Interesting Project Razzta01, but I agree with the others...Don't know if i'd use that on a safety item like brakes. If I were you, i'd just bite the bullet and buy the billet replacement seat stay from Risse and be done with it. It has the rear brake mount already machined into it. I'm actually planning on buying their chain and seat stays soon, myself...
Hi there is this still available? I would really like to just replace the seatstay instead of running v brakes.
Since last posting I have changed a couple of things on my FSR rig which has made it better. A Fox Float 36 fork, Avid Elixir R brake set, DT Swiss 445 wheels & hubs. My riding has progressed quite a bit as of late, bigger drops, bigger jumps, in general just going bigger all around and my rig takes it in stride. A blast to ride. Long live the FSR!
As I have said before, your thread and progress has inspired me to keep my old girl going... that said, the post man dropped off a present this morning.
I don't usally post, but this thread movtivated me. After destroying my bottle rocket, low hanging trees and roof racks don't mix, I decided to pull one of my old FSR Elite frames down and build up a AM/DH bike. I went with Risse front to rear, and it rides like the old warhorse still has a few years left in her. I posted on the other Maxbone thread as well.
Looks like my old 2000 Big Hit. I ran 24s front and rear back in the day. The front tire was a Gazzo 3.0 on a doublewide and the rear was a Rhino Lite with a Gazzo 2.6. The bike lasted almost 4000 miles before I sold it.
Hi, could you help me out on this one please? I'm constructing a brand new 26" wheel singlespeed MTB and I want to achieve this fat-up-front tyre look....Which I think is how bikes are meant to look...
In the top pic here, what are the tyre/wheel dimensions? Do you know?
I wish to buy a BETD linkage or Risse Linkage for my 1999 Specialized FSR Comp. Can someone please tell me where I can get the BETD one, or if anyone is selling theirs.
Thanks for the quick reply, but the link you provided has 3 different models of the BETD linkage for the Specialized FSR: Specialized FSR XC 01 to 03 Linkage, Specialized FSR XC 99/00, and Specialized Enduro 02 to 04 Linkage. Which linkage should I get? I own a 1999 Specialized FSR Comp:
This is my first post here but it was this thread that inspired me to get this frame. I now have it for sale (I hope it's ok to post that here? As I know how hard these frames are to come by I thought you guys would be interested.)
I can't post photos or links yet but if you are interested, get in touch and I'll provide further details and images.
I don't usally post, but this thread movtivated me. After destroying my bottle rocket, low hanging trees and roof racks don't mix, I decided to pull one of my old FSR Elite frames down and build up a AM/DH bike. I went with Risse front to rear, and it rides like the old warhorse still has a few years left in her. I posted on the other Maxbone thread as well.
Really nice lookin rig jrd. Have you messed with the Hex Link settings to get your preferred head angle? Have you fooled with the seat stay, chain stay adjust? What is the bottom bracket measurment? The reason I ask, is I have the same set-up, just curious how others run their bikes.
So glad to finally have my account finalized by mtbr so I can post on here!
I bought a 99 Specialized FSR DH last year and have only seen one other DH model on-line.
This bike is awesome; I've got the 98 Boxxer Pros; Big Hit gold linkage; Circa 99 Hope hydraulic disc brakes and plan on doing a full restore soon now that I've got a 2010 Turner DHR to ride.
Check out my vid of my 99 FSR DH on youtube search Pantera Live Wire
How much was that gold linkage? I need to replace mine some day. I've got a 6.5 inch i2i Fox Vanila R with my gold linkage giving me 5.5 inches of rear travel. 7.5 i2i didn't work out. I've been looking for a 7 in, but I don't think thats likely.
Duck
The gold DH link was only $35 but I think its a pretty rare part to find I got lucky. Good luck finding one of them or even a betd or Risse link this was the first one I found after months of searching
I've got a 6.5 inch i2i Fox Vanila R with my gold linkage giving me 5.5 inches of rear travel. 7.5 i2i didn't work out. I've been looking for a 7 in, but I don't think thats likely.
