Last December, my old mountain bike was stolen from outside a laundrette in Bethnal Green. This bike, which was built in the 1990s, and which I bought in 2017 from a chap in Finsbury for £150, had taken me to work, to university; around and about the city on weekend trips and late night adventures. Through an ever changing outfit of tyres, gearing and components, it had posed as a dirt-jumper, a commuter. It was my run-around, yes. But this was not a dispensable beater. It was a characterful, historic and completely personalised ride, and I loved it.
The saddest part about losing Andy was that he had taken me on a one-in-a-lifetime trip from Munich, Germany to Thessaloniki, Greece, lasting 3 months and covering thousands of kilometres. Ultimately, the memories were always going to last longer than the bike, but I liked the idea of have a relic of a time in my life when I was completely happy.
Thankfully, before it was stolen, I rode it to a pretty golden field, got out my camera, and gave it a real good session in front of the camera. This turned out to be super handy when spreading the word to local friends about my bike going missing, but it also means that, when I’m feeling reminiscent, I can flick through pictures of my noble steed, and remember the many good times I had aboard it.
The Breakdown: About The Bike
This was all that was left of the Specialized Stumpjumper M2 that rolled out of the factory in 1999. In the three years in which I owned it, I replaced every original part except for the frame, seatpost and headset bearings. Some of these were choice upgrades, but most were necessary replacements as the original parts slowly wore out or broke.
In the few years I owned this bike, it took on a number of guises, none of which it did particularly well. At first, it was a single-speed city bike. Then, with the addition of chunky tyres, a dropper post and some wide bars, it became a mountain bike of sorts. For a three month cycling trip, I bought the recently released Shimano M8000 mountain bike groupset and bolted on a front rack and some luggage cages: Andy was going to be a touring bike. With skinny tyres, a 38t up front and a 11-42 gear range on the cassette, this bike could take on tarmac hills in both directions. Since our return from the continent, Andy has once again become a mountain bike.
The frame was painted in a limited edition colour-way inspired by the Le Mans Ford GT40. It was a beautiful blue and orange design, which was unfortunately bearing a few scuffs from 21 years of use.
The fork is a heavy lump of steel from OnOne. When I bought the bike it had a very desirable Kona Project 2 fork. However, one night, in a relatively farcical incident, I fell off the back of the bike and watched it wheel down Kensington High Street at speed, and hit straight into the back of a BMW. The fork was totalled, but the bike survived.
The wheels were a cheap pair I bought new from Ebay. The original rims had worn down so much from braking that the front cracked fairly dramatically on a long descent into Innsbruck. After paying to have a new rim relaced to the hub, the bearings and freewheel wore out about a month later. The bike made it through our mega tour thanks only to a variety of elaborate bodges involving zip ties and tape, like all good bodges. As soon as I got back to the UK I binned the existing set and fitted some new ones.
This bike had so many disaster stories attached to it. In addition to the cracked wheel and bent fork, I endured a period on some cheap tyres when I was averaging 3 punctures a week, and I once snapped a pair of handlebars while landing a jump. But I had a real sentimental attachment to it, and I hope the person that stole it off me has as many mechanical failures from Andy as I did.
