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Manitou Mountain Bikes

Douglas Bradbury founded Manitou Mountain Bikes in 1986 and began building Aluminum mountain MTBs from his home in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The first Manitous were sold in 1987 and the prototype presented here has been squeezed into 1986 to get this remarkable brand into the timeline sooner than later.

Doug's first personal MTB which he owned was a 1985 Ross Mt. Whitney, which he crashed more often than his motorized dirt bike, prompting building a stronger ride for his own use. From the start, Doug worked in oversized aluminum with extra wide dropouts to support dishless and stronger rear wheels. He also employed extra wide bottom bracket shells from 80→100mm, where the BSA/ISO standard has been 68/73mm. Doug is perhaps most famous for his pioneering front elastomer shocks, developed in 1989 and successfully raced early on by John Tomac and Juliana Furtado at the 1990 World Championships. These were the first elastomer forks, compared to Rock Shocks' finicky air/oil/sticky/noodly RS-1 and Mag-10's.

<blockquote> 1990: Build first Manitou suspension fork. Tomac wants one, so take one to Tomac and get two speeding tickets and lose license. Doug Bradbury's personal tech timeline, in MTB Hall of Fame. <blockquote>

In 1992, Doug sold/licensed his company to Answer Products, staying on as an employee. Pre 1993 Manitous are known as DBMs. Answer ceased making Manitou frames by 1997. Manitou forks continue to be popular today: https://hayesbicycle.com/collections/forks.

Many sources credit Doug Bradbury with having the first front shocks or fully suspended MTB. Doug's front shocks were inspired by Greg Herbold's win at Mammoth in 1989 using Rock Shox RS-1's. See: front suspension history. Rear suspension had been raced successfully since 1983. See: rear suspension history. Mating front and rear suspension together took more time and Manitou's 1991 FS model, while not the first attempt, was the best. The 1991 FS perhaps one of the best and most significant MTBs ever made.

Resources:

Doug Bradbury in Birkenstocks, February 1987.
https://secondspincycles.com/bradbury-manitou/

1986 MTB

Manitou's first MTB, April 1986. Al oversized tubing and gusseted frame. Flying rear brake cable routing with a pulley. Roller cam brakes. Golf putter short stem Oversized Al frame with many gussets. Not yet equipped with wide hubs.

1986 MTB secondspincycles

1987 MTB

Doug Bradbury's personal ride. Hand painted, art logo on head and down tubes. Dura-Ace headset. IRD u-brakes. Shimano 600EX SIS rd-6208 rear derailleur (1986-87), short cage with a 28T total capacity, 26T max tooth. There's no way this derailleur can work well on the large 36T (SunTour Winner Pro) freewheel with a triple M730 crankset. It was not just for aesthetic purposes as other 1987s also have the same set up ¹⁾. Shimano XT M730 front derailleur (1986-88) and shifters. AL frame with blobby welds. SunTour BB. Triple clamped forks. Tioga T-Bone stem. Onza Buzz Saw chainrings. 155mm/145mm hub spacing with symmetric rear wheel. Bullseye modified hubs.

1987 MTB radavist

1988 MTB

Upgraded components. Original, widened Bullseye hubs, dishless rear wheel, triple clamp forks.

1988 MTB secondspincycles

1989 MTB

Completely rebuilt, with many parts obtained directly from Doug Bradbury (wheel & forks.) Replica stem. 115mm/145mm hub spacing custom by Doug. Built with Shimano XT M730 and XT u-brakes (not original.) Seatpost sleeve applied after a likely frame brake - applied by Manitou. Early Manitous uses a seat tube which was a 1 1/4“ → 1 1/8” hybrid, using a welded transition which often fractured. Period correct early elastomer (1990??) forks.

1989 MTB secondspincycles

1990 MTB

Original light metallic blue paint. 115/145 custom hubs. Custom Al billet stem. Cook Bros CBR cranks. Shimano M732 groupset (1989.) Grafton Speed Controller brakes.

1990 MTB secondspincycles

1991 FS

Full suspension achieved by grafting a front shock onto the rear, with three pivot points: at the bottom bracket, the top of seat tube and a few inches above the dropouts on the seat tubes.

Easton Vari-Lite ProGram taper-butted aluminum tubing. Manitou suspension forks with 38mm of travel (as long as it wasn't too cold outside.) Completely original: the head tube is cracked in five places.

Extra long top tube, with a short-for-the-time stem, at 120mm. 115/145mm hub spacing. Shimano XTR M900 groupset (1991-93).

Owned by Travis Brown and raced for the 1992 season.

Most years of DBM production, the Al frames were prone to cracking at the headtube. theproscloset

1991 FS theproscloset

Customized Shimano XTR hub, going from 130mm → 145mm allowing for a dishless seven speed cassette. 1991 Manitou FS. theproscloset

1992 HT

“Hard tail” enters the MTB lexicon. Modified Shimano XTR hubs to 115/145mm. Custom Ringle seatpost. Mostly rebuilt. Grafton brakes & cranks, XTR M900 derailleurs.

1992 HT secondspincycles

1993 FS

Manitou FS as built by Answer Products. Easton Al frame. Shimano XTR M900 group set (1991-93) Standard XTR hubs with dished rear wheel. Full suspension with dual Manitou elastomer forks. April 16, 1993 build date.

1993 FS retrobike

1994 DH

Downhill specific, with a longer rear triangle for stability and more travel front and rear. Ritchey Z-Max WCS 2.35 tires. Full Shimano XTR M900 (1991-93) group set, with Avid brakes. Easton Al tubing. About 26 pounds.

1994 DH vintagemtbworkshop

1995 FS

Easton 7005 Al tubing. Shiny Manitou bare aluminum frames were the perfect showcase for the 1990's revolution in anodized aluminum CNC components and parts. Supposedly there's some Shimano XTR buried in there - but Shimano never understood color. Precision, Ringle, Pulsestar, Sun, Chris King and Cook Bros all look great in purple.

1995 FS generationmountainbike

¹⁾

See: https://secondspincycles.com/bradbury-manitou/ for another 1987 example.

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