By 1989, sales of Panasonic Bicycles here in the USA were tapering off and the final curtain was about to come down halting future sales of Panasonic bike in the USA.
These PICS bikes were not very common to begin with as they were a premium line and had to be special ordered on a customer by customer basis. As of August 2012, this is only the 2nd complete PICS mountain bike I have ever seen plus one frame and fork I saw selling on eBay earlier this year. In other words, you’re not terribly likely to find one for sale at your local garage sale unless you’re very lucky.
This particular bike came to us from the Denver, Colorado area after being purchased from the original owner. It was quite dirty and had obviously been loved and used in years past but it needed a few things to get back in good condition. We started by removing the exceptionally heavy aftermarket gel saddle that had been fitted and replaced it with the black San Marco Concor-esqe knock off saddle. The hand grips were replaced with these yellow A’me grips and new tubes with CyclePro tires were fitted.
The bike arrived almost completely disassembled, so great care was taken to get everything clean again. The bottom bracket was cleaned and regreased during the cleaning process as well. The frame features Tange MTB tubing and is built with the classic Shimano Deore component group and shiny Araya rims. This was likely the 2nd model from the top in the PICS hierarchy as the top model would have had Tange Prestige tubing and Deore XT components.
