a lot of people like to compare modern day gravel bikes with 90s mountain bikes so i wanted to get
my hands on one to test so i went on ebay typed in 90s mountain bike and this was the first
thing to come up and i think i lucked out inside this box is something very cool it's not a trick
this is a 90s scott sawtooth and it cost me 150
not a pounds racing machine but looking good so far little front rack original scott saddle 26
inch wheels bearings are not fantastic brand new tyres brand new tubes so this is a scott sawtooth
from the early 90s as i said i found it on ebay it was actually 155 pounds secondhand well used but
has been serviced there's been a kind of rebuild on it but with some used parts and some new parts
it's a 17 inch frame so should fit me and it's kind of a mid-range mountain bike rigid fork from
the early 90s or as some would uh call it these days a gravel bike it is one of the coolest paint
jobs that i've ever seen on a bike so i'm very happy to own it i don't think it's going to work
straight out the box there's going to be some problems because it's old i've already spotted
there's a biopace chainring on it as well which was one of the biggest tech fails in the history
of cycling i'm going to attempt to put it together and see what kind of condition this is it now i'm
guessing for 150 quid there's going to be problems everything is going to work completely smoothly
but by far kind of is working frame all looks in good nick there's no
cracks or real big bits of damage but the paint's flaking off but it is an old bike
definitely a new bb cassette has definitely been used jockey wheels looking good nick though
rear brake needs a lot more tension if i actually wanted to stop the bike
working straight in the bit all the cables need more tension here front mech
i think the shift is broken doesn't seem to click and it's not a friction shifter so it should have
a click but it doesn't work luckily there's three chainrings and the middle one is a middle size
so another bit of a problem the threads in the right hand crank on completely stripped
i don't know if the guy who sold it to me actually put these pedals on to test them
uh and must have got this crank from like a scrap heap but there is a couple of things you can do
to try and fix this which i've been successful with which was threading this pedal in in the back
of the crank arm to re-tap it i don't have the proper tool to re-cut a thread but with old parts
like this and pedals you don't really care about it's worth putting it in the other way seeing if
that drives out all of the nasty bits of metal and stuff from the person who stripped it before and
lo and behold it's done the trick it's a little bit stiff but in straight i have removed the uh
the cool yellow grips because a bit manky and kind of smell a bit funny i don't really want to be
touching like 30 years of people's sweat every time i ride the bike so what's with this weird
chain ring or three chain rings they're all bio pace by shimano which came out in the 80s and
stopped being made fairly quickly in the 90s because it gave people knee pain it's an oval
chain ring but kind of the opposite orientation to how modern curing or one of those black ink
or osymmetric oval rings so basically people had a lot of problems with them they're not actually
that oval so i think i'm gonna ride them and see if i'm okay my dad's mountain bike actually
had three of these on before and i never had a problem riding that but i was never doing really
long rides on it in any case it's a piece of history it's a shame it probably does
affect the shifting negatively as well and the front mech is already not the best functioning
so maybe i'll have to switch out the cranks for some round ones if i'm going to be using this bike
to ride to work and back on i didn't just buy this bike to ride to work and back on
i wanted it as a bit of a test machine to use for different videos on this channel
one thing i'd really like to test in particular is this bike against a modern day gravel bike
but it needs to be fair i'm not gonna put it against the very premium
tuned added gravel but you know people love to put in the comments section how
capable 90s mountain bikes are we will see and if it all goes wrong at least it looks cool
i did think this was a new chain on second inspection it is not but i did check it for wear
and it's not worn at all the thing with buying bikes like this on ebay is that it is always a
risk there's a little bit of trust involved you have to go via the feedback the photos
and previous transactions these guys actually left a link to an instagram feed where they
take bikes that are complete beaters there was actually a photo of this one
and then fix them up and make them rideable so it was enough to trust that this would be
functional and if there was a problem they'd probably take it back because their reputation
is on the line if you're not that mechanically minded and you haven't
been riding bikes for a long time it would be quite difficult knowing what parts are okay
and what needs to be replaced i had a hard time getting that pedal installed if that had
been anybody they wouldn't have known the little trick to wind it in the back and you would have
issues it is always a risk if you find something that you really do want and the price is good
then just make sure you have a bike shop that maybe work on secondhand bikes already lined up
potentially you know them already and you have somewhere to go just to make sure it's safe to
ride one really positive thing about riding a bike like this is that all of the parts the spare parts
are easy to find 26 inch wheel probably the most common still in the world although 650b and 700c
what you'd find on a road bike are increasingly more common as well but all of the little bits
like the cables and the brake pads and they're just easy to find most bike shops will have them
the bio pace feels weird other than that it's riding like a dream 150 quid can't go wrong well
you could go wrong i think i was lucky gear changes are smooth brakes work will i have
enough gearing because i'm just in the middle ring to get home well without really pushing it
so this bike absolutely rips immediate observations are it has the widest cue
factor in the world so how far away your pedals are from each other like that width is just
ridiculous and i've been doing a lot of mountain biking recently mountain bikes have a fairly wide
like q factor anyway but this is his next level it is like a bmx that's not a disaster because
most people can tolerate a wide q factor but not a super narrow one so for people just riding around
pretty good definitely not as stable as the gravel bike when you're off-road now this might be down
to the tyres a little bit because they're like urban tyres but i have a feeling it's more down to
the wheel size smaller wheel the less stuff it's going to roll over and the more harsh it's going
to feel but to be honest that's actually quite fun it's like when you take a gravel bike onto the
mountain bike trails you're kind of under biked and everything's a little bit more twitchy and uh
yeah you've got to pay attention so again not really a bad thing that is what i was expecting
and yeah i'm very happy the handlebars i wish they were a little bit wider these are i haven't
measured them but significantly narrower than what people would ride on mountain bikes these
days i guess you're in a more narrow position if you're just gonna be using it for gravel so cool
but uh i will be putting on some wider bars maybe a different stem on here because it's like
super upright um and see how that goes so what is the conclusion there
that bike is one million times better than a new one bought from ebay for about the same price
regular viewers of this channel will know what i'm referring to but not every secondhand bike
will be that good or need as a little work you do have to be careful when buying second hand
but at that kind of price it's not the end of the world if you have to spend a bit of
money on it afterwards to get it rolling i hope you enjoyed a quick look at this bike
if you enjoyed this video there is a playlist on my channel called nice bikes full of other nice
bikes let me know what you think of this in the comment section down below and see you guys soon