Duck
Hi there, if your '99 FSR DH is genuine then I'm presuming you should have a Fox Vanilla RX (basically a Vanilla R but with a piggy back reservoir) which was custom made for Specialized specifically for these frames. It is a 6.5" i2i with a 1.75" stroke which in conjunction with the gold link gives 6" of rear travel.
The only 7" i2i shocks that I know of came from MRP with their 6" travel link/shock combo kit. That shock was custom made for them by fox and again is a Fox Vanilla RX. It measures 7" i2i with a 2" stroke.
I have a genuine '99 DH with the Reeg Engineering DH specific chainstays & gold link and also an MRP link/shock. If you approach a company like Romic, they may be able to custom make you a shock in your desired i2i & stroke lengths. Here is their link Welcome to Romic Mfg.
So glad to finally have my account finalized by mtbr so I can post on here!
I bought a 99 Specialized FSR DH last year and have only seen one other DH model on-line.
This bike is awesome; I've got the 98 Boxxer Pros; Big Hit gold linkage; Circa 99 Hope hydraulic disc brakes and plan on doing a full restore soon now that I've got a 2010 Turner DHR to ride.
Check out my vid of my 99 FSR DH on youtube search Pantera Live Wire
How much was that gold linkage? I need to replace mine some day. I've got a 6.5 inch i2i Fox Vanila R with my gold linkage giving me 5.5 inches of rear travel. 7.5 i2i didn't work out. I've been looking for a 7 in, but I don't think thats likely.
Duck
You can try this guy, I run alot of his gear. risse racing technology
Thanks Joe. Ya, it's a genuine FSR DH then. I love this bike. Gonna have Hippietechsuspension rework my 98 Boxxer Pro and keep this bike origanal. I've still got the circa 99 Hope disc brakes on there workin' over time to slow me down on Double diamond DH runs.
I have a minty fresh FSR Pro that I wouldnt mind getting rid of. It lived most of its life in my living room as a coat rack<g> All stock except CKing head set and a Raceface seat post. Still has orignal tires. If anyone in NJ is interested. I have it in storage(Climate controlled) so its no longer taking my living space. I can text you pics if your interested in it. Its like new.
Haha I'm still running the old XT 755 4 pot brakes but with the latest XT levers.....look sweet and damn they work a treat. Great score on that frame mate look after it, it's ultra rare and irreplaceable....I have 3 MAX frames, a '97 GC which I've just finished a full comprehensive overhaul on, a '99 DH and a '00 S-Works Team DH.
Great bikes and to my eye still the best looking mountain bikes
Haha I'm still running the old XT 755 4 pot brakes but with the latest XT levers.....look sweet and damn they work a treat. Great score on that frame mate look after it, it's ultra rare and irreplaceable....I have 3 MAX frames, a '97 GC which I've just finished a full comprehensive overhaul on, a '99 DH and a '00 S-Works Team DH.
Great bikes and to my eye still the best looking mountain bikes
Take care....Joe
After a day of freeriding at our most favorite spot, A couple of guy's came over to see what we were ridin and one old boy say's : you rode that? while looking at my FSR. Sure did., and it handled everything I threw at it. Always does. I agree Joe, these bikes are badass lookin, and tough too.
My new-to-me FSR DH arrived today. It's had a hard life.
It's a 99, was silver with the US flag stickers all over it. Still got the stripes but the stars are long gone. The main pivot is ball bearing and the swingarm is the same as all other 99's. The seat-stays are the same style as my 97 Elite but have a different machining patter on the left dropout with a hole pre-drilled for the shark-fin disc adapter. 99 serial number confirms the age.
Link is the gold one, shock the vanilla RX.
Speaking of disc adapters, I'm greatly concerned about the ones I've seen in here. These seat-stays aren't strong enough to take the bending moment from disc brakes alone. That's why specialized used the shark-fin. It applies a much smaller load to the brake boss instead.
Any brake adapter bolted just to the left drop-out will eventually break the stay at the weld with the dropout. A lot of bike companies made this mistake when discs first became popular. Specialized themselves beefed up this dropout/tube junction a lot when they added real disc mounts in 2001.
