The only thing that stands out is the roaring inconspicuousness. It is not the deliberate simplicity with which publicity-shy bigwigs disguise their magnificent villas as affordable detached houses. It is this genuine, perfect colourlessness that only comes from decades of fading. A remnant from better times. A former computer wholesaler, perhaps. Or a construction company. A dead place, concrete in its final stages. Abandoned, forgotten, left to its own devices. Or so it seems.
But then you see the massive steel armoured chain and the Oschi padlock glinting in the morning sun, securing the sliding gate to the property. Flashing metal, far too new and martial for a place like this. And you realise: this must be it. The legendary, secret place that doesn't officially exist.
And there he comes roaring round the corner in his sports suit, right on time. Sunglasses, full hipster beard, black baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead. A warm welcome, brief small talk. Then a final briefing - it's really important to him.
"Everything that's in here stays between us," he says: "There's no insurance for bikes like this." But even if there was: There are things that can't be replaced with money.
Hidden & locked: Cult bikes of the early downhill era from 1990 onwards
The world of mountain bike collectors is closed off like Area 51, with only those in the know allowed to see in. The fear of thieves, envious parties and tax officials is too great. The trade in early cult bikes has long been subject to the laws of the art market. Very rare pieces and World Cup icons can fetch five-figure prices. Nobody is supposed to know where they are kept. Neither a telephone directory entry nor a digital trace leads to this address. The appointment is a privilege.
The door to the hall swings open. The neon light flickers away the darkness. The eyes are hopelessly overwhelmed. Everything attracts your gaze: Cars of the garishly styled, streamlined variety familiar from the car quartet game "Turbo-Aces". The huge pepper pod under the ceiling beams, once the trade fair decoration of the defunct custom forge Hot Chilli. Boxes full of pipe kits and damper accessories. In between, a few prehistoric downhill bikes, but that's just a foretaste.
There is something surreal about walking down the long corridor and seeing all the classics in the former offices that blew the minds of technology fetishists in the early MTB years. It is probably the largest concentration of iconic downhill bikes in existence. A wide-angle photo with all the stars of the nineties would be possible here. You can hardly believe your reporter's luck. The discovery of the eighth continent! Then the shock. "No photos please!"
The ensuing haggling over what can and cannot be published is somewhat reminiscent of the Brexit negotiations in its tenacity. Address? Remains taboo, of course. Federal state? Better not. Name? Yes, okay, but only the first name: Sascha. The number of bikes? Please don't write it! Really no photos, not even a single one, at least of the room with all the bikes? Please, please, please! Sascha remains firm. A break-in is the biggest horror he can imagine. Photos of individual bikes in front of the hall are okay, he finally relents. But they should make sure that the building cannot be recognised. A reporter's nightmare - that's pretty much what it looks like. A bitter but also sweet moment.
The first Downhill World Cup bike
On 14 September 1990, a Friday, the US American Greg Herbold - nicknamed "Hairball", "H-Ball" or "HB" because of his flowing blonde mane - raced to the first world championship title in the history of mountain biking in Durango, Colorado. In order to optimise his steel hardtail for the bumpy course, he had installed one of these new suspension forks and a rear wheel made of nappy-soft Kevlar half-shells and milled the Shimano cranks to the point of no return - so that the flexing would neutralise the road bumps. The only impact protection H-Ball wore was sewn-in, wafer-thin foam pads on the sides of his Lycra trousers. His white and blue Miyata Ridge Runnerwhich he himself once semi-ironically referred to as "full suspension", is regarded as the first specially designed downhill World Cup bike.
And then it started. The courses became tougher, the bikes softer and softer. Riders hoped that suspension would have a neutralising effect, but the way it worked was often hardly any different from that of a Flummi (dictionary: "bouncy, small ball made of elastic solid rubber"). In the search for better solutions, the inventors ventured deep into the most rebellious technical fringes.
The aesthetic sensation back then was relatively painless anyway. It was the beginning of the suspension travel epidemic. In the mid-nineties, downhill bikes suddenly looked like the sister bikes of motocross bikes. The very daring, such as Shaun Palmer and Anne-Caroline Chausson, were gliding through the fluttering lanes like megabits through the fibre optic network. It was the time before freeriding, before enduro, before slopestyle. All that mattered was naked, pure speed.
The 1996er-Hot-Chili-Warp-9.3 - one of only five ever built - which Sascha describes as the most important bike in his collection, symbolises the final separation from conventional mountain bike technology.
Cult collection: MTB rarities as an emotional preserve
"Since then, it's really only been about the finer details," says Sascha. He never consciously started collecting, he adds. He just wanted to preserve that tingling feeling of the early years with the bikes. As someone who has spent two decades in the racing scene, he has plenty of contacts. There are always opportunities to buy a rarity. So one bike came to another. And at some point, the passion for collecting just gradually escalated.
He just wanted to preserve the tingling feeling of the early years. At some point, the collecting gradually escalated.
"Inflating the air alone is now really stressful. It takes about three hours," grins Sascha. He is currently fighting his way through the dark expanses of the attic with a torch. Wheels, forks, frames, bikes. In between, like sculptures, man-high tyre towers. That would make a fantastic photo motif. Too bad, really too bad. He has now thought of a solution to the problem, says Sascha as he fumbles around in a box of shock absorbers.
"I'll lay an air hose with outlets to each wheel. Then I can inflate all the bikes at the same time with a compressor." A blissful smile flits across his lips.
It's getting late in the afternoon. Sascha locks the hall, then bars the sliding gate. The roar of the sports suit has not quite faded into the distance when it seems as if this incredible place with all its icons has simply dissolved. Only the massive steel armoured chain reveals that this was not just a dream.
