mtb-timeline

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KHS Bicycles

KHS Bicycles was started in 1974 as an offshoot of the KHS Group ¹⁾, to distribute KHS bicycles in the US. KHS stands for Kong-Hsue-Sheh which in Chinese means “Contribution to School and Society,” and has been adapted in English to stand for “Knowledge, Health, and Strength.” ²⁾

KHS has been owned and operated by many generations of the Hsieh family of Taiwan.
khsbicycles.com.tw

1981 Sundancer

A pure cruiser with gears. Later 1982 Sundancers used a diamond frame with the same gearing and looked a lot like the 1982 Schwinn Sidewinder. Nonetheless, it was marketed as a mountain bike in ads placed in the Fat Tire Flyer magazine starting in 1982.

Fat Tire Flyer, Vol. 2 No. 2, March/April 1982, page 11 Almost the very first mountain bike magazine ad.

1981 Sundancer bmxmuseum

1982 Sierra Sport

15 speeds. KHS, Schwinn and SR Suntour all sold their own Sierra Sport named mountain bikes in the 1980s.

1982 Sierra Sport bmxmuseuma

1983 Expedition

1983 Expedition mtbr

1984 Montaña

Montaña is Spanish for mountain. R&E Cycles of Seattle also manufactured a Montaña at this time, briefly³⁾.

1984 Montaña facebook

1985 Montaña Pro

No verfied photos found. The 1985 should have a socket style fork, while later models have unicrowns.

Intentionally left blank.

Production Notes

[1]. ?

¹⁾

Which was founded earlier in Taiwan in 1930. KHS, originally named “Wan-Wu”, Japanese for “everything available”, was a maker of musical instruments and motorcycles for Yamaha. Today KHS continues sells $300M in musical instruments annually.

²⁾

Sources include: wikipedia, khsbicycles, khs-america, khsbicycles.com.tw

³⁾

The R&E Montaña came out in 1983 and immediately got the attention of KHS - which means KHS likely was selling Montañas in 1983. R&E switched brands to TerraTech, of which only a handful of mountain bikes were produced. Not in the timeline

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