1990 Bradbury Manitou

The original Manitous made by Doug Bradbury are considered by many to be some of the rarest and most desirable bikes. Among those 300 or so unique bikes he built there are a few standouts, and this little blue bike is one of them. From a production standpoint this bike represents a nearly final evolution of the original generation of his hardtail frames, before moving to Easton and the final run of 1 1/4" frames. This particular frame was one of a batch of 6-10 bikes (most of them built for a Japanese importer) that Doug had painted in a light metallic blue color which makes for a very unique looking bike among the sea of bare Aluminum Manitous out there.

The build is virtually exactly as Doug specified in the 1990 catalog. It includes all of the custom made parts that made these bikes special as well as top of the line components from the boutique manufacturers of the day such as Grafton and Cook Bros Racing. The custom made parts include, a matching rigid fork, 115/145 front and rear hubs (the rear being a unique prototype cassette body equipped hub), custom 1" stem machined from Aluminum billet, a modified front derailleur clamp and a 145mm Cook Bros bottom bracket. Brakes are Grafton Speed Controllers, seatpost is courtesy of IRD, cranks are Cook Bros CBR and the drivetrain is 7-spd Shimano XT.

Doug's custom stem is one of the more unique stems made during the hay day of boutique mountain bike manufacturers.

Modified cable stops

The customary top tube and headtube gussets give these Manitous a beefy and industrial look and contribute to a stiff and planted feel on the trial.

Custom made rear hub featuring an adapted Shimano freehub body and internals grafted onto a classic Bradbury 145mm rear hub. This hub is one of maybe one or two made by Doug as he tried to adapt the new HG cassette from Shimano onto his bikes, this designed ultimately gave way to the modified M732 rear hub which Doug modified to extend from 135mm to 145mm by adding a spacer between the flanges.

This bike is a smaller twin of my 90 Manitou and it's been really fun having two of these blue DBMs in the shop at the same time. I wanted to shoot them both at the same time, but it just wasn't in the cards. In my opinion this bike represents what a Manitou should look like and just like my bigger twin will no doubt be an amazing bike on the trail.

Restoring Tinker's 1993 Storm Adroit - Part 2

Posting these photos now after the Pro's Closet released their professional photo shoot seems a bit redundant but perhaps I can offer a little bit of new commentary to go along with the pictures to earn your click.

All in all the bike ended up looking better than I expected, not how I imagined it, but not as bad as when it was found.

The front fork is odd, but it belongs on there. Still wish Tinker still had the matching storm MC1 and Mag-21 fork.

I dig the black/3DV combo on the brake levers... may need to do that on my Adroit.

That back end... what a shame

I always expected to see one of the prototype carbon MC1s on Tinker's bike. But I guess it may not have been up to the task of full blown World Cup racing.

Time has not been kind to these Speed Controllers...

Love the radial front wheel, and the half radial / half 3x on the rear.

Looks like these wheels have seen more than one World Cup... good thing as they were made only for racing!

Now why would he have run these when M900 rings were available?? Leftovers from the previous season when Klein was sponsored by Campy? Maybe he really liked them?

Tinker's choice! I heard he had boxes of these sitting around up until just a few years ago. That's dedication!

The bassworm... not sure it was really useful with the M900 rear derailleur, but it was strange looking and people bought them in droves. So, I guess it must have made you faster!

You can clearly see the hand cut lines on the EX decal. If there is one thing this bike is not lacking, it's extra stickers!

I'm not really a huge fan of how this head tube was finished. It's looks like hamburger meat or something like that.

That's a loud and bright front end, no denying that!

Well, that's another chapter closed. Another bike done and crossed off the list. I am satisfied to have worked on it and had the chance to put it back together. But I definitely feel a strong sense of disappointment with the condition and story of the bike. It was discarded and wasting away and it wasn't until someone expressed interest in it, that any value was attributed to it. But, I guess that's how it goes and you can't expect everyone to share your view of the world. On to the next project!