Un-numbered 93 Barracuda

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    • June 16, 2013 at 12:09 am
    Hergules
    Member
    I’m curious if anyone else has one of these or has seen one before.

    It’s a pre-XX 1993 Cuda frame. It’s hunter green & white and is made of Tange Prestige CRMO butted O.S. tubes). I was told this was supposed to be the “team frame” which of course required a change in colors to gold/white with the Dos Equis sponsorship.

    Only 100 were made (according to Dave Southwell). They were some of the earliest production, have no serial numbers, and were built by Frank W or Chris H (Frank confirmed this). It came with no decals on the frame (but Cuda sent a decal sheet).

    I bought 8 frames directly from Dave S. for a junior team I was managing in NJ and I still have mine. I’m restoring this with period parts incl an old 8 spd XTR group, Ringle acces., and Nuke Proof Ti-Carbon hubset.

    Anyone else have one of these?
    Anyone have a 120mm black Zooka quill (or even threadless) stem that you’re willing to part with?

    Thx – Joe (Hergules)
    [attachment=1:1nda05ed]93.cuda.frameset.small.jpg[/attachment:1nda05ed][attachment=0:1nda05ed]93.decal.sml.jpg[/attachment:1nda05ed]

Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 15 total)
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    • June 20, 2013 at 7:38 am
    neo_pop_71
    Member
    Welcome Joe!

    Man, what a special ‘Cuda gem you have there, that’s awesome! Cool backstory to go with a rare frame, I’m looking forward to seeing the complete bike. Do you have any pics of the bike from back in the racing days? I’d love to see those!

    Frank The Welder (FTW) welded up my ’89 Yeti F.R.O. that I bought just out of high school, I picked it up from John Parker directly after a two hour drive from Orange County up to Agoura Hills where Yeti started. I always wanted one of the Yeti Ultimate bikes that FTW would have built, I’m not getting one any time soon, so I’m building up a Yeti Ultimate knock off. My daughter is really getting into bikes, she’s seen me built so many, now she wants in on the act. So, I pulled down a ’90 Nishiki Ariel, grabbed a bunch of parts from the bin of spares. I’m letting her call most of the shots but I decide on using the classic Yeti turquoise and yellow paint scheme. Since I called the color… she gets to paint the bike. Now that she is a big 8 years old, she wants to be more involved, so this is one of our summer time daddy/daughter projects. Here is a link to my build:

    http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php/895868-Poor-Man-s-Yeti-Ultimate-Knock-Off-Tribute-to-J-P-amp-J-T

    Good luck with the build, please take photos, and keep us posted!

    Thanks again for sharing!

    -D-

    • June 22, 2013 at 3:18 am
    Hergules
    Member
    D
    I took most of the photos for the team so unfortunately there are very few pics of me and my bikes from the 90’s. This was the best handling bike I ever rode. I’ve been told the frame is basically an A2X Team frame. Cool that people could buy the same frame that team would ride. I think I still have the receipt somewhere… I believe it was $425 for each frame for our junior team (a steep discount even back then). Our shop sold us everything at cost so the teens on our team were racing some pretty sweet bikes… I built mine up with XTR 900 8spd, nuke proof hubs, titec ti handlebar and manitou fork.

    Cool project you got going there. Great you get to share it with your daughter.

    Joe

    • June 22, 2013 at 7:09 am
    neo_pop_71
    Member
    This one came up recently with a $99.00 opening bid and a crazy $100.00 s/h fee but there was a $250.00 B.I.N. option that came with free shipping.

    http://www.ebay.com/itm/Barracuda-A2X-MTB-/121130073699?pt=US_Bicycles_Frames&hash=item1c33ea3e63&nma=true&si=sn%252B5TObZ1CLLCxuYYtVdRzK4n%252Fc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

    From the sounds of yours with XTR, this one would seemingly be a very similar build. Somebody snagged a damn fine bike for a great price!!!

    With regard to our Yeti Ultimate “wanna be” project, she painted the frame and fork today and she did a great job! A couple little spots where she went a little too light/thin with the turquoise but this will give me a chance to show her the between coats prep steps. She’ll get a little more practice with a second coat of turquoise and we’ll get on to building up the frame. This is proving to be a really fun time, we’re having a blast with each step of the way! Thanks!

