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It's "Frahhhhnkenshteeein"

4K views 41 replies 29 participants last post by  holden 
#1 ·
OK, it's been a while since I posted one of my weird bikes (and they're all weird.) It's been a while since I've built up anything you guys haven't already seen. This is a bit of a departure for me, since it's the most traditional bike I own. This is kinda like that album your favorite band is going to do after their big hit albums. The one most people will be bored to death with after one listen. But personally, some of my favorite tunes are from flop albums. And this is already one of my new favorites.

Vintage folks, I present to you, this... thing.

It's my cyclocross bike. It's as close to a road bike as I get. It's my car at the moment. It's also the franken-est frankenbike I promise I'll ever build using stock parts.

I wanted to keep it an amalgamation of vintage early 90's (reasonably close to the frames vintage, anyway) mtb bits left over from other projects, with as few creature comforts from today as possible. There's a little bit of everything in this one.

95 Mountain Goat Whiskeytown Racer 23" - This happens to be stupid-huge for 99% of the worlds population. For an mtb. Just happens to have exactly the top tube length I ride on the road. Scored, NOS, for a whopping $60. Sorely missing a Russ Pickett paint job. Maybe next year.

IRD Ti fork - To soak up vibration & bumpy colorado cyclocross courses, and provide for a somewhat adjustable axle-to-crown length. The crown was lowered as much as possible down the legs to steepen the head angle on the mountain frame as much as possible. Makes the top tube slope down slightly, but that just makes it look faster. ;)

Marinovative Decelerators - Dang near the only brakes in the world which will allow you to run 700c wheels in place of a 26" mtb wheel, on the same brake studs & with an amount of cable pull compatible with road levers. I bid a thousand dollars to get these, but luckily paid half of what a set of Pauls Motolite-bmx brakes go for, which I discovered shortly thereafter are the other brakes which have this functionality, and are actually still available. Lucky. These seem to work fine for the light braking of road & cross. I probably wouldnt' mtb much with em though, based on others experiences.

Campy record carbon brake levers which I had gutted to make ergofire shifters for my Trimble.

A Grafton shifter perch machined with a bar clamp dia of 15/16"" for dirt drops, holding...

An m900 rear shifter pod. - Personal favorite, what can I say? Plus, I'm the only one out there with rapidfire on my drop bars. ...for better or worse.

WTB Dirt Drops - Wide flare suckers. Comfy.

Ibis 6/4 Ti Helfrich stem - the lightest & prettiest stem to look down and see in the history of stems.

King HS - Yah, whoopee, another king headset.

Ringle Moby post, a too short for mtb cut down leftover.

Ringle wingnut bastardized into place in a Paul Component/Mountain Goat seat clamp. Kinda fun.

Original Flite - I've had this saddle since day one for flites, about 15 years ago now. I'm finally going to use it (up).

Mystery-Sauce ti bb. My favorite ti bb, which will remain nameless, as I enjoy picking them up butt cheap on the bay, and don't want to remind people just to create competition for myself. :) 148g. New ceramic bearings. Yeah, they're a gimmick, but they save 2 grams!

1st gen Grafton cranks. - Bought these from the first production run back in oh hell, I don't know. Whenever that was 91? 92?. They have about 10,000 miles on em, and are going strong. Now I'll probably break them the next time out.

Candi Ti peds. Hey, not all modern technology is a sham...

Same for the rims, spokes & tufo tubular clincher tires. Weird tires. Can't wait to roll em off and knock out a few teeth like everyone else does with theirs... but hey, they were free.

And finally, yes, it's a red Paul's RD. I was hesitant as I approached the hated piece, but advice bedamned, I tried it out, and what do you know? It shifts quickly and easily, reliably and smooth, even in the rough stuff. This was supposed to be a singlespeed, and it'll be ridden like one, so this has to do little more than nudge the chain in the right direction every once in a while, and stay out of the way the rest of the time. If it rips off somehow, it'll be back to plan A. Whole lotta spacers goin on...

And there you have it. One completely ridiculous bike, but it just worked out to be a really fun ride. I've added it up, and I think I've spent about $400 building it, and nearly all the parts are brand new but the couple I mentioned. With this in mind, it's the one bike I own that I won't be worrying about scratching.

Major thanks to Jeff & Wes at First Flight Bikes for pulling off the oddball wheel build without any griping.
 

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#7 · (Edited)
Hehe, yeah, that fork is reeeeally supple on the bumps. Luckily, the brakes are weak enough that it doesn't shudder much... er, wait, is that a good thing? :)

Yeah, the bars were a bit of a surprise when they showed up. They're the widest DD's I've ever seen. They're almost like moustache bars. They were the "RM-2" bend. They say spoogialized & wtb on em, but whether WTB had them made by SBC, & SBC had em made by Nitto, or exactly what is still something of a mystery to me. I never paid attention when you guys were on about them in the past, and now here I am with a set.

Thanks guys! :)

fsp
 
#13 ·
Beautiful!

now you do know cross bikes get trashed....right????
:D
 
#17 ·
I went a similar route...

on my road training bike projects. I don't like road frames, i don't like road geometry (when all I do is mountain biking). I also don't much like drop bars though, or care to go with 700C wheels when I can just run 26" with slicks and increase my chainring sizes. I also have weirder color choices in mind than a nice black/red scheme, so this is what results...

 
#21 ·
Sweet ride! When you find your self with a "real" road bike and a "real" cross bike, I just happen to represent that 1% of the population who does ride a 23" mountain bike like that one you got there - wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean, know what I mean?

Love the Tom Waits song quote!
 
#22 ·
Hey Now! Tufo Tires Rock!

Got any more free ones? I'll take them off your hands.

I was a little leary of the concept at first but I have 3 seasons of 'cross riding on the tubular clinchers and they're awesome. You can run them at near 0 pressure if you so desire. Pretty darn close to tubular feel/performance.
My clincher road race wheelset will be wearing a set of Tufos come spring as well.

Glad to hear that Paul is working out for you. I wish mine would have.

Sweet Ride FSP!
 
#23 ·
Pigtire said:
I'm thinking of doing the same thing w/ a XT rear shifter pod but I will need to Dremel the clamp to make it fit the bar. Did your shifter pod came w/ that clamp? It seems like it fits that bar nicely.
That's actually a Graftonesque pod mount I made with my old company. I made about a dozen sets of the 15/16" version, and Cycleshark in switz bought them all. Sharky Pete, do you have any left or are they even for sale? Did they even fulfill the rest of your order after I left? If not, they've probably gone off to recycling, or in their case, a landfill...

You could probably get away with bringing up that id from 7/8 to 15/16 pretty easily. The clamps are pretty thick on the shimanos. Without machining anything, & doing it by hand, I'd probably put a honing brush in a drill, & get comfortable. A 16th may take a while, but it'll at least give you a nice smooth, centered round hole.
 

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#26 ·
flyingsuperpetis said:
That's actually a Graftonesque pod mount I made with my old company. I made about a dozen sets of the 15/16" version, and Cycleshark in switz bought them all. Sharky Pete, do you have any left or are they even for sale? Did they even fulfill the rest of your order after I left? If not, they've probably gone off to recycling, or in their case, a landfill...

You could probably get away with bringing up that id from 7/8 to 15/16 pretty easily. The clamps are pretty thick on the shimanos. Without machining anything, & doing it by hand, I'd probably put a honing brush in a drill, & get comfortable. A 16th may take a while, but it'll at least give you a nice smooth, centered round hole.
That'es a pretty cool clamp! I was looking at my XT SL M740 and it doesn't have that bolt hole to mount a clamp like that. To the honing brush I go.

Thanks
 
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