I am almost set to purchase a new specialized mountain bike, when i come across the Salsa brand. Killer paint jobs with awesome part specs and a scandium frame!
Has anyone had any experience with these bikes? I was looking at the El Santo or Mariachi.
Any info would be great.
Jason
Salsa makes some great stuff. You will not be dissapointed. Back in the day, Salsa was made by the folks at Schwinn. Then Salsa took their production overseas and Schwinn started Gunnar in it’s place. Salsa has seemed to be able to preserve the quality very well. Solid all around.
Mike
Nice stuff from them. Good quality and not everyone has one!
Thanks for the replies so far. I was going to use it for trail riding in Michigan, and race it in one Xterra event.
Has anyone ever ridden one? I would be the only one I know who would have one.
I have a Salsa Las Crus cross bike. It is awesome! It has an incredbile ride. The Scandium frame with a carbon fork offers excellent stiffness without the harsh ride. I use it to commute too. They have great customer service if you ever need to call them.
Check out their 29er especially if you are looking at XTERRA.
Thanks for the info. Which one of their 29r bikes were you talking about?
Jason
the older el mariachi’s have been going for very very cheap lately - do a search, or see if jensonusa has any left. i forgit how much, but really cheap. the 08 design was changed a bit, as the previous ones were not as well recieved as they coulda been due to aesthetic reasons ( the dropped TT, and gusstted seattube support, etc ).
the el-M’s are nice production steel bikes, made by maxway in taiwan. they do good work, and you could do a hell of a lot worse in numerous ways. i know plenty of guys who ride them very fast indeed, and again they are better than a shitload of perhaps bigger name bikes you will see going for the same money or more.
anyways they are nowadays a QBP brand, like surly, and used to made for them by waterford ( the small shop owned by mr schwinn, not schwinn). 
but actually ‘back in the day’, before being bought by Quality, when the brand was an actual boutique level producer they were first made by artisan ross schaefer - then his small production crew in nor-cal. an original nor-cal salsa would go for a lot more than new today. in any event after ross cashed in that crew decided to try to continue on as a true boutique/artisan level builder, and is known to today as soulcraft.
The Dos niner would be great for XTERRA. You would not need all the weight associated with a full suspension mtb bike. It has some relief to take out the pounding with one inch of rear travel. The mamasita has some cool features too. Check out there web page and see if you can go test ride one at a shop. 29er is the way to go for XTERRA if especially if you are a taller male. http://www.salsacycles.com
Good luck
JON
Here is a link on craigslist in Fort Collins CO. This is a pretty sweet set up. I just moved from WI to CO. This stuff is everywhere if you want one used. http://fortcollins.craigslist.org/bik/536903804.html
“Back in the day, Salsa was made by the folks at Schwinn. Then Salsa took their production overseas and Schwinn started Gunnar in it’s place.”
No.
http://dirtragmag.com/print/article.php?ID=47&category=stuff_reviews
Salsa* *never “took their production overseas,” they were closed down entirely as a frame manufacturer when the company was purchased as a marque name to sell stems. later the name was revived as a bike line, but all or most of their production has been contract built and sourced from Asia since the reemergence of the name.
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well no, or kinda. for a brief while the quality-owned frames were produced by waterford. this was before QBP branched the line into aluminum, and other types of frames and sourced them from the pacific rim. as the article states waterford was doing the Standard BMX frames, and a couple other contracted brands at the time also, rivendell, for example. this all predated the gunnars. waterford does that to this day with other brands.
and, salsa did not close shop, r schaefer sold the name to QBP, and the shop to his employees; the shop changed names - to soulcraft - under ownership of those former salsa framebuilders.
finally, QBP acquiring salsa was not for the frames as you do correctly state. but it wasn’t for the stems, either, those had run their course by then and indeed QBP axed them pretty quickly ( tho they were brought later due to outcry ). they bought salsa for the brand, which had a strong presensce under its pepperman logo, and so on. they have continued to build on that brand with great success - with rims, bars, tubes, etc etc.
Thanks for the history.
I am more interested as to how the bikes perform, and if anyone has any riding experience. Some bike shops were telling me that they are just a frame with a fancy paint job, and nothing more. Other bike shops have told me that they are good.
“well no, or kinda. for a brief while the quality-owned frames were produced by waterford.”
Really briefly, and if I recall correctly Gunnar frames were already being sold at that time.
“this was before QBP branched the line into aluminum, and other types of frames and sourced them from the pacific rim.”
Yup - or at least, before they managed to get the import business up and running.
"as the article states waterford was doing the Standard BMX frames, and a couple other contracted brands at the time also. rivendell, for example. "
Yup.
"salsa did not close shop, r schafer sold the name to QBP, and the shop to his employees; the shop changed names - to soulcraft - under ownership of those former salsa framebuilders. "
Ross was Salsa, and he sold the physical plant not to Sean and Matt (who started Soulcraft,) but to a group that later shut the factory down entirely. Sean and Matt opened Soulcraft after that.
Quality acquired all rights to Salsa designs, TMs, branding, intellectual property, and if I recall correctly also got a non-compete clause out of the deal.
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they are good. as i said before, they produced by maxway in taiwan, a good place. they’re designed by a good crew there with QBP. plenty of other bikes with fancier names are made to ( considerably ) lesser quailty in china, malaysia, or godknowswhere, and go for more $$. if anybody needs to be hung with the fancy-name-and-paintjob thing, and some do - it is not salsa. good solid stuff.
as to how they perform, that depends on hard you pedal, and how well you steer - same as anything.
the gunnars were not going yet, no.
r schaefer owned salsa, but had been off riding his motorcycle spending the stem money for some time ( years ) and had lost interest, prior to being cut the $$ by QBP. it took awhile for soulcraft to get going, but they did so with the salsa stuff, or plenty of it- tho as you say not with the same physical property, obviously. who the intermediary builder was you allude to i do not know of, tho.
“r schaefer owned salsa, but had been off riding his motorcycle spending the stem money for some time ( years ) and had lost interest, prior to being cut the $$ by QBP.”
I know - that’s why my Cross frame took so long to get, and was F-ed up when I got it :0)
“who the intermediary builder was you allude to i do not know.”
The intermediary builder was the emplyee buyout. They never actually got off the ground. You’re conflating this with the Soulcraft opening, as…
“it took awhile for soulcraft to get going…”
Because the buyout thing had to go tits-up first.
" but they did so with the salsa stuff, or plenty of it. "
Yup. It was cheap - the previous owner was out of business :0)
This is serious bikenerd navel lint stuff, though, so I’m sure nobody else really cares… I think we both made our points much further up the page :0)
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right on fredly.
in a more interesting note, there was a positive side. as r schaefer was out riding his BMW, he left the checkbook with his team ( give him some credit - it was the first all-female mtn bike team at that level ), who were all great fun, and we enjoyed many beers, more than couple meals and even a hotel nite or three on him on the norba circuit back in the day. some of the details do remain fuzzy.
That, my friend, is good stuff.
Funny side note:
Lots of folks would tend to get Ross and I confused back in the day, when my hair was shorter and more “fro-ed”. This includes an bunch of people who really should know better - like Jacqui Phelan - who has called me Ross on more than one occasion. We have kind-of a separated at birth thing going on…