The guy who "welded" a brake adapter on, well that's worse. When you weld 6061 aluminium it loses half it's strength and needs full solution heat-treatment to recover (the T6 part of 6061-T6 is the treatment).
This frame of mine has been cracked and rewelded at the left side of the swingarm and the left upper seat-stay. Like the guy above, this needs full T6 heat-treatment if I want it to be ridable without endangering myself.
I haven't come up with a plan for it yet. But my parts stash includes 01 Xvert Carbons (180mm travel), 00 Xvert DC's (with my own internal trickery to give 145mm travel), an XL 97 Elite, a medium 97 Elite, a boat load of other forks, rear shocks and some 00 big hit links including spare seat-stays and swingarms. But the welded frame style, not the MAX type.
Wow. Haven't been on MTBR in a while...but great to see so many people still reppin the MAX FSR! Dougal, you have any pics of that DH frame? Would love to see it!
Still riding mine, but haven't gotten to ride it much lately since I relocated my family from SoCal to Manila, Philippines for work back in November.
Anyway, to whoever asked about the decals I had them made my a member here on MTBR a while back. I did the initial logo designs in Adobe Illustrator and had him print and cut the decals. Have to look up his screename again since it was a while ago, but I think it was something like "JNC". The decals have been great though...high quality and have put up with all the abuse i've thrown at my bike without peeling or fading, etc.
Anyway, keep posting guys. Long live the MaxBackbone FSR!
Hey I got a 1999 FSR S-Works DH "Shaun Palmer" edition with the peek-through hole, I have three rear shock mount holes on top. Love this monster of a bike, just recently had to have a crack welded, but its back up n rollin. Will be lookin to replace some parts on it soon, hope there is enough people with this bike to be able to help me find parts, Have A Great Ride Whever U Go
Hey I got a 1999 FSR S-Works DH "Shaun Palmer" edition with the peek-through hole, I have three rear shock mount holes on top. Love this monster of a bike, just recently had to have a crack welded, but its back up n rollin. Will be lookin to replace some parts on it soon, hope there is enough people with this bike to be able to help me find parts, Have A Great Ride Whever U Go
Those were 2000 model year. I have the 99 FSR DH and it's just the max frame with a longer link and more shock stroke (but same shock i2i length).
By 2000 I think Palmer had stopped riding for Specialized and his name was never officially used. But it certainly stuck.
Good to see you've got the right forks on it. I've got the forks (rode them for 6 years) but never came across one of those frames when I had money to spend.
Hey all! Just read through the thread, really great info about these awesome old frames. I have a 2001 FSR Team DH that is my downhill rig. Can't post pictures yet, but as soon as my post count goes up I'll share it with you. It's a wonderful bike, it can really tear up DH and handles insanely well in the air and on the ground!
Finally found a 99 Max Pro bike with original front/rear shocks still in good shape. Frame is off getting powder coated and rounding up new decals as we speak.
It's been a while. Just wanted to do a bit of an update on the bike. In 2012, I relocated my family to Manila, Philippines for work (got a job managing a BMW specialty shop there). I brought the bike along with me hoping to have time to ride it there, but unfortunately never go to ride trails. Instead, I installed some Maxxis Hookworms on it and used it for jaunts around town.
We moved back to the US in August, but am back on the East Coast for now where I grew up (Baltimore, MD area). Finally got to take her for a real ride again the other week. Mounted up a Maxxis DHF/DHR tire combo and rode some of the trails I used to ride in high school. The bike felt great! Anyway, here's a pic I took just before we headed out to the trail:
Hope everyone is doing well and still out there rocking their Max backbone bikes!
Very Nice at chipmunk. I followed your thread for awhile then I got caught up in my build. My last post with a picture of my bike before I started my build is post #556 just before yours. Here are some pics of mine since it's been finished. (it has seen a few versions 'til I came to this final one)
Very cool. Medium or large? Mine is XL and while it fits me okay the head tube is ridiculous. Got an Xvert r to install but need to face it down about 5mm each end.
seriously best reinvention of this bike i have seen. can't imagine what it cost but would love for you to tutor me so i can do this to mine. getting new stays meant it comes with a disc attachment, so that's brilliant right there, especially if it also has the shock attachment. looks like everything fits perfectly. what bike is the seat stay from?
