It’s been a while since I had offroad tread on my bikes. I used to go exploring trails and find great places to get away from it all on my mountain bike. Well I’ve been watching maybe too many MTB videos lately and I want to get back into it. I started looking at new mountain bikes and saw that I could get a totally insane bike for around $800-$1000 or thereabouts. Then I remembered that my backup commuting bike IS a mountain bike, albeit a really friggen old one.
I got my Mongoose Switchback around 1994. It’s been a tough bastard and has help up quite well over the years. Anything plastic is deteriorating though and some bits probably need replacing.
Today I was putting my regular commuter bike/touring bike in for a service and I decided to impulse buy some Michelin fattie knobble tread tyres for the old Mongoose dirt devil. After I switched out my road slicks, gave the breaks a tune, oiled the chain and polished some of the grime off the frame and wheels, the old Mongoose showed me that it was ready for any mountain anytime. I think it was even daring me to find a huge hill and thrash down it…
