Bike check: Retro Rocky Mountain Blizzard for TransRockies 20th anniversary
Speed metal and 26" wheels for Singletrack 6
This year, TransRockies is celebrating its 20th anniversary of organizing mountain bike stages in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. To mark the occasion, we’re following Singletrack 6 from Fernie, B.C. to Canmore, Alberta. We’re not just riding, though. We’ve pulled out a classic steel Rocky Mountain Blizzard from way back when TransRockies first started hosting races to take on this six-day XC stage race.
A brief pre-amble
The original plan for this story was to race the Jamis Dakar SX that I had in high school. It was by no means a top-end bike. It was the first real bike I had (thank you Hardcore Bikes in Edmonton) and served me well as I dove deeper and deeper into the world of mountain biking. Before heading to Fernie for Stage 1, I asked friends at Broad Street Cycles in Victoria to give the Jamis a once-over to make sure it was, you know, safe. Or as safe as riding a 2001 bike in 2023 can be. A crack in the aluminum headtube meant that it was decidedly not. Stuck without a bike at the last minute, Matt at Fort Street Cycles stepped up to loan me this beautiful Rocky Mountain Blizzard on very short notice.
Why mention this? If you’re going to pull your retro ride out of the garage, maybe ask your local shop to give it a once-over.
2000 Rocky Mountain Blizzard
The Rocky Mountain Blizzard I’ve ended up racing is decidedly an upgrade over the Jamis. It has a beautiful, built-in-Canada steel frame with Rocky Mountain’s iconic maple-leaf fade that I lusted over as a youth. This 2000(ish) Blizzard dates to that brief era when brands often offered frames with tabs for both disc brakes and vee brakes, as retro-grouch mountain bikers decided whether the extra weight of disc brakes were really worth it (spoiler: they are). The Marzocchi Z1 forks are a bit newer, from 2002, but also have mounts for both brake options. Rocky even added fender mounts, just in case.
Rocky Mountain Blizzard from around 2000, with maple leaf fade.
Panaracer Dart tires were iconic in their time. The tread's brought back, in white, by Fairweather as the Dirt Lander.
Rolf Dolomite rims use a 22-spoke count and are a disc-only rim.
A 1x drivetrain, but not the modern version.
9-speed Shimano XT rear mech gives a painfully-narrow 11-34 range, when not used with the original 3x group of chainrings.
Marzocchi was one of the most popular suspension brands in the late 90s and early 2000s. This Bomber Z1 Wedge isn't light, but it's still going.
Built-in-Canada and post mounts. Both rare these days
Reynolds 853 air-hardened steel. Still going strong after 20 years!
Post Modern and a WTB SST sadle, plus a Farsik seat bag to carry another extra tube. Because tubeless wasn't really a thing yet back then.
The suspension post is like the opposite of a dropper. Because it sags when you sit on it, it's high when you want it to be low and low when you want it to be at full height. But it sure did take the sting out of riding a hardtail.
Old bike, old brakes, new race plate. Mechanicla disc brakes are quite a bit worse than hydraulic in every way. Little stopping power and so much effort to pull the levers.
I was trying really hard not to think about how skinny that head tube is as I dropped into South Castle high above Fernie on Stage 1.
The steel frame is built around 26″ wheels. Quick-release skewers were the norm for XC back then. These Rolf Dolomite wheels are wrapped in Fairweather Dirt Landers, a 26×2.1″ recreation of the legendary Panaracer Smoke / Dart tread combo. It’s actually amazing how many people immediately recognized the tread, some were even able to pick it out while we were riding.
The drivetrain is a mix of classic and modern, with Shimano 9-speed XT rear derailleur and a newer SRAM SX 1x chaining up front. While the chain retention of the 1x ring was welcome, especially as I listened to the chain slapping around on the pre-clutch era XT (which still shifted fantastically), I would have happily have added a front chaining for easier gearing if I’d had the time. The other non-retro bit is the short stem and slightly wider bars. “Racing” the Blizzard on Fernie’s steeps was scary enough without a 110mm stem that I was also fine letting that detail slide.
Dropper posts were still in the distant future, but this Blizzard is built with a Post Moderne suspension seat post. This was an early precursor to dropper posts, sort of, but inversely functional. Because it sags when you sit on it, it is either higher than you want when your descending or lower than you want for efficient pedaling. But it did take the sting out of rolling, bumpy pedally sections on the hardtail.
So, how is riding the retro Rocky in the very modern course-profiles of TransRockies Singletrack 6? More on that to follow if and when the bike and I make it through the week.
