- The latest Shimano XTR group set in transmission
represents the absolute pinnacle of design right now.
It's a phenomenal setup with so much tech,
but ever since I made the video
over on GMBN Tech last year all about it,
I've been thinking we needed to do something else,
just to show how relevant this is.
So we teamed up with Shimano
to get a brand new XTR groupset
and spoke to our friends at Mountain Mania Cycles
to get a hold of a very special retro bike.
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For this retro versus modern video
I've managed to track down a very special bike,
and it has an almost completely unridden
and completely original XTR M900 group set on it.
This is a Trek Y33.
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Firstly, I must say a huge thank you
to Jamie Lynn from Mountain Mania Cycles
for kindly lending me this bike.
The Trek Y33 was released in 1994,
and it's got some serious tech on it,
especially for a bike of its age.
Up front the front triangle,
if you can call it that,
is made from a monocoque carbon fiber construction,
in particular it's using Trek's famous OCLV,
which stands for optimum compaction low void.
Now this front triangle is mated to a 6061 aluminum rear end
via a single unified pivot.
Now the thing with a unified design
is it effectively puts the bottom bracket
on the back of the bike,
so your chain length does not change, whatever happens.
So it's going to pedal exceptionally well,
but one of the downsides is it has
a very accentuated effect on the suspension.
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The bike I'm using for the modern XTR approach
is an Orbea Rallon, which hails from Basque country
in Northern Spain.
Now this is a full carbon fiber
enduro capable bike, running on 29 inch wheels,
rather than the 26 you saw on the Trek,
and it's got 150 mil travel out back,
compared to the 100 mil that you see on the Trek,
and it's got 160 on the front here.
Okay, so let's take a quick look
between the original '92 XTR and the modern 2019.
First up you got a triple chain set
up front with a front deraileur.
You don't even have those things barely anymore,
two at the most.
Out back you've got eight gears,
whereas on that modern one
look at the spread you have there,
it's a one by, which means one chainring up front
and a whopping 10-51 selection out back.
You can climb up a house with these things.
And of course you've got a clutch on there as well,
which means the chain can't come off,
and it also means it's nice and silent.
The brakes though, you reach for those old cantilever brakes
and you will be howling,
because you're not going to stop anywhere in a hurry,
whereas the latest brakes of course
they're two piston or four pistons,
and you're going to be able to stop in any conditions,
but that's exactly what you expect
when you have 27 years separating the two.
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All right, I know what you're thinking,
but actually this is what we used to look like
in the '90s when you rode mountain bikes.
And the reason for that
is 'cause mountain biking was such a new thing
that it was drawing in elements
from so many other sports,
both within cycling and outside of cycling.
You had the road influence,
check the spandex Lycra thing going on.
There was stuff from motocross and BMX,
hence the big goggle style shades here from Oakley
and the Troy Lee helmet
that represents a bit of an open face look,
and of course skiing and extreme skiing.
Now this is also the reason why mountain biking
developed so fast and is where we are now,
because we were able to take things
from motocross, things from motor sports,
things from road cycling, things from BMX,
and combine them to put together, in my opinion,
what is actually the best form of cycling,
because it's so versatile.
In the '90s stuff was developing at such a fast rate,
there was new components coming out
seemingly every month, new suspension designs,
new parts of mountain bikes constantly,
and each claiming to be the respective best thing.
Well first off, the thing you're probably going to notice
is how hilariously small this bike looks.
So this is a 19 inch, back in the day
I would have been riding a 21, something like that.
Of course, this is completely different
to what I would be riding now.
I'd be riding a much bigger bike,
with much bigger wheels.
Now by all accounts this is still a very good bike,
a very high end bike,
but it's completely different to what we're used to riding.
The handlebars on here are absolutely tiny.
I'm used to running big wide bars
and a tiny little stem,
which offers you nice agility,
but puts you in a good position on the bike.
What I'm noticing here is it's very hard
to stop the front wheel from tracking around
all over the place,
because it's got such a big long stem,
which almost looks a bit like a tiller
that you get on a sailing boat to be honest.
But looking down makes me feel very happy indeed,
because just seeing the XTR,
that's the thing that you look for as a mountain biker.
And those brake levers just look glorious.
Three fingers they may be, but it doesn't matter,
it's not about that stuff.
I just love, I really do genuinely love this stuff.
The XT for most people, including myself,
was something you desired so much,
and you wanted so much on your bikes,
but it was so expensive back then in those days.
For most of us a rear mech was enough.
The rear mech was the GTI badge
that you used to put on your Golf 1.1.
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The brakes however, the performance,
is a little bit different,
because unlike disc brakes that we have today,
these don't really stop you,
they kind of just slow you down,
which made descending, on top of the geometry being bad,
something altogether quite a lot worse.
