This found material for a "raw" KLEIN build was inspired at first by some lovely "Kleiningham" out there,
Whats a Kleining(s)Ham? you guess right a KLEIN in a Cunningham costume
Nobody made both of these "Bike-Brands" more famous than unique characters (besides being women) such as Cindy Devine-Whitehead and Jacquie Phelan aka "Alice B. Toeclips" or Mrs. Cunningham. Character traits? Natural talents, "endurists" up to rather artistic approach towards MT_Biking from what you can read and see online.. Along the lines of that era the Offroad Drop-bar-cockpit was born and further developed with many other innovative things and would be copied as well as perfectly reinvented much later in history.
Concerning the Dropbar-Klein material,
Captured here are some Mafac Levers with Suntour adapted friction shifters, something WTB also specialized in while offering 3 different generations of dropbar-shifting-perches/shifter adapapters.
Early documents here are partly from the time before the elaborate Klein catalogs came out in 1989, and thus deals with the Mountainklein side by side as the early Pinnacle was almost a PROTOTYP for all later KLEIN bikemodels, whereas the M.-Klein had a more relaxed Geometry.
Another interesting figure connected to KLEIN and it being a brand which always lend itself to lightweight or tweaky tuning, was Jed St. Henri who stripped early Pinnacles to make a KLEIN even lighter and nicer as compared to how they came stock back then. He for example selected road racing brake levers (custom bend) to fit his flatbars as Charlie Cunningham would be using for his back then: first ever & ever first Dropbar-Aluminium-Mtb´s achieving sound modulation and comfort while in the drops, especially with the strong chainstay mount position...
Another "Klein-stripper" par excellence: George Slough! He cleaned and re-finished the bare frames exclusively and to a higher standard than most KLEINS (except maybe the early"Elite´s" or 90s top models which of course also usually only came in a "limited" choice for color(s)), while offering the very best paintjobs available at the time.
Alu vs Steel other than as framematerial? yeah.. even with stems (ABM-American, later Syncros and many more) although not yet on forks in the 80`es.
Klein made their own Aluminum fork during the 90s, some argue they had a superior ride quality, but who doesn't love a great CrMo Steel fork !?
.. An experiment even they couldn't resist but luckily stayed away from on their mtb base models, at least and until suspension forks came out..
additional info's
Did you know G.K.`s first MTB was a steel custom frame from Jim Merz after he tried hard to resist before entering the MB train ?
It had a matching bullmoose like stem (not full stembar combo, but like a two prong faceplate-stem to use a bar of choice).
Funfact here, the first ever dedicated 26" aluminum MTB was of course not Klein or Cunningham, but it was by design apearance somewhat influences by MIT-student Gary K.`s back then epic road and touring bikes. Legend has it Charlie pondered buying a Klein roadbike and then also went on to build his own offroad capable version as his background in aernautical engineering let him use a wealth of resource information.
https://www.oldschoolracing.ch/mountainbike/1988-klein-pinnacle/https://www.mtb-news.de/forum/t/hommage-an-jed-st-henri-und-die-80er-im-allgemeinen.568501/http://www.vintagemtbworkshop.com/1987-mountain-klein.htmlhttp://www.secondspincycles.com/2017/02/1987-klein-pinnacle-kleiningham.html (disappeared now..)
back here
https://www.theproscloset.com/blogs/mtn-bikes/1987-klein-pinnacle-kleininghamhttp://mombatbicycles.com/MOMBAT/BikeHistoryPages/Klein.htmlhttps://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/1987-mountain-klein-article-review.447476/My Pinnacle Kleiningham build
https://fotos.mtb-news.de/s/91178Zu guter Letzt und auf Deutsch:
http://wundel.com/
User comment
staabi70:
Rad picture. Did my first MTB race in 1987, organized by german Klein distributor Velo Schauff - and there was one guy with a Mountain Klein Race at the starting line. Which was totally out of this world in Germany. Lasting impression,
