Holdsworth Ultima 80s MTB Restomod

I bought the Holdsworth as a fully original 80s MTB, restored lovingly by the previous owner. Should it have stayed that way? Perhaps. In the end, I built it up to be as close to my ideal load-carrying ATB as possible, taking many forms before eventually being replaced by my Rockhopper.

I bought the Ultima to accompany my Specialized Allez, a fine bike in many ways but definitely too racy, too lightweight and too fragile to transport much more than me and a backpack to work. At the time, I had not owned a car for nearly a year and I couldn't contemplate doing so anymore. I needed a bike that did what a car could; it just turned out to weigh about as much as a car did, too. I distinctly remember my back screaming as I loaded the Holdsworth into the boot of my friend's Fiesta - all 15kg of chrome-moly steel bike.

It was very lovely in its original form, and that's how it stayed for a while. I fitted a pannier rack on it, and the pretty but also pretty old and worn original tan wall tires exploded, so I swapped some modern Continental tires. Eventually, though, the bug caught. I didn't feel 'set' on the bike (for reasons, it turned out, of wrong sized bike rather than wrong build) so I set about aggressively rebuilding it.

I think there's a lesson in this somewhere, and that is new and improved is not necessarily better. The original drivetrain components were just fine; but I felt they had to go. So, the lovely old square-taper triple crank was replaced by a modern Shimano Hollowtech-II-style Deore item. Because I chose to run it 1x, this meant that the cassette needed changing. What could have easily stayed, went and then created a necessity that wasn't there to start with.

In hindsight, I KNOW what I should have done. I should have kept all the parts and simply replaced the handlebars for moto-style BMW bars with plenty of rise. Everything worked fine, but my problem was simply that, because the bike didn't fit me, it never quite felt right.

One component I did have to replace were the brakes. The original Shimano cantilevers were clearly made of cheese, because the plastic callipers exploded one evening when I braked hard to avoid a motorist. I replaced them with Tektro cantis that were made of very nice CNC-ed alloy and didn't touch them since.

Anyway, in the meantime, I'd convinced myself that what I did, in fact, need, were drop bars which would solve all of my increasing fit problems. This started a lengthy series of rebuilds, involving various combinations, sizes and types of drop bar. Notably, the one hack-that-didn't-need-to-happen was using Tiagra 10-speed road shifters with the 7-speed 200GS rear mech - surprisingly successful.

I think that the Holdsworth was really quite neat-looking in its final form, pictured below. I'd finally arrived on a chosen handlebar (Ritchey Evomax in a 440mm width), ran a front and rear rack and the weathered old WTB saddle was very fitting. But I will always remember it as being difficult as sin to ride. It felt slow, like dragging lead weights even when unladen and I never felt fully comfortable on it.

I'll remember the Holdsworth as a fun experiment, an attractive bike rebuild and a useful enough bike, but when the time came to strip it down to build my Rockhopper, I don't think I hesitated. The 80s green frameset is now being rebuilt somewhere, and I think it's happier for it.