The Hammerhead one-piece bar and stem was Grove's primary product in the early years. It evolved into a lighter, heat-traeted thin wall version called the HotHead, as well as a variety of stems. Grove also made tubular cranksets, called Hot Rods, and road stems.

In this early ad from a black and white Dirt Rag you can see the ergonomic twist at the end of the handlebar. This was eventually dropped when Shimano began making the thick, cast clamps for the XT components, which had trouble sliding over the bend.

GROVE HAMMERHEAD

One way to date HammerHeads is by the stickers vs decals: later models used decals under clearcoat.

This black Hammerhead was decaled to match a Brave Racing frameset.

GROVE HOTHEAD

The HotHead was a thinner wall, heat treated version of the Hammerhead. The expander wedge shown is upside-down, designed for the early oversized steer tubes.

GROVE MOUNTAIN STEM

Most of these Mountain Stems are e-bay pictures. the advantage of the stem design was lateral stiffness, from an era when many stems were small and flexy. The cable stop is integral to the stem, so you didn't need to put a dangle-stop off the headset stack. The aluminum quill was a seperate piece, available in 1 inch, 1 1/8, 1 1/4, so you could use the same stem on any frameset. This is an early piece, the logo is a sticker, later models used decals under clearcoat.

GROVE DEERHEAD

Among the rarest of Grove paraphernalia is this set of Deerheads, an attempt to integrate a bar end/tri-bar riding alternative. This prototype was one of maybe six, and they never went into production. At the time, bar ends were a new concept. We didn't actually have decals made, we simply made them by cutting out the letters from a Hothead decal. Owned by Stan Smith in Pennsylvania.

GROVE HOT RODS

Grove Hot Rods were a two-piece, heat treated cro-moly crank that used a three-sided lobe instead of the traditional square tapered spindle. Grove was inspired by military applications - this is how tank axles are designed. He figured if they worked for tanks they should hold up on mountain bikes. One pinch bolt held the left arm on. The integral BB design used 4 cartridge bearings and a series of rubber o-rings to keep them dry.

A pile of Grove parts from Chad Rockey's basement. Those are unfinished road stems in the foreground, another fairly obscure Grove product. The rest of the stuff is probably former test pieces or production defects.