Question: What was your favorite onZa product?

I’ll second the grips. And I liked the Onza Raw bar ends.

Porc II tires! Still have a pair

That’s easy… it was the Onza Ti Bar Ends!

Easy – White Onza Porcs! I remember a shot of Jo Burt (i think) in MBUK where it looked like he had done a big skid with his white porcs, but there was a big white chalk line on the ground leading up to his tyre. Funny! Least back then it were…

Those HO brakes work fairly well for cross. I should know I have a bag full of em! Only changed em out when I found a pair of Mafacs for cheap up in Idyllwild.

I still have at least one Chill Pill somewhere. Not the purple tho. Never did purple.

Sold a bunch of Porcupine tires but never ran one myself.

Now, who has some Brew Jugs they want to sell?!

M

Elastomers in the pedals were very temperature sensitive so you never knew what type of release you were getting!! Not good!! Brakes were very easy to adjust.

also professor velo smoke and dart were panaracer!!

The bar ends were always cool looking.

Some of their bar ends would make a porn star blush.

P

Easy – their crazy C.R.S. (Cantilevered Rigid Suspension) frame and fork (both steel) with the Swiss-cheesed dropouts featured in a MBA spread 21(?) summers ago. I wish I could find a picture of it. But I also loved those vaporware cranks, the H.O. pedals (although I never had a pair), the Mongo II headset, the H.O. brakes, and the Ti bar ends. I still have a NIB pair of the Ti bar ends with the polished CWA clamps.

The Ti cranks had to be their best product seeing as they never reached production resulting in a steller zero dissapointment rating. Most, if not all of their products worked best while staying idle in show cases. I did love how the porcupine grips shed so much weight from the bike while adding callus weight to your hands. BUT THEN, there were the H.O.X. pedals. An amazingly futile attempt at a convertable “light weight” downhill pedal; or just remove the cage for slightly less mud clogged impossible to release (yes, even compared to early Shimano) sensation. AAAANNNNNNNDDDD their having another go at it?
Dollars>Sense.

Nobody is mentioning the stainless buzz saw rings ! I found them a revolution ( at the time 😉 ). Thank god that we have surley now.
And what about those stems with the funky asymetrical rollers ? They were fun ! You could set up your canti,s so they woud brake with only one finger.

Their best product was definitely the cool little porcupine stickers. Only thing they made that worked consistently!

Buzz Saw Chainrings

Pro cut bar ends. Still have them still think they are the most comfortable bar ends.

The masters class is big me thinks

@Gummie! Wanna sell me a pair of HO’s. Mail me (yellow_squash(at)yahoo(dot you know what)

The most happiness from an Onza product was probably the Porcs. And yes with a smoke in the rear

The pedal were a great idea but poor execution.

The stickers.

Buzz Saw chainring. I’m still using one on my CX bike.

I still have some of those pedals in a parts bin somewhere, and they_ blow_goats. I can’t count how many times I got stuck in those things…but options were limited in the early days – those or Shimano’s.

Actually, none of it was very good. Even considering the OK stuff, like grips, there was something else I would have rather had.

I guess that explains why they disappeared.

As I’ve said before, the porcupine sticker is the best Onza product I’ve owned. I still have a new one – never been stuck. I worked in a shop in the Onza heyday – tried a lot of their stuff. The barends seem to be the popular Onza favorites – I loved ski-bend Control Stix, so I never tried Onza’s – maybe I missed out. I’d like to find a set of the ti ones.

Another thing I never used were Chill Pills. First Flight/MOMBAT in Statesville, NC has hundreds if not thousands of NOS sets in stock. Enough to keep EBay stocked for years.

Of the parts I did use:

Porcupine grips – had a few pair of these. They got gummy and gooey in the heat and tore pretty easily.

HO Pedals – had the ones with the flexy ti spindles. Haven’t run ti spindles on anything since. The disdain for these pedals seems to be regional. Frozen elastomers wouldn’t release. I live in the South – hot elastomers jettisoned on a hair-trigger.

HO Brakes (or “breaks”) The Onza HO brake setup guide: Slips (tighten), slips (tighten), still slips (another nudge), CRACK.

Porcupine tires: Had several, including a white one. The fact that Greg Herbold was winning downhills and dual slaloms on this tire is a solid testament to the H-Ball legend. Porcs had the tread profile of Tomac’s flat top buzz cut – nothing angular on the sides – everything pointed up. Too much lean in a hard pack corner and the tire would tip over. The round tread nubs had the braking grab of a pencil eraser. The wirebead tires had such thick sidewalls they barely need air – stiff as a car tire. The folding porcs were much more forgiving, but still lacked grab. They were the first tire that really shed mud pretty well, but then again, they didn’t grip much in mud either. Herbold’s a hero for hangin’ it out on these things.

Onza’s contribution to the industry may have been valuable lessons in marketing, hype, and “don’t do it this way”. Maybe some of the crappy stuff lead others to a better design. To be fair, I broke a lot of other high zoot CNC’d parts in the 90’s too – it wasn’t just Onza.

tires, they were really good! why not make a full onza 650b range.-)

The old Racing Porc tires!!! Bring these babies back in 29er sizes – say 2.2″ and 2.4″ and keep ’em white and black with skinwalls!!!

http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/files/porc1_175.jpg

@Gregg Westmoreland – The Dart was a fantastic front tire, maybe the first fantastic front tire, for all the reasons the Porcupine wasn’t. It cornered, it gripped, and it stopped better than anything else at the time.
We all tried Porcs because the alternatives (FJ Cousins, Ground Controls) loaded up with mud – Porcs solved that problem, but kinda sucked otherwise because of those mud-averse round knobs. If that tire lead to the Dart, I’m glad I bought my fair share of Porcs to keep you guys going in the right direction.

The bar ends were mean! The brakes looked cool and had good adjustment.