Minus Ten Review 2009-34

Check out this 2010 Raleigh XXIX Pro. Remember when head tube angles were steep?

Ten years ago on the blog I was yakking about a new rim. A really wide rim. It was called the P-35 and was going to be offered by Velocity. It was the precursor to all this wider rim stuff we all take for granted now days.

There was also a big announcement from Trans Iowa. Jeff Kerkove knocked out another of his humorous Trans Iowa headers. I enjoyed having Jeff do these and he genuinely seemed to not be bothered by my requests for his artistic talents. The header for v6 was a mostly white background with black lettering and a "spilled pill bottle" theme. It actually inspired one entrant to send me a prescription bottle filled with gravel as his "post card" for that year. Pretty crazy. (And yes- I still have that bottle filled with gravel)

Then another thing that happened annually for a few years was when Raleigh was headed up by Brian Fornes. They were arguably the coolest during his tenure at the helm of that company. The 29"ers Raleigh made, especially the XXIX Pro models, were to die for. They rode awesomely, the spec was unreal, and the frames were top notch steel.

By the time they were hitting their stride I had far too many bikes sitting around and I never could bring myself to getting one. I maybe should have, because I likely would still have it. The geometry wasn't so laid back, low, and stretched as it is today and those bikes would have been perfect for around here.

But, times changed, geometry went whacko, and now most hard tails are so slacked out and short in the rear end that they are like riding wheel barrows here. maybe someday it'll all pull back toward something that makes sense for slicing through Mid-West single track.

Oh, and you probably are yelling at the computer now wondering why I didn't post an image of that T.I.v6 header. Well, here ya go.....

Designed by Jeff Kerkove