(Dramatic introduction)
(VCR & radio noises)
(retro music)
- It's retro week here at GMBN and GMBN tech.
So I thought I would dove in and
show you something you might not have seen before.
Now no doubt at GMBN and GMBN tech you would have seen us
at some point riding Nukeproof bikes.
And of course you would definitely have seen Sam Hill
racing and winning on his bike,
Nukeproof Mega, at the Enduro World Series races.
What you might not realize though
is Nukeproof isn't a new brand.
They've actually been around since the mid 90's.
22 years in fact.
They first started producing carbon-shelled
titanium axle hubs.
Absolute masterpieces, they were.
And then they later, in 1997, released their first bike.
Called the Reactor.
And I've got one.
Right here.
(jazz music)
So firstly, let's take a look at this things.
They're extremely rare.
You don't really see many of these around.
And because they're Nukeproof
I've been trying to get hold of one of these
for the last two years and they've
just managed to built it up.
Now if I directly compare this to my Scout,
which is a modern day hardtail,
you'd notice it looks very very different to this.
But of course back in the 90's,
it wasn't really a genre for
downhill, trail riding, or cross country,
you just rode a mountain bike
in whatever discipline you fancied.
So let us just call this a trail bike for argument sake.
You'll notice it's got V-brakes on there,
rather than the disc brakes, that I have on my Scout.
You might also notice it has 26 inch wheels
rather than than 27 and 1/2.
And you'll also notice, it's incredibly short,
compared to my scout.
And the final thing you're going to notice,
is as well as that monstrosity of a long stem,
on the front there which definitely has obscure handling
compared to what we're used to today.
We'll noticed it's got a linkage fork instead of a
telescopic fork, which we're much more used to these days.
Let's have a little closer look.
Now firstly let's take a look at the frame,
which is made from oversized aluminum.
Now these days we don't really tend to
refer bikes as oversized because they mostly are.
Now oversized was a term really heavily used in the 90's.
And essentially, it help make frames lighter and stiffer.
So basically to make a light weight aluminum frame,
what you need to do is make the walls
of the alloy itself quite thin.
The only problem with that is then it becomes quite flexible
so to get around that, we make the tubes bigger.
So you've got thinner walls and the bigger tubes.
So they're nice and stiff and strong,
but they're nice and light.
So this is a classic oversized frame.
And it's used in a quite traditional double-diamond layout.
Out back you've got a 135 mil
pretty standard quick release rear end on the bike.
And you got a short 420mm chainstay.
Seat angle on here,
you're looking at about 73 degrees,
which is quite modern to be fair.
But up front, it's got a 71 degree head angle.
So that is pretty steep by today's standards.
If you consider that my current Scout,
which chainstays on that are 435.
It's got a 73 degree seat angle,
and it's got a 65 degree head angle.
Much more in keeping with today's sort of trail hardtails
and trail full suspension bikes.
Quite a lot more aggressive.
But the really cool thing about this is the reactor fork.
Now this essentially is an integrated frame and fork.
You can't fit this fork into another bike.
Look at the size of the head tube on there.
And you can see this linkage.
Now the reason for designing a bike
like this back in the 90's was that,
telescopic forks weren't up to standard forks now-a-days.
So two of the things that telescopic forks do is
A, they change the angle of your bike as you compress.
Of course any fork these days does the same.
And the other thing as well is
the fact they've had a lot of stiction.
So stiction is the friction
you have to overcome for the fork to work.
These days our forks are really buttery.
They feel absolutely incredible.
Forks on my Scout are just so supple over the small bumps.
However, that didn't really,
that wasn't the case in the 90's.
So to get around that they've got this linkage fork
which has almost zero stiction on there.
And it's got a proper coil shock
mounted inside the head tube there.
A coil shock like you find on the
back of a full suspension bikes today.
Got an axle just on the rebound, action on there.
And I've got to say the action of it
still feels really really good.
It's incredibly smooth and incredibly plush.
Which for a bike from 1997 is a very rare thing.
I can tell you that for sure.
So as a telescopic fork compresses,
you're effectively shortening your wheel base.
By having a linkage like this
the wheel base isn't affected quite so much.
In fact it's barely anything
compared to a regular telescopic fork.
Cause the nature the fact the fork moves
up and forward slightly.
It's quite a linear action compared to some
of the other linkage forks on the market.
So it doesn't affect it's geometry quite as much.
The head angle doesn't suffer
quite as much as the telescopic fork.
However, the fact that it only works on this particular bike
means it is, it wasn't really something
that's going to carry through to today.
But I absolutely love the fact
that Nukeproof made this bike.
I think it looks absolutely amazing.
And the quality of the workmanship
on the linkages are just fantastic.
Now transmission wise on this bike
complacency is gone XTR M950 transmission.
So, this was the first of the grey XTR,
which to me I think is the best looking of that era.
This was the one I sought after.
In fact I had that rear mech on one of my bikes.
In fact I had and old giant ATX 990 on one of these.
So this was eight speed, triple on the front there.
XTL grade unique ring orientation, there.
XTR front mech.
I'm moving up to the bars.
It's got the lovely STI levers.
