Bridgestone 90 Mountaineer

BRIDGESTONE 90 MOUNTAINEER

CYCLE WORLD TRAIL TEST

BRIDGESTONE 90 MOUNTAINEER

ONE OF THE MORE SERIOUS problems facing a magazine like CYCLE WORLD is just exactly what to say about it when yet another truly good machine comes along. It would seem that we might run out of things to say. Good things, anyway. We will admit to some occasional difficulty when it comes time to sit down and write out the thoughts we have accumulated, only to discover that what we might want to say is just exactly what we were faced with saying just a few weeks before. Such is the case with the second of two Bridgestones in this issue, the 90 Mountaineer. We pretty well cover the new Bridgestone 175 Dual Twin elsewhere, but that doesn't make it any easier to rave about the Mountaineer, which it deserves.

Trail bikes, being the sophisticated machines they have become, continually make it harder for new entries to the market to get a foothold. Bridgestone is by no means a new entry, by the way; they know quite well what they are about and the new 90cc trail bike competes with the best.

Basically it is a single cylinder, twostroke engine, built in-unit with a fourspeed, foot-change gearbox. As any fool can see, its specifications sound little different from a number of other trail bikes. The differences begin with the rotary valve intake system, though it is by no means exclusive to Bridgestone. Seventeeninch wheels, mounting Bridgestone "road knobby" tires, are partly responsible for the excellent ground clearance so necessary on a good trail bike.

The frame is a pressed metal affair, modified from the street version. Teledraulic forks are used, as are swing arms on the rear suspension, both quite well known these days. Bridgestone rates the little (50mm x 45mm 5.39 cubic-inch) engine at 7.8 hp @ 7,000 rpm and the torque 0.85 kilograms at 5,000 rpm. Neither comes as new and shattering information but we have not as yet covered the really salient facts that make it a worthy bike. It weighs 174 pounds, one of the few things we could really find to criticize; we spent quite a while trying to find out where the weight was hidden.

Performance is also competitive, and in line with the average of bikes with similar specifications. We forced it nearly to its top speed (claimed to be 60 mph), an indicated 57 mph, but it was too new and we are too tender-skinned to hold it at full rpm and load for very long. The color is a sparkling blue, and there is more than enough chrome sprinkled about. The seat is superb, exhaust pipe is mounted high and dry with a heat shield placed just where it should be. A carrying rack is standard, as are folding pegs, dual sprockets, excellent moto-cross style handlebars, sporty fenders and an elaborate air cleaner. That pretty well describes what is not new, but is just as it should be.

What is good, but not obvious, is its handling, suspension, and the low-end torque that comes in so handy in the rough and on soft trails when the rider isn't exactly a grand national champion.

Using one of our rarely employed staff barometers, six young ladies who are enthusiastic about motorcycles and the like, the Bridgestone 90 Mountaineer is "cute," "adorable," and "a little doll." We hate to include such comments, but it is a handsome little machine, and it does the job it sets out to do. Everybody on the staff wanted to keep it, and in such a hard, critical and demanding crowd, this is high praise indeed.