Thanks. The rear triangle is actually not off of another bike. The one I am currently using is the rear triangle from Risse Racing (linked to a few posts up by @FLYINW) and it has ball bearing pivots as well as rear disc mounts...
wow thanks for the link. i have a '99 Stumpy frs xc comp. frame tabs at the the shock are similar, but even if they're not, my shock is an RPL and is also inverted, which should be fine fitting the hex link. only concern is where the chain stay attaches to the bottom frame since mine looks to be more narrow. how cool to fit 26x2.3 tires and disc brakes/rims.
Park Digitals inside chain stay was 38mm (or 37 forgetting) and inside seat stay was 31mm. i think that's what i remember from a few minutes ago, haha. me and Stumpy are both vintage.
would love to swap out the 3x9 for a 2x10. any ideas? how did you set up the Race Face 1x? at least a 1x loses the odd FD attachment. how is it configured? 11-32t like OEM or what? and did you need spacers at the BB? wouldn't imagine finding many 73mm, (if i recall it's an) English bb, and square taper in a 1x or 2x.
and your BB cups are on the outside, where my BB currently is inside with no cups (forgetting what they're called).
Curious how it rides now. Strictly from a physics stand point, it would seem the original set up makes for more contact while climbing but less travel over obstacles. so bigger rubber contact patch will really help traction in all but hard pack.
look forward to any wisdom you can shed.
Last edited by spychic; 02-12-2017 at 01:16 PM.
Reason: add ins
I know that this thread is ancient, but I wanted to post a pic of my '97 FSR. Years ago I read this thread and found myself one of these bikes. I rode it pretty stock until the chain rings wore out, and then I started an update on it. I wanted to get disk brakes on it, and I looked for a 2001 enduro for years. I finally found one and took the entire rear triangle from the enduro and put it on the backbone. The enduro was such a nice bike that I didn't want to decommission it. I decided to upgrade the backbone rear triangle with a roller bearing at the main pivot before putting it on the enduro. In order to swap the rear triangles, it did require having some parts made and sourcing other parts, as bearing kits for these old bikes just don't exist anymore as far as I know. The enduro rear end has bearings at each of the pivot points. I could have replaced these, but they looked ok, so instead I just opened them up and put some grease in all of them.
This bike is boring on the drivetrain, as it has fresh chainrings, chain, and cassette, but the old shifters and derailer. The front shock is a marzocchi bomber, and the wheels are WTB speed disk i23 set up tubeless with a Continental trail king 2.4 up front and a Hutchinson Taipan 2.1 on the rear. Clarke hydraulic disk brakes slow the thing down. I have it set up with the enduro link and shock, but also have a bighit link and larger shock that I will try. Overall this is a budget build compared to other examples in this thread, but still managed to freshen up an old ride.
Anyway, thanks to all for the inspiration. Below you can find a couple of pics.
Here is an pic of the backbone as it was original:
Here is a pic of the updated backbone:
Here is a pic of the enduro with the backbone rear triange
Here is a pic of the backbone rear triangle with the ball bearing
I been trying to find an Enduro rear triangle for a while now to do the same thing.
It took me awhile to find one and do a deal. There may be other options as it looks like much of the rear triangle looks similar on a couple of other models from that period, although the link might not be the one that you want. I liked the chainstay from the enduro, and since it already had the main pivot bearing in it, I decided to use it. Just visually inspecting the chainstays, I don't think that there would be any differences in function. Would be great to get a bigger tire in there. Right now it looks like there is a bit of clearance for a wider tire that I mounted, but I would be surprised if a 2.4 fit.
I managed to get my hands on one of the 4 way shock links but and even a Fox air shock. I just need the rest of the parts and probably an air fork as well.
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Originally Posted by airNwater