Shimano total integration so you've got the rapid fire
shifter with the down shift with your finger and the
up shift with your thumb, and a two finger brake louvre.
Absolutely beautiful design.
They still look fantastic today.
Also notice up front they've got some of the early nukeproof
carbon fiber handle bars, and unlike the bars we see today
using carbon fiber, you can see,
or you can feel the weave on the outside of the bar.
Incredible looking things.
I'm kind of amazed it's still on one piece to be honest,
after all these years.
The stem length as you can see is extremely long.
That's just how it was back in the 90's.
We've seen this before in my other retro vs. modern video,
so this is a 135 mil stem using an a headset design
so it clamps onto the steerer, just like the modern stems.
And the bars on these interestingly to see.
So these are a 560.
So, that's a tiny bar.
If you consider on my Scout, I'm running a 35 mil stem.
I'm running a full 800 mil bar.
Of course the bike is a lot longer so the cockpit length
actually isn't too dissimilar to my regular scout.
It's just the wheel position and the whole
stretched out look of the bike is very very different.
As for the wheels they're sun CR 18 rims,
laced up on those real early bombshell hubs.
Now you probably noticed looking at the scout
that the wheels look immense on them.
They're so much bigger and burlier than these,
quite as felt where you see in the reactor,
but in reality they're probably not that much heavier
because they're made from extremely
light weight and very stiff carbon fiber.
The FSA wheels on there and I'm running the tires tubeless,
where as on the earlier Reactor bike,
that would be running inner tubes.
Now the bombshell hubs look amazing.
They've got the carbon shell on the middle,
it's almost raw carbon looking at it.
And it's got titanium axle so they're extremely light.
Now these hubs were so sort after, back in the day.
And I'm really pleased that you see a set in the flesh
cause I haven't seen these ever in the flesh.
Really really cool to see them.
Now although they're not originals,
I'm really pleased to see the reissues,
or the remakes of the Panaracer's smoke and dart tires.
Now these are iconic for back in the day.
And their front and rear specific tires so the smoke out
back has got a heavy open paddle design.
With quite abrupt shoulders on it.
In fact they look quite modern, actually by all accounts.
That's designed to give you proportion to get you forward.
And then for the control.
I kind of got a paddle design,
but it's in the dart basis,
so it's the opposite way around.
On the front tire they've designed to help you
cut through the stuff to
help you aid your cornering.
So then on top of that XTR seat post, out back,
a classic flite titanium saddle.
Now if you rode in the 90's you
almost certainly you either had one of those
or you desired to have one.
That was, and probably still is by all accounts,
one of the most comfortable saddles
ever made for a mountain bike.
Despite how minimal it looks.
The titanium rails on it and the unique
sort of profile of the body,
once you've ridden it for a while,
they would just sort of give and have a really lovely sag.
Fantastic for many hours in a saddle.
That's why you saw them on so many pros bikes.
And then the brakes,
now this is where it's really different now.
XTR are brakes absolutely fantastic.
It' some of the best rim cable
according to brakes money could buy.
Immense mass liveries.
They've got lovely shoes on them.
They use a parallelogram design.
And you can change those brake pads
in the shoes nice and easy.
But really despite how good they work,
how much power they gave,
you still were subject to the conditions changing things.
When roads got wet and muddy,
your brakes didn't work as well
the brake pads would wear our very fast.
In muddy conditions.
And they're just not as
consistent as the brakes we have today.
The brakes on the Scout, phenomenal.
Incredibly powerful,
incredibly predictable in any situation.
And the parts last far much longer by
comparison to the earlier bikes.
I absolutely love the old stuff, but there's no doubt
that what we have today is miles better.
It's not even comparable.
The stuff that I can do on the Scout,
it's stuff that you simply couldn't even fathom
doing on the old Reactor.
But at the same time, we kind of have these old bikes
to thank for where we are today.
Personally, I'll take a new bike any day of the week,
because the Scout is light enough.
You can ride it all day long, like a cross county bike.
But it's aggressive enough that
when the going gets rowdy it's really good fun as well.
But I just love looking at this old stuff,
what do you think of it?
I'd love to know what you think of this crazy looking bike.
Especially, that linkage fork,
with the coil shock and head tube.
I'm taking a guess that a lot of you
might not have seen one of these before.
I've not seen this bike until, until today in fact.
Let us know in the comments.
(bike reel sound)
well, there you go, that is the 1997 Nukeproof Reactor.
A very cool bike, I'm sure even if it's not your preference
you'll appreciate the fact that the amount
of work that went into the designing in this bike.
I think it's really cool.
Let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
And if you've got a favorite retro bike,
let's hear what it is.
Call it out in those comments below
and we will feature it on the next GMBN tech show.
Don't forget to keep an eye out for all the retro
content across GMBN and GMBN tech over the week.
And of course if you want to see another retro bike's video,
click down here for my modern vs. retro with the XTR
looking at the original M900 all the way through to the
M9100, on a couple of very cool bikes.
As always, don't forget to give us a
huge thumbs up here at GMBN tech
and click that subscribe button.
Cheers guys!
(retro music)
(TV static)