With bikes of this era it's easy to see
what outsiders of mountain biking would think.
They were almost a bit suicidal,
downhill being classed as an extreme sport.
The reason for that is the combination
of your brakes not really being able to slow you down,
but then the geometry and set of a bike
making it quite terrifying.
That was good fun, but that's about as far
as I dare take the Trek.
I did promise Jamie after all
that I wouldn't damage his pride and joy.
It is after all a bit of collector's piece,
but thankfully he's lent me something else
to continue the video with.
This is the Foes LTS,
an altogether completely different bike
from the Trek we've just been looking at.
This also came out in about 1994.
I think it was prototyped in '93,
and it's got a very different design.
So it's a single pivot,
out back it's got a regular head tube
regular seat tube, and a monocoque style
for an end or a semi-monocoque,
so it's essentially two big parts welded together.
Note the hole in the middle,
it's essentially to create stiffness
by pulling two parts of the tube together.
Oh, wow, didn't seriously think
I was going to carry on with a new bike of that era
without changing appropriately.
Yeah, laugh it up again, but the AC/DC thing,
I thought there was a weak kind of link in there somewhere,
the frame shares a vague similarity,
as does the Trek actually, to the flying V guitar,
and I know that the rock purists out there
will remind me that Angus Young
never actually used a flying V,
but hey it's a weak link and I'm going with it.
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The thing is with this,
it's got 150 mil of travel out back
and a little 75 mil fork up front,
which to be fair just can't keep up with it.
And that actually says everything
about mountain biking in this era,
because it was experimental.
Everything was being developed furiously,
and in this era people took
to customizing their bikes heavily.
People weren't just running full XT or XTR
or anything else on their bikes.
They were using a combination of different parts,
and there you've got an Answer A-TAC stem hyper light bars,
and more importantly these purple Cook Brothers cranks,
still running XTR rings, and still running XTR chain,
still running the rear deraileur and stuff like that.
But really people were doing this,
'cause they were trying to find the best
in everything to put on their bikes.
And try as all of these brands did,
nothing was quite as good as XTR.
XTR always, always delivered.
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Everything has changed with frame layout
and frame geometry.
If we leave the wheel size out of this,
just look at the stem difference between them.
We're now running much longer bikes
with much shorter stems.
It's a much more sensible thing to do,
you get the longer wheel base,
you get more grip going uphill,
you get more stability going down,
and the bike is much more in control.
When you're riding a bike with a long stem
it pitches your weight much further over the bars,
and it's a very nervous feeling,
however, we did get used to it back in the day.
It's only when you compare the bikes
directly side by side,
you realize how much better today's bikes are.
When it comes to the brakes though,
there simply is no comparison.
It's like a line has been drawn in the sand.
The brakes we have today allow us
to have control on any terrain,
and you've got all the power you need
at a touch of a fingertip,
whether you're using the two piston design
or a four piston design.
You can completely tailor them
to suit the way you want to ride.
Cantilever brakes were great at slowing you down,
but you could never really rely on them.
When the rims got wet they didn't really work.
Modulation differed depending on pads that you used
and the way that you set them up.
Today's brakes is literally night and day.
The stuff back in the day
that you would maybe go down for a dare,
you can go down stuff much much steeper
and have full control.
In fact, you can ride stuff today
that you just simply wouldn't be able to ride.
Now much like the Foes,
the Orbea also has six inches of rear wheel travel,
but it's also got six up front,
and the bike is lighter and far more capable.
Hook that up with a 12 speed transmission
and there's nothing you can't climb up,
and there's virtually nothing you can't descend.
It's well known that I love my retro mountain bike gear,
and today's been amazing
getting to ride these real early '90s bikes
with the original XTR on
against this modern day absolute beast of a bike,
but really there's no comparison at all.
These bikes are in a completely different era.
They're almost insignificant
compared to what you can do on a modern bike,
but it is important to acknowledge the fact
that we got to this via this.
These bikes are really important.
The refinement that brands like Trek did
are responsible for this.
Fringe brands like Foes Racing
were really pushing the envelope
with a six inch travel bike way back in 1994.
Without this we certainly wouldn't have what we have now.
Now XTR may well be the pinnacle of drivetrain evolution,
but what's important to remember
is whilst this is the absolute top end stuff
you find on the best bikes of the pro races
around the world, it filters down,
which is why I cannot wait to see
what's coming next from Shimano.
If you loved this retro versus modern video,
please don't forget to comment in the section below
and give us a huge thumbs up.
And if you want to see another video on the XTR,
the geek edition over on my tech channel,
click up here for that one.
Cheers guys!