Home > Bike Types > Mountain Bike

2013 GT Mountain Bikes – Xizang Titanium & Zaskar Pro LE Alloy 29ers, Hans Rey Editions, More!

Written by Tyler Benedict
2013 GT Xizang titanium 29er hardtail mountain bike
11 Comments
Support us! Bikerumor may earn a small commission from affiliate links in this article. Learn More

2013 GT Xizang titanium 29er hardtail mountain bike

Alongside the 2013 road and cyclocross bikes introduced at PressCamp, GT dug out some classic model names for the dirt. Names like Zaskar, Xizang and Karakoram all come back to life or get modern refreshes.

The Xizang (shy-zang) titanium hardtail comes back, but with 29″ wheels. It gets a shaped tapered headtube, hydroformed chainstays and shaped downtube. That shaping makes it laterally stiff, according to GT’s marketing manager Chris Hopwood.

Frameset is in stock now  and retails for $2,000. Available in M, L and XL. If you live in Asia, you can still get the 26″ size, elsewhere, not so much…

2013 GT Xizang titanium 29er hardtail mountain bike

2013 GT Xizang titanium 29er hardtail mountain bike

2013 GT Zaskar Pro LE 29er alloy hardtail mountain bike

The Zaskar Pro LE is a complete remake of the alloy Zaskar line. The new one will come in two models, a base model and the top end LE. It’s a 29er with a lighter 6061 alloy frame that comes in around 1540g for a medium frame. All but the seat tube is hydroformed.

2013 GT Zaskar Pro LE 29er alloy hardtail mountain bike

The chainstay are heavily formed, then welded together. Dropouts are cold forged and rear brake posts are formed into the dropout.

2013 GT Zaskar Pro LE 29er alloy hardtail mountain bike

It’s spec’d with Easton EA70 wheels and stem, Crank Brothers bar and post, Race Face Next LP carbon cranks, XTR drivetrain and Formula R1 brakes for $3,999. Brake post mounts have replaceable inserts, so the frame’s not shot if you strip out a mounting bolt.

2013 GT Karakoram Hans Rey edition hardtail mountain bike

New Karakoram 1.0 Hans Rey bike celebrates 25 years of insane riding by Rey. GT is creating a new bike line that helps raise money for Rey’s Wheels 4 Life charity, which raises money to buy bikes for areas where residents new them to improve their lives. He buys them local to the area that’s getting them, so they’re geared for that area and help the local economy in more ways than one.

2013 GT Karakoram Hans Rey edition hardtail mountain bike

This model is a $1,000 entry level 29er that incorporates many of his sponsors’ parts, including Shimano and Crank Bothers.

Not shown, there’s also a $5,500 Zaskar 100 26″ model that’s spec’d like Hans’ own bike with Fox suspension, full XT, 120mm fork, Ergon grips, etc.

For the normal lineup, the Zaskar 100 29er (not shown) has a new Team version with XTR, Race Face carbon cranks, Formula R1 brakes, Kashima’d Fox suspension.
Tyler Benedict
11,282 articles

Tyler Benedict is the Founder of Bikerumor.com, where he’s been writing about the latest bikes, components, and cycling technology for almost two decades. Prior to that, Tyler launched and built multiple sports nutrition brands and consumer goods companies, mostly as an excuse to travel and ride in new places.

Based in North Carolina, Tyler also loves the Vanlife & family adventure travel and is always on the lookout for the next shiny new part and off-grid adventure.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

11 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Louis
Louis
12 years ago

Why are they resurrecting the GT mark? The brand was pretty good in the 90s and then wasn’t it sold in big box and non-specialty stores for several years? It just seems like it would be almost easier to create an entirely new label than trying to get the consumer market to associate GT with quality again.

0
Reply
Chipollini
Chipollini
12 years ago

Dorel Industries owns Cannondale, GT, Schwinn, and Mongoose… the last three are seen by most of the bike community as crap after being they got bought out and brought into (as said by Louis) big box non specialty stores (Walmart, Target, Sears, etc.). The brands we loved as kids (I’m 30ish) devolved into crap – Dorel is trying to bring back the quality bike we formerly enjoyed… It’s a mixed bag, the brand names have great recognition in the general public. ask anyone over 40 what bike they rode when they were 10yo and they’ll say Schwinn or Raleigh, remembering the days of the banana seat sting rays and old school 10 speeds with friction shifters and suicide brake levers. It’s an undeniable that they have brand recognition and that is worth a lot of money. The issue now is can they convince dealers, and bike shop employes, and customers to give these brands a second chance. If Schwinn made a really nice high end carbon bike equipped with the best components and was competitive vs any of the well know high end brands would your buy it? Would you get kitted up for your road race and show up on a Schwinn? I don’t think most would, but we could if get over our jadedness maybe..

0
Reply
IJBCape
IJBCape
12 years ago

that chrome (polished) one looks so sick, i love it. I’m 40 and I rode Panda, GHP, GT, Redline in the late 70s and early 80s… Schwinns and banana seats were for nerds!

0
Reply
Topmounter
Topmounter
12 years ago

The Xizang was always a cool bike… I’d say the new version is looking pretty good.

0
Reply
Oderus
Oderus
12 years ago

GT never went away as a high end company. The bikes were still being made and ridden by pros. The problem came when they were bought by Schwinn who turned around and filed Chapter 11. After they were bought, none of their dealer agreements or sales team were still in place. So, many dealers were left in limbo and moved to other brands until the dust settled. Most simply never went back to GT because of the stigma associated with them being in “big box” retailers.

0
Reply
spokejunky
spokejunky
12 years ago

I lusted after that Xizang back in the late 90s. It’s still looking good and is knocking on my interest door.

0
Reply
Anders
Anders
12 years ago

I had a look at the frame 2 weeks ago at the Willinge Bike Festival in Germany. I noticed it from the far between all their carbon downhill rockets. The tube shaping is very nicely done and the polished finish is smooth. If I remember correctly the guy in the booth said it was made by Lynskey. Just imaging it hooked up with a yellow Judy SL in 29″ ( or a SID in the same colour), some classic cranks like the RF Trubines, White Instrusty hubs and Syncros stem and seatpost 🙂

0
Reply
Perry
Perry
12 years ago

Andrs you just gave me a bike boner.

0
Reply
Sean
Sean
12 years ago

I always loved the GT Zaskar in the late 90’s and performer before that. I just bought at Gt road bike and the quality is still there. Thinking of an Avalanche next. The name still means something to me.

0
Reply
SWAB
SWAB
12 years ago

The brand GT might have taken a beating in North American market with their line of low end bikes in Walmart, but outside that demographic area the brand name remained relatively untarnished and still holds a significant clout.

In countries such as parts of Europe, New Zealand, South Africa etc. the market has remained relatively loyal to the GT brand as these market were not awashed with low end GT bikes, and the branding were adequately supported with advertisement of capable riders such as Hans Rey, Brian Lopes, Jill Kintner, Mick Hannah and now the Atherton family.

Overall it is pleasing to see that GT brand name is being continued and they’ve resurrected many old and familiar names such as Xizang and Karakorum, well remembered by the older generation of mtbers as performance oriented bikes. These model names are a lot more memorable than other brands with their 3 digit or alphanumeric coding to their bikes.

So when will GT revive the name Richter?

0
Reply
Anonymous
Anonymous
11 years ago

Xizang is pronounced see-zang 🙂

0
Reply

Subscribe Now

Sign up to receive BikeRumor content direct to your inbox.