goldfinch

I am looking at buying a used mountain bike. Not to do anything aggressive, but more for forest roads and gravel roads and to leave "up north" so I don't have to haul so many bikes around when I travel. I am going to Minneapolis to look at a couple of cheap used mountain bikes. One has no suspension at all, but looks beautifully maintained, a Trek 800. The other is a few years newer, a Trek 820, with a front suspension, but looks a bit beat up. Is there any particular reason to go for the suspension if a person isn't riding over tree roots or rocks or whatever?

CACycling

I've always had full rigid MTBs and they work great on nontechnical stuff. Early '90s stuf can be found inexpensively, rides nice and is pretty much bulletproof.

Seattle Forrest

I had one bike with a suspension fork once. The truth is I kind of wanted to see what it was all about, even if I didn't think it would work out for me. It was fun, but when the bike got stolen, I went back to a rigid fork.

There's a paved section of a nice trail near the waterfront, where you go over a railroad overpass, then down a hill to pavement being pushed up by tree roots. When I had the shocks, I could just "bomb" down the hill and roll right over them, my friends would try to do the same (ie not be light in the saddle) and I'd get a laugh. Shocks can be useful. But it never felt as stable leaning into a turn, and the fork wasted/used up a lot of energy.

Wolfwerx

I've got a Trek 820 from the mid-nineties that has a rigid fork, and I love it to death. Mine is strictly on-road/path use, so I've got huge high-volume slicks on it and they absorb quite a bit of surface irregularities without wasting pedaling energy like shocks do.

goldfinch

Well, I'll look at both. From what you all say and from looking at the conditions of the bikes, the rigid fork one looks like the better deal to me. Thanks for the comments.

goldfinch

Drove to Minneapolis, delivered family to the airport, and ending up buying the Trek 800 without suspension. The bike had been completely rehabbed by the owner, who works in a bike shop and flips bikes on the side. Wheels nice and true. New cables. New chain and freewheel. He claims to have serviced all the bearings (I believe him because he was Minnesota Nice). It rode very well. It looked far less beat up than the suspension model I looked at and was cheaper.

So, I drove home through the snow and dark and stuck the new/old bike in the garage. I can't figure out the year, the pictures on bikepedia don't match up with the paint job on this bike. But has to be an 80s or early 90s bike. Kind of a heavy weight but should be good for the gravel and forest roads here next summer.

The snow stuck to the wheels as I rolled it into the garage. Heading south in a week. It is past time.

Mr. Beanz

I had an 04 Trek 800. I used it on the same fireroads I ride now. It actually climbed very well on fireroads. Once in a while I'd hit a rock on a steep section and lose the front wheel traction (16% grades). I never bombed down the dirt trails but it was good enough. I did replace the wheels though with a $99 Mavic/Deore special from Supego at the time. BIG difference from stock no name wheels.

Funniest story and great memory of the TREK 800. I worked with a group of guys that MTB'd together. One guy was about 10 years older than I but weighed 80 lbs less. I mostly rode roadie while training for a big climbing century. He invited me on an MTB ride on his home turf. He said that a guy my size could not possibly beat a 150 guy on a steep MTB climb, it was just not possible and against physics. All the guys at the shop were saying it was impossible for me to keep up, you now how shop competition can be with a bunch of guys.

I had the Trek 800, rigid, rec rider stem and he had some top of the line full suspension flexy thing that never lost traction super efficient machine. We started up the first climb, some dried up waterfall (Hurkey Creek in Hemet). I got to the top of the one mile'ish climb and waited 15 minutes!

I headed back to look for him figuring he might be hurt. I got down about 50 yards when I saw him coming up. I asked if he was ok or had fallen. He said no and that he was in total shock. His neighbor was my size and no way could he ever compete with him on a climb. Dude, I'm not your neighbor, I'm Mr. Beanz!

The rest of the ride I was soft pedaling. He struggled to keep up on the flat sections as well ha ha!

I was in good shape then training for Ride Around the Bear. When we got back to the shop, all bets were off with guys that had planned to race me on the MTB since this guy was the best of them.

Story has nothing to do with your questions but it makes me laugh! But it does got to show that the bike is good enough!

I used that bike to do this ride 2 to 3 times during the week.

This is a 2 loop ride, many times I did 3 loops (so add another hump to the profile).

Trek 800 did the job!

Arvadaman

On bikepedia, it is sometimes easier to try and match up the components rather than by using pictures. I have had many situations with used bikes where pictures of the bike were not available or the color was not listed. Or go to vintage trek and look at the model color information there.

sprince

I ride a 29'r with no suspension - roots, rocks and logs are no problem at all.

corwin1968

Vintage-trek.com is a much better resource. What color is your 800?

goldfinch

I took it for a three mile ride this morning down the gravel road. It rides just fine. My only problem was the cold. I can dress warm enough except my eyes water. If I stayed north I would get some goggles. My only issue with the bike is that I am so short that the handlebars do not go down as far as I would like, leaving me in a very upright position. I am think of buying a short quill stem. I put the stem down as far as it would go.

