Steelhead: the Unusual Potts

Steve Potts is one of founding members of Wilderness Trail Bikes, and is regarded as on of the "all time great" frame builders. As an original member of the Marin County gang, he was one of the early pioneers of mountain bikes, an began building his own frames in the early 1980's. Along with Charlie Cunningham and Mark Slate, Steve was part of the more innovative companies of mountain biking's early years. Steve is a member of the MountainBike Hall of Fame and is still building frames today.

Steve Potts' classic late 80's and early 90's frame was the Potts Cross Country Racer. A group of riding buddies from Marin wanted Steve to build them bikes, but were interested in something different from the standard CCR frame. They wanted tight, stiff, indestructible bikes. The Steelhead is the bike that Steve built.

In total, only 12 Steelheads were built, and they were built over the course of one week. They were constructed with a heavier tubset and steeper angles than the Potts CCR, and included the legendary Potts Type-II fork. Having one of only twelve frames makes this a fairly unusal Potts - I have no idea where the other eleven are.

This bike is built with many of the unique parts that made WTB famous. Both front and rear brakes are WTB Roller Cams. The front end is stiffened through the use of the wide-flange WTB Classic hub, with the rear hub being WTB's cassette hub: the New Paradigm.

The frame is currently in need of a repaint, and hopefully one day will look a little nicer than it does today. In the mean time, I won't have to worry about scrathing hte paint when I ride it.