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Were you also swept up in the mountain bike phenomenon back in the 1990s? Do you remember the pages of Velo magazine with a tear in your eye? The hours spent in shops, your nose glued to the glass of shop windows? The World Cup broadcasts on Eurosport? Nostalgic memories of names like Tinker Juarez, Juli Furtado or Missy "The Missile" Giove? What if I told you there is a Luxembourger living in California who has a time machine at home and can take you back to those early racing days? His name is Laurent Frieden and he is a collector of world champion race bikes - but not only. Come and sit with him, at least virtually, on Tinker's Cannondale, grip the handlebars of Juli's titanium GT and respectfully stroke the downhill bike of the great Anne-Caroline Chausson.

Laurent, do you remember your childhood, what led you to bicycles and your passion for collecting?

I've been riding bikes since I was a teenager and soon afterwards I started racing when I was 13 years old. My first race was along with the Schleck brothers, but then our ways went into different directions… (laughs).

Of all the times associated with bikes, the first memorable moment that comes to mind is the 1993 World Cup in Houffalize, Belgium. I went there with my dad to see it and my jaw dropped upon arrival. Twenty thousand spectators and so many exclusive top end bikes! I still remember how my eyes scanned all those racing machines and my excitement knew no bounds. Looking back on it, I realize it was an unforgettable experience. There was no internet, no social media, no smart phones. You can find almost anything online nowadays and it takes away from the excitement when you first see it in reality.

Do you remember your first racing bike?

I didn't get my first proper bike until my second season. It was a Swiss S'Bike with a Manitou 1 fork. Even then I was already interested in technology, so it was a complete custom build that I later upgraded with a Mountain Cycle Pro Stop disc brake. My dad had to make me an adapter to fit it, because at that time disc brakes were still very exotic. A summer job at a bike shop in Luxembourg City helped me finance that bike and I eventually got a few parts for free.

We met in person at the European Marathon Championships in Malevil. You do stage races in the Alps. How did you get into it?

It's part of my evolution. After my first passion for mountain biking and racing, I took a break at around 18, when my interests shifted more towards cars and parties. I got back in the saddle at around 25 when we were visiting the 2004 World Championships in Les Gets and discovering the bike parks got me excited again. I rode my old 1997 GT STS along with a few friends on their old bikes and we had a super fun time. I started racing again a few years later when I was almost 30.

At that time my place of residence was no longer Luxembourg but Germany. I didn't want to pay exorbitant rents for housing. I started working shifts and met my wife Casandra. Less partying and more quiet time. My attention went back to the bikes. Inspired by Les Gets, I did one season of downhill racing and then switched back to cross country. Waiting around for hours to actually just race 2-3 minutes didn't bring me joy. I began to find fulfillment in exploring, enjoying the scenery in an unfamiliar landscape. What I like about cross country is the dynamics, the changing conditions, the different nature of the trails and weather, the demands on the rider combining the need for physical and technical fitness. Come to think of it, I know of no other sport that is so dynamic and varied. That's why I finally settled on marathons and stage races.

You train, you race, you put in hundreds of hours rebuilding old race bikes. What draws you in this direction?

Technology has permeated my life since childhood. My dad was always tinkering. From the house he built with his own hands to cars and tractors. He and his brother removed the original engine from our Massey Ferguson tractor, extended the chassis and put in a more powerful Ford engine. They drove that at 70km/h through the fields. When I started work, my first job was at an office. But after only 6 weeks I left. Sitting at a desk all day was not for me. I needed dynamism and variety. So I moved into operations and started working as a chief mechanic on the largest printing machine in the country.

When did you discover that racing bikes would become your destiny?

Casandra and I decided to move to her native California. This was preceded by preparations to clear out my belongings from my parents' house. I sorted through artifacts from my childhood and adolescence, including old bike parts. Wondering what they were worth, I looked up pricing on eBay and eventually I started buying some iconic bikes that I had enjoyed in my youth, but couldn’t afford at the time.

Shortly after that, my first real race bike with history landed at home, a red Cannondale CAAD3 Team Volvo. I got it from Luxembourg downhill champion J.P. Drucker, father of Jempy Drucker, a rider for Bora Hansgrohe and BMC. Coincidence helped. I simply posted in a Facebook group that I was looking for old bikes and J.P. got in touch. He bought the Cannondale in 1997 directly from team manager Charlie Livermore during the World Championships in Chateau-d'Oex, Switzerland. I contacted Charlie. He told me it was a downhiller’s bike. It was probably ridden by Missy Giove in training and eventually she even did a few XC races on it as well. The next purchase was a really big one. A titanium GT Xizang that Juli Furtado raced around 1995 showed up on eBay. It was sold by Marc Gullickson, also a former GT team rider. He and Juli both lived in Durango, Colorado, and it just so happened that the Xizang ended up with Marc's wife. I was sweating until the last second of the auction.

