Old Guy BMX

Hey Team ….. today I thought I would bring you my main BMX (at the moment) ….. my 2000 Giant Mosh Expert AL.

Mosh BMX was a division of Giant Bicycles ….. Mosh BMX was created back in 1996 with the help of Linn Kastan & AA BMX Pro Rider Jason Richardson. Giant made bikes using the Mosh name until 2003. Giant of course has been making bicycles of all styles for many years and had been turning out BMX bikes since 1979 starting with the GMX250.

My Mosh Expert AL BMX was built in the Giant Bicycles Taiwan factory in November of 1999 using aircraft grade Alcoa CU-92 Aluminium tubing for the frame of the bike and came from Giant fitted with Spinner brand full chromoly fork using a 1 1/8″ threadless steerer tube. Theses spinner forks are almost 500gram lighter than the current cro mo forks that Giant ran on the 99 / 2000 bikes.

I am still rolling the original wheelset which is Sun Z19 rims with Giants generic sealed hubs and plain steel spokes. Up front I am running Maxxis 1.85 M-Tread and out back I am running Maxxis 1.95 Ringworm. My backup cruising wheelset for this bike is a set of Araya rims sitting on shimano DX hubs and fitted with comp 3 tyres.

Gearing is the usual 44t x 16t using the original Giant chainring but have swapped out the original Giant one piece crank for a later model Giant Method 02 – 8 spline / Euro bottom bracket and axle with Giants 175mm tubular three piece cranks. Did this swap purely for the ability to run 9/16″ SPD pedals as the original one piece crank was still running 1/2″ pedal threads.

Braking is Shimano DX Red V brakes running a right hand Tektro lever. I did have the matching DX RH lever but somewhere along the way it went missing and if you know how expensive DX gear is these days I cant see myself relacing it. I do own a matching Red DX LH lever but i prefer to brake with my RH so it just sits on the shelf and looks pretty.

Steering was originally from a set of Mosh 4 piece steel bars connected via the original Mosh Billet Al “tombstone” stem with MOSH grips. I believe this particular stem only ever came on the Expert AL in 2000 and never seen again and I have to say it is one of the most robust and beautiful stems ever. Just recently I replace the bars with some Haro Jack Hammer bars and Jet Black lock on grips. The plan was to have the original MOSH bars rechromed but in the mayhem of moving etc they also went missing with DX lever. The Jack Hammer bars are a little lower and narrower than the Mosh bars and pretty comfortable so for now they will stay.

One of the unique features on the bike are the threaded sliding dropout chain adjusters which only came with this years production run and were at the request of the team riders ?? ……. other unique features were the elongated top tube which runs right through the seat tube junction and allowing the seat stays to join the top tube south of the seat tube junction as well as the heavy duty bracing of the headtube / downtube junction at the front of the frame. The 58mm down tube is massive by any BMX era standards, add to this a 44mm top tube and a fully gusseted bottom bracket chainstay junction and all this adds up to a super stiff and strong frame that can take a load of punishment. So much of the frame and its componentry also has beautiful Mosh embossing or pantographing which truly adds to it unique character