1990 Bridgestone MB 4 Trail Blazer Mountian Bike, Richey Logic Tube Set

View from the "Top Of The Hill", on the Lake Anderson Trail.  That's Discovery Bay, with Protection Island behind that, and Vancouver Island, BC, behind that!  About 4-5 miles of groomed single-track trail with jumps, ladders, bridges, etc., for the adventurous mountain bikers out there!

 This last Friday,  Sweet Pea and I stopped by the Hadlock Thrift Store in Port Hadlock, on our way home from a fantastic hike on the Lake Anderson Mountain Bike Trail.  We had fantastic weather, a great time, the mountain to ourselves, and to end it all perfectly, I spotted a "dusty and dirty old bike" at the thrift store.  On closer inspection, the bike revealed itself as a vintage Bridgestone MB 4 Trail Blazer mountain bike, with a frame built out of Ritchey Logic tubing!

The bike was covered in sticky dirt and grime (the "stored in a barn" kind of grime, not the "outside in the rain" kind of grime), but only that.............all the components are in great shape and function perfectly (well, not all parts are perfect, as you will see, it needs a new chain....).  After cleaning it up, inflating the tires, and adjusting the saddle, I took it for a spin around the block and found that it rode, shifted and braked perfectly!  I did a little browsing through some old Bridgestone catalogs and found that the bike was a 1990 model year.  The saddle is stamped with a 1989 date code, so this fits perfectly.

1990 Bridgestone Bicycle Catalog

The MB 4 Trail Blazer was the bottom of the "High End" mountain bikes built by Bridgestone.  These Bridgestones that were built with the Ritchey Logic tubing are legendary and still have a cult-like following.  The Bridgestone mountain bikes of the 1980's and early 1990's, were designed by Grant Peterson who later broke away and started his own company called Rivendell Bicycle Works.  His designs were revolutionary in the mountain bike world and nearly every rigid mountain bike made today copies his geometry.  His frames had much steeper frame angles and shorter chain stays that made his designs much quicker and nimbler.  At the time this design was considered "radical", but now is the accepted norm.  Here's a great interview from 37 Signals, that interviewed Grant Peterson this last February.  A great article with great insight into Peterson's unique philosophies and style:  Bootstrapped-Profitable-Proud-Rivendell

1990 Bridgestone Bicycle Catalog

One very cool thing about this bike is the tube set that was used to construct it.  Ritchey Logic tube frames were and are cutting edge in lightness and strength!  Here's a page out of the 1992 Ritchey catalog describing their tube sets:

I'll take a few pictures of the cleaned and tuned bicycle soon and make a second posting, but for now, here are the "as we found it" pictures of the bicycle...... As a side note, the bike cleaned up BEAUTIFULLY!!!  Under all that grime was a near perfect bicycle and components!