But you weren't specializing at that time.

This is related to another event from this period. Before I left for California, I had a serious work accident for which my insurance company paid compensation. I decided to use the money and invest it into old bikes, to make up for the pain with joy. I was buying iconic bikes, Yeti, Fat Chance and others. It got to the point where my collection had swelled to an extremely large size. Boxes full of parts were everywhere, stashed in my inlaws' garden shed, at the bike shop that I worked at, at a friend's house, it got too much. Every collector needs a unifying line. I don’t wanna be a hoarder. I found that racing bikes are more unique, they have a story. When I look at them, I remember them from World Cup races and memories come back. I think about the details I need to fine-tune to make the bikes authentic. There are so many that my work will never be done. You don't get that with "regular" retro bikes.

You then sold the vast majority of your "ordinary" retro bikes. What made you do that?

A major game changer came after moving to California. On my Dirty Sundays Instagram profile, I posted a photo that my dad took of two Volvo Cannondale mechanics at the last World Cup race of 1999. They were celebrating the end of the season with glasses of champagne in their hands. The photo made its way across social media to one of them. We connected, and I found out he had a treasure trove in his basement. Three Tinker Juarez frames, a CAAD6 Alison Sydor prototype that never made it into production, an Anne-Caroline Chausson DHF2 downhill, and other one-offs. I was offered a buyout and didn't hesitate. It was a large sum of money, so I was forced to sell a few "ordinary" retro bikes. I don't regret it. That was the moment it finally changed.

Moving to California. How much did it actually help you expand your collection?

I used to buy bikes in Luxembourg and I buy bikes in California mainly online. In this day and age of the internet and social networking, you can collect from practically anywhere. Once you have a name and present your collection on social media, the community will know about you. Friends and complete strangers start contacting you and alerting you to interesting offers. But when I think about it, we've made a lot of friends in the cycling community in California, memories that have helped me with subsequent rebuilds. I couldn't have done that in Luxembourg. Mountain bikes have no history there. So yes, moving definitely helped me.

In the Bay Area I met, for example, former mechanic of the Australian national downhill and fourcross team John Koslosky, owner of Castro Valley Cyclery. I have a few contacts with others thanks to him. Then there's the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Fairfax. During my first visit, I felt like a teenager at my favorite superstar's first concert. Today, three of my collection bikes are on display there. It’s awesome to visit and have a chat about the history and present of mountain biking with Joe Breeze and all the people around him. They treat me like part of the family.

When a racing bike like this appears in advertising, what does it look like?

Most of the time it’s not original and often their owners don’t know exactly what they have, and if they do, they don't know what to do with it, so they sell it. Anything newer is more comfortable to ride, much easier to maintain. If the owner really wanted to give it an honest refurbishment to make it appreciate in value, they would have to invest a lot of time and energy, search for old photos, contact memorabilia and buy original parts accordingly. Few people are willing or able to undertake such an adventure. Not to mention that many race bike parts are unavailable prototypes today.

Tell me more about what the bikes look like when you find them.

Mostly they’re found in a poor and not original condition. I've only bought one immaculate bike that didn't need to be touched. The iconic Yeti FRO that Juli Furtado raced. The frame was found, refurbished and fitted by Mike Wilk, collector and author of The Vintage Mountain Bike, based on period photos and mechanics' memories. He even had a small crack welded without touching the rest of the paint. For such a rare bike, it's definitely worth it to keep it as original as possible.

Apart from Julie's Yeti FRO, have you had to rebuild all your collection bikes?

Yes, buying an original Yeti FRO team bike was an offer that I couldn’t refuse. I've also had to sell three of my "regular" Yeti's to finance it. The thing I like about restorations is the before and after transformation or the detective work in identifying the original parts. What I don't insist on, however, is functional technology at any cost. I don't address suspension rebuilds on every bike as they’re not getting ridden anyway and I’d rather keep them original, although it has to look right. My main goal is authenticity, you have to find the balance between keeping it original and rebuilding broken parts.

I build a lot of bikes from bare frames. It often takes years to get to the desired result. There are exceptions, of course. Last fall, I bought a Trek OCLV frame from American racer Susan DiBiase of Team Volvic PowerBar. I found all the parts for this project in twenty-four hours from my own stash, eBay, and friends. Needless to say, the bike was originally built with Shimano XTR M950, Rock Shox Judy SL and Titec components. Nothing extraordinary, so it was an easier task.

