This is what's wrong with The Industry™
- Thread starter Electric_City
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Truthof course you pick the one single shoe that was 100% function over fashion to use as an example
No other shoe did (or still does as far as I can tell) what stealth rubber did for riding flat pedals
I get some funny looks in the grocery store in my green 5/10's,
but damn do they lock you in on flats. almost too much at times.
As long as you are not some trendy noboard riding hipster like @dfinn
Hey, I was a no-boarder back in the late ‘70’s early ‘80’s, not sure if that makes me a hipster...or just old.
But that was Snurfing.
What was old always becomes new again, and the people who did the old thing have full liscense to make fun of newbs who think they unlocked the secrets of the universe
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I had a pair of the canvas ones too as casuals. Was surprised how quickly the soles wore out actually.
I am currently wearing my formal FiveTens, blue suede "Tennies". One of the very few non-boot shoes that don't murder my feet and wreck my back. I think I have 10 or 12 pairs at the moment between riding, hiking, casual and fancy FiveTens. Say what you will about Addidas ownership, they're still an outstanding shoe IMHO, albeit a bit less durable than they were a decade ago.
I used to love Intense bikes but even when they were coming out with the new Carbine and other trail bikes, it's like they were outdated right out of the gate: slack seat tube angle and short reach.
I see them around here once in a while. On local trails, I mostly see Santa Cruz, Rocky Mtn and Norco.
To be fair, their main customer group is probably not fully into the long, slack, low mindset. In the old days they did adopted new trends quickly, but never went to the extremes. Which worked well for me, however, they lost me because of 26-4Lyf and Asian carbon. But luckily there are enough used US-made ones still floating around.
I live in Socal and rarely see Intenses, but they are around.
IMO most longtime, experienced riders aren't interested in them, and on the flip side, they haven't broken thru to all the zillions of newbs out on the trails theses days.
Their glory years of DH racing are nearly two decades ago.
IMO most longtime, experienced riders aren't interested in them, and on the flip side, they haven't broken thru to all the zillions of newbs out on the trails theses days.
Their glory years of DH racing are nearly two decades ago.
But where they ever more popular? Here in Europe they were and are super rare. When moving to the US I thought I would come across more, but in OR they were not that common either. Mainly seasoned riders or privateer racers w/o a main frame sponsor were riding them. Now living in DK I think I came across one other guy that had one.
In so cal they were popular at fontana
Actually, they were ahead of the curve for a few things:
-the first or one of the first production 27.5 DH bikes (951 Evo)
-one of the first for 29 wheels on an AM bike (Carbine 29)...that sold me on 29er wheels.
-one of the first to toy with the idea of 29 wheels on a DH bike (that 951 with shortened Dorado).
While I think some bikes are going overkill on the reach numbers these days, steepened seat tubes is a trend I wish Intense had jumped on early.
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Intense was huge around 2001-2008 or so, by the end of that period, they were starting to fade away. In those days they seemed to invest heavily in the "heavy duty big hit bikes" and the XC stuff was kind of an afterthought, but DH and "FR" were a bubble back then and the bubble collapsed. A lot of companies seem to get started in this time frame, not all of them made it. Intense seemed to semi-successfully pull back on the DH/FR stuff and get more into XC, trail and AM. There were a few years where their DH bike was the golden standard.
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i'd say the adjustability of the uzzi was pretty ahead of the curve as well-3 positions at the dropouts and 2 at the shock. that was a big part of why i went with it over an sx trail for my "one" bike back in the day.
i liked that about the old canyon torques too, where you could move the front mount of the shock forward and backward, although i never got a chance to ride one.
If by ahead you mean they were first to market, I agree. But they never came up with a new concept, just refined the packaging from ideas others had. That was their advantage of in house prototyping/production.
They not only had the first 27.5 DH bike but also one of the first trail/enduro bikes in the Tracer 275 and the Carbine with just selling replacable dropouts.
Before the Carbine they had Spider 29 and Tracer 29 US-made 29-ers, some of the first full sus 29ers.
1-2 years before the 29" 951 they had a prototype M29, which was not viable because of the lack of tire options.
