The Unstoppable Circa 1990 Diamond Back Mountain Bikes

Indeed, my first legit mountain bike was a 1990 Diamond Back Apex.  What I remember most is that I could get the full Shimano Deore bike, with proper thumb shifters and brake levers installed and the stock ones swapped out, a real, non-gel Selle Italia Turbo in place of the heinous gel thing, proper chainrings, some Kool Stop pads, neat sealed-bearing track pedals Bridgestone style, and bar ends for way less than a not-full Deore Specialized bike--super important at a time when you didn't have tons of cash but did have tons of desire and tons of time to ride.  It was a tank-like trail monster.  I wanted the previous year's straight fork, but the oversized headset turned out to be a good thing, especially the second year after I had a nice sealed-bearing alloy headset installed.  These bikes still have fans out there.  Considering that Diamond Back had nowhere near the market penetration that the bigger brands did, AND the fact that the brand went to nasty, mass-market department store shit pretty quickly after the amazing Axis Team Titanium frame in 92 or whatever, it means that these bikes were memorable enough and rideable enough to make real fans.  This one ain't mine (too small), but it is the right color and looks like a pretty rideable rig.

As it turns out, I used to ride with a guy who had the 1989 DB Ascent EX in the same colors as my Apex.  He'd come from far away and had a coupla seasons on his bike, so he had replaced alot of the consumables and was running a nice assortment of decent stuff on his.  Pretty cool.  Certainly for the price, these were excellent trail bikes at the time and shitload better value than the ubiquitous Speshy sleds.  Nice bike.  Straight fork.  Looked good.  Solid.  Wicked solid.