    • June 22, 2013 at 2:46 pm
    vpc66
    Member
    Funny that you are writing about this, playing around on ebay I was looking at a FTW stem and the guy wrote that he also had a Yeti Ultimate set up on another bid that the stem came from which he was parting out.
    • June 24, 2013 at 12:36 pm
    Mark
    Keymaster
    CA
    A few of us have come across these older frames. Does yours have a number stamped into one of the rear drop-outs?

    Mine is a large and came out of a bike shop which got them when the company went under. It’s the same paint scheme and build. There are a few small variants of the story..

    • June 26, 2013 at 5:10 am
    Hergules
    Member
    Yes, thanks for the clue Mark. I found the faint stamp on the dropout… I missed it the first time I looked as the powder coat paint job almost covers it.
    B1318
    Joe
    • June 26, 2013 at 8:22 am
    ctk
    Member
    I have one of these frames, it is a thing of beauty! I love how the top and down tubes meet before the headtube. Also the heavily ovalised tubes (almost to a point) tubes and especially the hand cut dropouts with chunky welds around them.

    I asked Chris Herting via email and he said the only frames he made were for the team and would have had the riders name stamped on them.

    The guy I bought it off bought it in the Barracuda fire sale for $20 or something like that. He was recommended to buy it by a Yeti worker who said they were made by Yeti. Maybe CH has forgot who knows? I would love it if it was FTW! Maybe I’ll send him an email. Herg- when did you speak to FTW?

    • June 26, 2013 at 9:38 pm
    Hergules
    Member
    I connected with Frank about a year ago . He was fairly sure that he had built those frames. Chris did a lot of specialty work as he mentioned. But all of those pre dos Equis frames were likely built byfrank while he was still at Yeti.

    I can’t wait to ride this again. it was my fav in to 90’s. i really just need to find a nice 120mm stem… I have just about everything else I need.

    • June 26, 2013 at 11:04 pm
    ctk
    Member
    ControlTech would look cool as on the team bikes? I will be using a high rise A-Tac on mine.
    • June 27, 2013 at 5:44 am
    neo_pop_71
    Member
    Hi ctk,

    Long time brother, nice to see you are still around and popping in from time to time! Say, how is the little one… getting big I assume? Do you have a photo to say of the little future Cudahead? I trust all is well and you’ve been riding.

    Best regards,

    -D-

    • June 27, 2013 at 6:50 pm
    Hergules
    Member
    Yes, I’ll likely go with the Control Tech stem & bar ends. I’ve seen good ones on ebay for $30-$40. Zooka’s are hard to come by at a reasonable price plus I had Zooka stem back in the day and experienced a few failures… I’m more safety conscious these days (I heal slower at my age), so if I’m going to ride the bike (rather than hang it on the wall), I’d like to have something that has a good track record.
    • June 27, 2013 at 7:29 pm
    ctk
    Member
    I love the look of Control Tech stems.

    Don all is well thanks for asking! Hope you are good. I haven’t been MTBing for over 2 years… I cycle to work and thats it. A sorry state of affairs but hopefully a house move out of the city early next year will allow me to hit some trails.

    • June 28, 2013 at 6:51 am
    neo_pop_71
    Member
    Ouch! Two years… at least you are commuting and staying connected to one of your bikes! Snatching the misses and the babies and heading to the country sounds wondering! My wife would go in a heartbeat but not until we are debt free, I’m done but we need to finish paying off her student loans. Fingers crossed for the first of 2015 and we’ll go from there.

    I still want to see a photo of the little ones, thanks!

    All the best,

    -D-

    • July 24, 2013 at 5:43 pm
    Mark
    Keymaster
    CA
    Here’s an excerpt from my interview with Frank (the welder) Waddleton. Mentioned, are the green/white A2X frames:

    FW: I remember building a bunch of bikes for a a couple of racers, one was Lisa Muhich who was the national cyclocross champion. I remember they wanted a strong womens team and most of the bikes we built were smaller ones. I remember now that Tom Teasdale built one or two prototypes and they (I can’t remember their names) brought them by Yeti. I think they used wing strut tubes that were nearly flat. I think they also didn’t want a chainstay bridge. They must have made some arrangement with JP (my boss, yeti owner) and I was allowed to make some changes and make the frames. I am pretty sure they were Tange prestige with a profiled downtube. The seat stays were very small diameter tube also. I think they were white and forest green. They came out pretty well.

    • August 3, 2013 at 7:37 pm
    ctk
    Member
    @Mark wrote:

    They came out pretty well.

    Here here!

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