Rx 10.9 polished titanium road bike I bought used in 2000, so it was made sometime in the 90's. It was, and still is, a sweet riding bike. I have put thousands of miles on it and it's as good today (even after a crash that nearly killed me) as it was when I bought it. The frame was made by Sandvik, and while it wasn't as finely tuned as the better Lightspeeds, it is still very nice. The welds are top notch. Too bad Mongoose took the road they did.

Here's a link to a post with some pics that show the fit and finish of a Mongoose titanium mountain bike frame of the same era. Just something I found on the web, but I think you'll see what I mean. The polished frames looked even nicer than this one:

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=132682

My first non-department store bike was, perhaps ironically, a Mongoose. It was a 2nd gen Rockadile (1993). Basic and a bit heavy, but at the time it was a pretty darn good deal considering the components and all-chromoly frame. And it performed quite well offroad. Up until recently I was still using it as a commuter bike, but feeling it was time to give the poor bike a rest, I converted it to my cargo/utility bike, so it sees much less use and doesn't have to be out in the rain as much. A few years ago I built up a Surly Long Haul Trucker as my ultimate commuter bike, but my Rockadile was literally better at everything than the LHT, so I put it back into commuting duty. :o

My 'goose is slightly LHT-ish these days.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3801/1...d3f0f1d8_b.jpg

http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5510/1...8dc6894c_b.jpg

I don't know. I wrote them off when they decided to sponsor this guy [IMG]http://i811.photobucket.com/albums/z...pscd524d1d.jpg[/IMG] luckily his teams attempts to take down local hero Cru Jones at Hell Track didn't pan out.

In reality, I do remember wanting to trade my redline BMX for a Mongoose BMX back around 1986.

I remember Mongoose BMX bikes from the mid 70's as upper tier bikes, esp. the models with Moto-Mag wheels.

Cheers,
Chris

I have an IBOC with fenders and lights slapped on it. It's been pretty solid and nobody looks twice at it because they assume it's some Wallyworld thing, helps that it's a hideous bright teal color.

Like other have said, nice bikes up till maybe late '90's-early '00's. The 26" bikes from the early years, either BMX cruiser or mountain are very nice. As are the Ti bikes from the later years before they were sold.

SOME of the Mongoose (mongeese?) that were sold at Wallymart were actually decent quality, until they started really cutting corners to shave costs then the quality came in on par with everything else sold there.

Aaron :)

Not naming any names, but I've read stories about a given "product" at Wallyworld not necessarily being the same specification as the same brand & product sold elsewhere - price pressure from Wally forced the manufacturer to make a lower grade specification for the Wallyworld version of the same marketed product. If this philosophy were applied to bikes, a price-conscious consumer could easily fall into a Wally trap of taking advantage of test ride, fit, etc., at the friendly LBS, then making the final purchase at Wally based on price, not realizing the spec difference. This is purely hypothetical - I do not know this to be the case with respect to Wally bikes.

I bought a 93 Rockadile SX new and it was a pretty good bike in its day. I just rehabbed it to do cyclocross. I was surprised how light the frame was once I stripped off all the parts. Here it is last fall.

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=366052

We carried them when they were owned by Service Cycle. (Mid 80's to late 90's or early 00's) The bikes were good quality and were also a good value and gave you a bit more for your money than their competition. By the mid-90's they had a full line ranging from 12" wheel bikes to full suspension mountain bikes to titanium and carbon framed road bikes.

They made good quality MTB's back in the 80's. If you know what you are looking for, you can pick a nice one up for cheap. Here is my all chrome ATB from the mid to late 80's.

http://i292.photobucket.com/albums/m...pse4573b1c.jpg

Until I stupidly unloaded my 1994 Sycamore in a trade for some other gear i thought I wanted, I rode that bike 20 years without a single problem. Full Cromoly, knobbies, slicks, rack, totally stripped. It did everything an unsuspended mountain bike could possibly do. I am about to take a ride to pick up a Rockadile from the same era to try and revive it and get back onto the original Goose. They really went down dill around 98-99 when they started to appear at mass merchants. Before that they were a respectable brand.

Yep, the original Mongoose BMX bikes from the 70's were top notch. So were the GTs, SE Racing and Diamondbacks of that area, although the GT and Diamondback brands haven't fallen as far as the Mongoose and SE brands have.