A few weeks ago I picked up a rummage sale bike, an old Nishiki single speed, for 20 dollars. I bought it because it had really nice fenders on it and a really nice rack. I'm stripping those off and will put them on this bike. My guess is that I can sell the single speed in the spring for as much as I paid for it. My cousin went for a ride with me and she took the single speed, which is way too big for me. She said it was surprisingly easy to ride and very comfy.

I went to vintage trek and none of the colors matched. I am thinking that someone painted part of the bike black that maybe was not black before. The closest match is the 1998 with the mediterranean blue.

chefisaac

Does hubby know about this?

goldfinch

volosong

For those of you who have never met Mr. Beanz ... I saw his undershirt once on a warm day when we were climbing GMR and he unzipped his jersey part way to help keep cool. His under shirt has a big "S" on it.

chefisaac

I am telling on you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

unless you buy me a bike too!

Arvadaman

Have a picture?


Did you look at the serial number?

goldfinch

Is it the numbers on bottom of bottom bracket?

I'll download a picture in a bit.

I just took the bike for a ride for 10 miles. It snowed a bit but was mostly ok outside. The bike rides very comfortably except I need different handlebar grips. I turned the handlebars upside down which dropped them a bit more for me making it more comfortable. I would hate to spring for Ergon grips, they would cost half as much as the bike! I am going to buy a shorter quill stem which will bring the bars down more.

The chain slipped on the front second ring to the smallest a couple of times. It sometimes hesitated when I shifted the rear. I tightened up the cables with the barrel adjusters (the bike has been recabled) but it didn't solve the problem. I'll put the bike on the stand and go through the derailleur routine. I think that there is too much cable and he didn't pull enough through but I could be wrong.'

EDIT: Here is a picture. Sorry about the blur. I am not going back outside to try again!

LesterOfPuppets

2003 Trek 800 in Starry Night Black/Baja Blue.

Here's Trek's archive page on it.

https://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/bikes/2003/archive/800

Looks like the stem could drop down another inch if there's nothing in the steerer tube stopping it (like a reflector bolt or...).

But, yeah, a stubby non-hi-rise stem would be nice. Unfortunately 1-1/8" quill stems aren't very common. I have a couple of NICE low-rise ones but they're quite long (one 120mm-ish and one 150mm-ish)

goldfinch

Funny, I couldn't find the bike. Thanks for digging it up!

I did drop the stem as far as it would go, which was about another half an inch. I also flipped the handlebars down. I did find a 1-1/8 quill stem that should work: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...A2TE9IQP68MWQU



It is silver, which isn't the greatest, but it is nice and stubby.

Someone switched out the pedals at some point for pedals with the little metal pins in them so your feet don't slip. Man, those are nice. The stock seat is surprisingly comfortable. I mean, really, really comfortable. Oddly.

goldfinch

There is a weirdness with this bike that didn't stop me from buying it but is making it hard to tune up. When you shift the rear derailleur it goes "in reverse." Inotherwords, the numbers on the trigger shifters go lower the harder the gear. If you pull the shifter cable instead of making the bike shift to bigger cogs it shifts down to smaller cogs. What the heck is with that? Now I am not really sure how to get the rear working smoothly. It isn't that bad to shift the rear, it just hesitates in shifts at times. I would rather have it nice and crisp.

jsigone

older MTB shifters are NOT crisp like today's stuff until you got into the higher end stuff.

Delays in the shifting can be caused by bent hanger/rear D, friction in the cable housings, worn chain and cassette. Or simply just being old if stored outside.

CACycling

That's a low-normal RD (also called rapid rise) so operated the reverse of the majority of RDs. One of my wife's bikes has this type. Should be able to set it up to work as well as a standard one it just shifts "backwards".

goldfinch

It has new cables, new chain, and new freewheel. No rust.

I got it working better. Because the seller had put new cables on it so I assumed a cable tension issue. So I adjusted with barrel adjusters and it seems ok on the stand. I'll give it a ride. Actually, I think that there may be too much slack in the cables and may need to pull some more cable through. The limits seem to be set OK.

That rapid rise derailleur is weird. The Park Tool book did have instructions for setting the indexing for that type of derailleur which I followed by adjusting the barrel adjuster but testing in the opposite direction from testing ordinary rear derailleurs.

CACycling

I hadn't noticed my wife's was low normal till we were out on a ride and her RD needed a bit of adjusting. The more I adjusted, the worse it got. The I realised what I was doing and got it adjusted properly but it requires thinking backwards.