Where do you get your information most often?

The most important source are the photographs from the races and thus also the photographers' memories. Mark Dawson's Fat Tire Fotos website is great, however there are more photographers who support me. There are also many videos, but they are usually impossible to draw from due to the poor quality.

I also work with other memorials, racers, team managers and especially team mechanics. But this source is not always reliable. Consider how many bikes and parts must have passed through their hands and how long ago. I'll tell you one story that explains it best. I loaned Tom Ritchey my Ritchey Plexus to celebrate the company's 50th anniversary. The bike was raced by Thomas Frischknecht. All the former team members were present at the party. They stood around the Plexus and said, "This doesn't belong there." and "We didn't use that." I probably don't have to tell you that I have contemporary testimonials, including photographs, and that it is a 100% authentic period original (laughs). It just shows you that over time you forget details or you get them mixed up. This happened to me as well.

How do you keep your projects in order?

I try to keep track of everything. I have a spreadsheet for each bike with the parts information. What the bike looked like when I bought it, what it was fitted with, what is original, what is not, what needs to be bought and of course how much it cost me. I need to keep my work well organized. Having my space is also key. Fortunately, there is plenty of it where we live now. However, I used to open a box with a disassembled bike that I had completely forgotten about.

You mentioned prototypes. How big of a problem is that?

I'll give you an example. I have a 1998 Cannondale DHF Fulcrum downhill frame in my collection that was ridden by Kim Sonier. It's missing the original Moto DH 150 fork, which is an almost unsolvable problem. These forks never made it to the open market, they were only ridden by the Volvo Cannondale team. After the season was over, they were returned to the factory for testing and analysis. Today, they are virtually impossible to find.

By the way, the team mechanics told me how stiff the forks were. They joked, "Dude, if we took one leg of the fork off, you could still ride it without a problem." They unwittingly predicted the creation of the Lefty.

What does your wife say about your hobby?

Casandra's great, she understands me most of the time. Unless I'm spending big money on bikes (laughs). I think of it as an investment - not that I would ever wanna sell them, but if I had to, I wouldn't loose money. I try to keep track of the value of my collection, I don't expand it haphazardly and I don't accumulate at any price. On the other hand, I would rather buy one proper bike for the same money than ten ordinary ones. But it takes hard discipline.

How do you determine the adequate value of the bikes?

I've been watching how much "regular" retro bikes sell for on eBay. I know how much a Yeti FRO, GT Xizang, or Cannondale top models cost. I can deduce from that the reasonable money I could ask for my race bikes. I emphasize reasonableness. If you look at high end vintage bikes, high end works of art, collectors for whom money is no object, then you will find that prices can climb almost infinitely. It depends on how much the buyer wants that particular bike and how rare it is. If he were to pick up, say, a John Tomac bike, of which there are only a few left... I really have no idea. I wouldn't even dare say which of my bikes is the most valuable.

How big do you think the market is?

First of all, I don't think there is a real market for MTB race bikes yet. I don't know if anyone even has a collection as I do, besides The Pro’s Closet, but lots of their bikes are loaned from various collectors or directly from the racers. At most there are collectors who have come across a handful of race bikes in their lifetime and put them together like the aforementioned Mike Wilk. It's different with road bikes. There are definitely specialists there.

I think of race bikes as part of the high end retro bike market. They're not visible, they don't post their collections on social media. But I know quite a few of them. It has to be said that we're talking about the US and Europe now. I have a few thousand followers on Instagram and a large percentage of them are from Asia. I have a lot of people from Indonesia, for example. It might surprise us what they have in their collections.

How do US manufacturers feel about their history?

They mostly don’t. They have overwhelmingly lost direct connection to their history. Traditional brands now belong to the wings of large corporations or investment groups. Owners and top executives often don't even ride bikes, let alone care about history. Yet among customers, the topic is of increasing interest. I know this from the guys at Pinkbike magazine, for example. The retro bike posts they publish on the site and social media are among the most successful, they say. And I'm getting more feedback like this. But something is changing for the better after all. Many of mountain biking's influential figures have reached retirement age and are starting to take stock. They're looking for their former race bikes. I believe there’s an interesting future ahead of us.

What role do you want to play in this? Tell me about your visions and goals.

