11) 1990 Norco Bigfoot

2/2/2021

11) 1990 Norco Bigfoot

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SPECS

Status: For Sale at $420
Size: 18"/46cm
Frame & Fork: Norco Chromoly
Groupset: Shimano 300 LX
Wheelset: Araya VP20 rims with Shimano Exage Sport hubs on Kenda Small Block Eight 26x1.95 tires

BEFORE

At first glance, I thought this was a rather ugly bike that wasn't worth fixing. The "triple triangle" on this bike made me think it was a GT but it turns out that Norco made a triple triangle Bigfoot for a short period of time. GT sued them and won so Norco had to stop production of their triple triangle bikes making this one rare. That bit of cool factor, along with that wicked looking straight fork, a rare thing in 1990, made me think twice about the potential of this bike.

AFTER

I really didn't like the original paint job at all so I decided to paint this Norco Bigfoot the way that I thought it should have been painted originally. I couldn't resist adding a 'big foot' to the Bigfoot logo. I also used a more modern looking "Norco" for the headbadge and downtube decals. I made every decal on the bike with Photoshop and cut them out with my Cricut. The rebuild went well with only a couple complications. The crankset and derailleurs were in excellent condition and cleaned up well. They almost look new. The shifter/brake lever combos, however, were shot. All the 7 speed shifters I found had brake levers attached that were meant for V-Brakes. In the end, I found this really cool set of aluminum brake levers and these nearly new Grip Shift shifters that ended up looking and working really well. The other challenge was the seatpost. It came with a rare sized 26.2mm seatpost that didn't have the seat clamps at the top so it could only be used with a cheap department store style saddle. I found a proper MTB seatpost in that weird size at bikeInn.com out of Spain. I love that store! In the end I feel like I turned a dorky, ugly, dated looking bike into a really cool bike that anyone would be proud to ride on the trails or around town.

6 Comments

dave larsen

5/18/2021 04:53:55 pm

I found a similarly-framed Bigfoot at the salvage yard, but it had regular cantilever brake posts (lower on the stays), but with the same mono-stay rear end. It's black with a pink & purple splatter effect paint scheme. Those look like BMX scissor or U-brakes; are they?

Mike

5/18/2021 06:38:26 pm

Thanks for checking out my page, Dave. The back brake is a Shimano U-Brake with a small brake booster. It sounds like yours needs new paint, too!

Owen

1/2/2022 07:12:30 am

Nicely done on the paint work in particular! Question: how are this Araya VP20 rims? I have a ‘92 GT avalanche resto in progress and need a set of rims that fit the eta of the bike. I was hoping for RM20s but no luck sourcing them.

1/12/2022 05:37:44 pm

Thank you for checking out my website, Owen, and thanks for the paint compliment. I was pretty pleased with this one. The VP20s came on the bike originally. They aren't anything special, a single wall, alloy rim. But, they look nice and clean up well. It's not the kind of bike that will be ridden hard, so they fit with a bike like this one.

Dave Larsen

2/19/2022 12:15:19 pm

beautiful restomod; the head tube badge looks a bit like their older version, but without the trapezoid outline (I have an '80s' vintage Mountaineer, too)

Mine has the same derailleurs, an Exage 400 crankset (don't know what I did with the original), and I had a set of 7-speed STI shifters that still worked.The brakes were replaced by a set of Tektro straight-arm cantilevers, that look like a copy of Avid Tri-Align brakes.

My Bigfoot still has the original seatpost, but I had a Tioga T-bone stem and Answer Taperlite bar that seemed to be the right vintage, so those went on too. I had a few ultra-violet anodized aluminum parts (straddle cable hanger, bottle cage, fork brace) that match to splatter-effect paint accents.

The original paint is in very good condition; the splatter effect was the factory coating, and I don't think I could replicate it.

2/19/2022 02:30:31 pm

Thanks for the comments, Dave. Nice to know that these old bikes are still going strong. That splatter paint sounds pretty cool with the anodized touches. Thanks for coming back to my site.