Then & now: 33 years of downhill technology from the world champions
Greg Herbold won the first DH World Championships in history in 1990 on a pimped-up CC hardtail: the Rockshox fork had six centimetres of travel instead of five.
The current world champion Loic Bruni rides a bike with 200 millimetres of suspension travel. The help of a data recorder is necessary for the optimum setup.
HOT CHILI 1996
The Warp 9.3 from Hot Chili is one of the centrepieces of the collection. This bike represents the final separation of mountain bike technology into cross country and downhill. The bike was designed exclusively for riding downhill and had almost 200 millimetres of suspension travel. This one is one of only five built. The Bonzai version on the right in the picture is a rideable miniature of it.
AMERICAN EAGLE 1996
This thing ducks over the tarmac like an enduro bike for those without a driving licence. It is the bike that Germany's former star biker Regina Stiefl rode in the '96 World Cup season. The rider from Grainau had dominated the racing scene for years. But with the American Eagle, she was mainly fighting to keep up with the world's best. At the legendary World Cup in Kaprun, she only managed eighth place. The year before, Stiefl had won the overall World Cup at the same venue with her Rocky Mountain. Incidentally, only the frame sticker comes from the American Eagle company.
Connoisseurs will recognise it immediately: the bike is a Techno from the Vario forge. The company from Grenoble produced the most spectacular downhill frames in the mid-nineties. The adjustable seat dome was considered revolutionary, allowing the saddle to be infinitely adjusted backwards or uphill. The seat was a fashion of the time; Scott had also equipped its World Cup model with a similar sofa. Considering that three years earlier, 80 millimetres of suspension travel was the measure of all things, the 150 millimetres of the Vario seemed almost monstrous. Sascha got hold of the frame set through a chain of fortunate circumstances. Unfortunately, the seat was missing. This one is a home-made model that still needs to be finalised. Sascha has built the bike largely true to the original: Sachs gears, Hope Pro disc brakes at the rear, Magura HS22 rim stoppers at the front. Stiefl's Rond WP fork? Unfortunately, it can't be repaired. Therefore a Fimoco.
MOUNTAIN CYCLE 1993
You would have had to ride a fire-breathing dragon. But even then, the San Andreas from US manufacturer Mountain Cycle would not have caused such a furore. Even normal suspension forks were still considered the spawn of hell back then. You can imagine the shock effect that a full-suspension bike with an upside-down fork, disc brakes and monocoque aluminium frame caused. Mountain Cycle founder Robert Reisinger had copied the design from motorbikes. As brutal as the visual appearance was, the bike was a sheep in wolf's clothing. The after-shock rear triangle of Sascha's original version has just 50 millimetres of suspension travel. Weight: 12.5 kilos.
BEASTY BIKES 1995
Mechanical engineer Andreas Heimerdinger actually earned his money with antennas, but that was somehow too boring for him. How convenient that his mate built whitewater kayaks from fibreglass. The company's infrastructure was perfect for building frames, and so Heimerdinger began to manufacture carbon frames from laminated half-shells. Handmade in Frankfurt/Main. The Beasty bikes were the first downhill fullys built entirely from carbon fibre. The DH model differed from the CC in that it had one centimetre more suspension travel. That was essentially it. The downhill version had a total of 100 millimetres of suspension at the rear - including plenty of pedal kickback due to the high pivot point.
MANITOU DH 1995
In BIKE issue 1-2/1994 there was a big showdown: Yeti A.R.C. vs. Manitou DH - the fastest downhill bikes on the planet at the time. Jürgen Beneke was mixing up the World Cup with the Manitou. A modified elastomer suspension fork served as the rear triangle - without damping. At the front, the original, also without damping, despaired on the rocks and roots of the test track with a paltry 60 millimetres of travel. A testimony to how unbelievably death-defying Beneke roared down into the valley back then. "Convincing riding characteristics and enormous safety potential", the BIKE testers nevertheless agreed. Sascha's Manitou is the successor model - largely identical in construction, but with oil damping.
B1 1999
Like Regina Stiefl's American Eagle, the B1 is also a relabelled Vario. Marcus Klausmann skied it to third place at the World Cup in Kaprun. The well-informed will remember how he hit the finish slope after a spectacular double-stepdown, which elicited nothing more than a tired smacking of suspension travel from the B1. The bike is a one-off. Klausmann came up with the adjustable suspension fork bridge and had it milled for 1,500 Deutschmarks. It was the time when Michelin sent a tyre cutter to every race to cut the studs to the pros' specifications. The gold medal on the handlebars is from the German Championships and was a gift from Klausmann.
HOT CHILLI 300 2002
After all the track records had been broken, all the collarbones shattered and all the major technical revolutions had been fought out, the scene was ready for a new level of excitement. The first, delicate burgeoning of the freeride movement was followed by a boom in suicidal-looking stunt action. Jumps over cliffs, daredevil shots - the main thing was gaga, the main thing was extreme. And there was always a camera rolling; the next New World Disorder video would ultimately make the scene even more terrifying than its predecessor.
The US American Josh Bender quickly made it to the top of the crazy list. With a mixture of courage and contempt for death, he hopped off sharp-edged rocks into the yawning void, only to crash somewhere bluntly after a long flight phase. Even hardcore downhill bikes were not made for this. When Bender landed, every suspension element hardened to the point of rigidity, killing every frame and fork. Sponsor Marzocchi therefore built Bender a 300-millimetre fork. Oversized suspension travel.
Only prototypes exist. One of them reached Sascha via winding paths. The corresponding Hot Chili frame was once welded especially for the 300-millimetre beast for a trade fair and even offers 320 millimetres at the rear. Sascha rode the 601 on Lake Garda with the bike years ago. "Basically awesome," he says, letting the flames of memory crackle: "Even with head-sized stones: just hold on to the handlebars!" In short: maximum softness.