Funny enough, during those years it seems that their trail bikes were always their best selling frames. Tracer, 5.5, Spider, 6.6, Tracer VP, Tracer 2 were outnumbering Uzzis and the DH bikes by a lot (info from a rep and comparing serial numbers on bikes that can give an idea on batch sizes). I guess the racing heritage sold the "normal" bikes to the crowds.
There were a few trends working against Intense. Big Companies like Specialized and Trek caught up to them in geometry and quality and the DH bike trend started to fade. Intense was smart to grab a share of the VPP patient with Santa Cruz but the move to carbon industry wide, made the domestic production impossible. So Intense had to change to Asian carbon bikes or be regulated to a Foes, Turner, has been. Its still an open question if they are a relevant company anymore.
Well in the NORBA scene they were essentially The Team. Also, keep in mind HARO and some smaller companies used INTENSE frames as their "own". Also, they were a very early adopter of the 1.5" Headtube. I had 1 of 3 M3's with the 1.5 option. I should have kept that damn thing. Was a Manitou test frame. The serial number was MANITOU. I think now they do was better in BMX. I follow a number of BMX pages and there are a decent number of them being listed for sale etc....
Granted Lancaster, Robertson and Collins broke their fair share of M1s. Though I did witness one of them take the TAZER down Tunnel and run at scary speeds on it.
As with their tires not the same company, they licensed the name.
bmxmuseum.com
.
Intense Cycles - BMXmuseum.com
bmxmuseum.com
Ah, interesting. Either way, they should have just stayed with making AL frames in LA and never gone plastic. The ability to alter bikes fast cannot be overlooked. Hell doing small batches of 25-50 with slight angle tweaks would have had the public frothing. Granted frames can't break and should be straight. So maybe go away from MONO and just use tubes.
IS THAT A 650B G2? I told him to go 29".....instead.
Completely agree. In my small sample size around 2004~2008 in South Dakota and Big Bear I saw quite a few 5.5s, 6.6s, and Uzzis including the two vpxs I owned (after breaking my gen 1 nomad).
Crabon and money are quite the drugs. Nice to see manufacturing mature to the point where GG can pull it off.
Crabon and money are quite the drugs. Nice to see manufacturing mature to the point where GG can pull it off.
They should have gone the Nicolai route. Full custom long travel bikes are still rare these days and combined with production runs of fixed geometry should make this viable. Lynskey does the same.
You are talking a time before 2002-ish. And you are right, you should have never sold the M3 frame, or, if you needed to sell, you should have sold it to me.
I have a M6 Evo frame with "TEAM" as serial number (backup frame from MS Racing, never used).
still have that thing? Saw one at the bmx track a couple of months ago. Guy was boosting the jumps. Looked like a nice frame.
I wish, that thing was sick.
But no. Sold it about 11 year ago.
My buddy used to ride what we still refer to as the "Haro-Intense-Specialized". It used the FSR link and had all 3 names somewhere on the frame.
I can't compete with yous guys. Some seriously nice wall art.
Best I can do, is my DH bike is Knolly Noel's personal final spec pre-production prototype.
Only difference is my Ti hardware does not have the fancy final finish.
No serial number or any other identifying marks.
Best I can do, is my DH bike is Knolly Noel's personal final spec pre-production prototype.
Only difference is my Ti hardware does not have the fancy final finish.
No serial number or any other identifying marks.
Nice. I love your bikes.
That's kind of how I envision the next iteration of my Evil.
Very cool. Didn't know they did a 20"
What's with the massive bars? I see that a lot of bmx videos these days
They feel good?
Racing cruiser class and occasional dirt jumps were the build goals. I built the dobermann up as a spare while I was waiting on these bars for my dartmoor:
www.commongroundbikes.com
But a better question is have you seen the bars on my mtbs? I think Hab's barb was the best "Your bars are the highest point in Georgia"
YMMV, but I find higher rise to give a good front bias riding position and better control.
Racing cruiser class and occasional dirt jumps were the build goals. I built the dobermann up as a spare while I was waiting on these bars for my dartmoor:
tech — commonground
www.commongroundbikes.com
But a better question is have you seen the bars on my mtbs? I think Hab's barb was the best "Your bars are the highest point in Georgia"
YMMV, but I find higher rise to give a good front bias riding position and better control.