For the last few years, I've devoted myself full-time to our daughter. It consumed me. She's starting school this year, so that frees up my hands. I want to finish the projects I've been working on and start promoting. The plan is to expand the website. I want to have pro photos and a full story for each bike. I'm working on a series of events with supporters and in November, we'll organize a show in our city. It'll feature bike art, photography, paintings, in addition to bikes. I hope that my activities will reach the right people, that I'll find sponsors and I will be able to spread my stories globally. But I don't want to primarily target retro bike collectors. Rather, I want to speak to the general public and inspire people to ride a bike through the history of mountain biking.

Who is Laurent Frieden

Born in 1979 in Luxembourg, he first got on a mountain bike ten years later and in 1993 he visited the World Cup races in Houffalize, Belgium with his dad. For the first time he saw elite racers dressed in colorful jerseys, hundreds of top bikes and a crowd of 20,000 spectators. After this experience, he completely fell in love with mountain biking. He has lived in California for over eight years now and specializes in collecting race bikes. His collection includes the Cannondale’s of Alison Sydor, Anne-Caroline Chausson, Cedric Gracia, or Tinker Juarez, the Yeti and GT of Juli Furtado, the Ritchey Plexus of Thomas Frischknecht, the Diamondback of Dave Cullinan, and the Miyata of Greg Herbold. Three of his collection bikes are on display at the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Fairfax.

Laurent’s bikes

Thomas Frischknecht's Ritchey Plexus

The Ritchey Plexus is one of three of Laurent’s bikes on display at the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Fairfax, California. It belonged to Thomas Frischknecht and carried him around the first races of the 1997 World Cup season. The top frame tube still bears UCI tags from Sankt Wendel, where Frischi won, Budapest, where he finished just below the podium, and our own Spindleruv Mlyn, where he didn't finish due to health problems. This is apparently one of only two examples of the Ritchey Plexus with an extended seat tube. Of note from the fitment are the cranks with the small chainring mounts machined off and the center axle "just long enough" to allow the crank to fit around the chainstay. Remember Ritchey's experiment with 2x9 gears?

Tinker Juarez's Cannondale CAAD3

The Californian racer David Juarez is well known to mountain bike community under his childhood nickname Tinker. Since the beginning of his racing career in 1986, he has become a three-time NORBA cross-country champion and four-time national champion in the 24-hour solo category. In 1996, he became one of the first to see the introduction of mountain biking as an Olympic sport and represent the United States. His brutal training methods and his tactic uphill "stay in the big chainring for as long as possible" became legendary. Tinker's red Cannondale CAAD3 dates back to 1997. The frame was produced in May for the second half of the season and for the World Championships at Chateau-d'Oex, Switzerland. It still has the UCI tag #25 on the top tube, as Tinker finsihed the World Cup season in 25th overall position and the Worlds were held afterwards. All the team bikes were equipped very similar, using the Sachs Quartz groupset, Coda Magic cranks, Mavic Crossmax wheels and Avid Arch brakes. These retro components are nowadays extremely highly prized costing hundreds of euros per item.

Brian Skinner's Yeti Ultimate

The Yeti Ultimate was ridden in the early 1990s by Brian Skinner, the 13th most important person in MTB history according to Mountain Bike magazine. He was honored in 2000 for his contributions to shaping racing cycling, developing new techniques and promoting the industry. He has worked for Shimano, Answer, Onzu and others. Incidentally, he was also a training partner of 90s legend John Tomac. Brian's Yeti was found by Steven N. in a Los Angeles garage covered in a layer of dirt, dust and oil. He sold the bike in the condition it was found to Laurent, who upon closer inspection noticed original period parts, specific stickers and began to suspect an extraordinary catch. A proper cleaning was necessary before the restoration. A dirtier bike, Laurent said, had never passed through his hands. It took a week to get the hardened crust off. During the rebuild, he tried to preserve every original screw. Today, it's the jewel of the collection.

Jimmy Deaton's Yeti ARC AS

When Laurent received Jimmy Deaton's downhill bike, he discovered from the period press that he was one of the few racers with a passion for technology. Today, we'd use the trendy term geek to describe him. Jimmy tried to push Yeti management to push the development process. He pointed to the fact that the Europeans had begun to outpace the American companies in development in the early 1990s. Laurent acquired the Yeti ARC AS along with the 1992 NORBA Kamikaze Downhill winning race number. Jimmy won the race ahead of big names like Dave Cullinan, Brian Lopes and John Tomac. For this race he had the iconic Tension Disc rear end and a converter with an incredible sixty-six teeth fitted to his Yeti.

Visit laurent's website, see his entire collection: Dirty Sundays

published in Czech magazine Velo 6/2023