Hi all, I haven't posted on here for a while (although I have looked in now and again), so I thought that I'd reintroduce myself with a few shots of my current ride. Times have changed and what I present here today is a generic Taiwanese alloy frame and alloy forks with the parts I've cobbled together from past bikes that have long since gone.



This is a work in progress. I'm slowly removing the redundant features from the frame with the eventual aim of getting it re painted either matt black or the bright blue colour that Cotic and Marin are using on their current frames. So far I've removed the cable boss from the seat tube as I don't run a front mech, and filled the bottle cage mounts as well. I've removed one of the V brake mounts from the seat stay and modified the other to act as a hose guide for the disk brakes. All of this hacksaw work has meant that I've had to remove all of the paint from the seat tube and the seat stays, and I have given them a brushed finish until I can get the frame painted.



Having no front mech means I'm fully committed to running a 1x9 set up. Currently this is a hybrid SRAM / DuraAce/ XT 11-32 cassette driven with an XTR M960 rear mech, an FSA 9 spd chain, shifted by a DuraAce 10spd thumb shifter. I'll move up to a 10 spd cassette when the current one dies, maybe tweaking the gear range a little.



Up front I have a Truvativ Stylo GXP triple chainset with a single Specialites TA 42 outer chain ring in the middle position. I had to modify the arms of the chain ring to get it to fit properly. It's held on there with FSA alloy chain ring bolts and some alloy washers. I've also removed the tabs for the inner granny ring with my trusty hacksaw. A Superstar Components guide keeps the chain in place.



The brakes are Avid Juicy Fives with Hope 180 / 160 rotors, all tuned with ti bolts. The wheels are Specialized Roval XC Controle Race with an Eskar 2.3 up front and a Fast Trak LK 2.0 on the rear, both run tubeless. A Thomson Elite seat post holds a battered Specialized Toupe Team saddle. It doesn't look very comfortable but it is, surprisingly. And finally, a cheap stem holds Bontrager carbon bars with Titec Pork Rinds grips. Oh and an Extralite head set make the forks spin.

All in this lot weighs around 9.8kg, depending on how the scales are feeling at the time. Not very weight weenie I know, but I think there is potential to lose some weight here and there. The ride is pretty good even with the rigid fork. You get used to it. The big tyre up front helps. I don't really feel the need for suspension forks, even when I venture off road. And that's it for now. I'll post updates as and when they happen. Thank you for your attention.

Thats actually a pretty bad-a** looking rig you have there, and exactly what I would do if I were going to build an off road machine.

Keep us posted, as I think anodizing that frame black would look the dogs!



p.s. get to mudding that drywall!!

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2012 Fuji Altamira SE - 6.42kg

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I like the bare bones utilitarian approach to this build. Looks fun.

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Trek 5500 - 13.75lbs on a $1400 Budget
20 gram 1x10 chain guide

Cool, I love such projects. BTW, what's that fork?

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And if I ever meet an aardvark, I'm going to step on its damn protruding nasal implement until it couldn't suck up an insect if its life depended on it.

@btompkins0112
@2002maniac
@Timo

Thanks for your replies, guys.

I just want to keep the build simple, and as I'm not working with much money that's just as well.

Yeah, the drywall is on the list of things to do, about number 376.

The alloy forks I got cheap on eBay, branded by eXotic I think. They're 42.5cm axle to crown, I didn't want to get forks that would be too long for the frame. Carbon would have been better but they were more expensive.

Cheers, colinmack.

Colin,

This build has seriously inspired me to do a summertime single-speed mtn build.......I am looking at a Nashbar aluminum frame and fork......should re-badge this thread as a rigid build thread......

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2012 Fuji Altamira SE - 6.42kg

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=111416" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

@btompkins0112

Wow, me, an inspiration, that's a first. Good luck with the build, that Nashbar mtn frame looks to have been born in the same factory as mine. I wish I had the fitness to ride a single speed.

Cheers, colinmack.

This frame is a old dirty-jo frame. Crc have them for sale. It has a review of 4.5 out of five which led me to buy my own. Mines a gloss metallic ice blue colour and comes in at 1.8ish kg i think.

@JackL

I got mine from CRC as well, nice and cheap. I also read the reviews and thought that it looked a decent if older style frame for not a lot of money, which I could use / abuse without worrying too much about it. It's given me the opportunity to try my hand at modifying things to suit my needs, something that I haven't really tried before.

Yes, well built frame at a bargain price. Mine is currently at the lbs having a full break and gear overhaul aswell as bb and headset fitting. I will post some pics when I get it back. How did you manage to get the rear brake cable through the top tube? Did you drill them out or cut them off completely? Mine looks a bit of a mess as I drilled mine out then made the hole bigger with a pair of pliers, then bent the bit of metal back over it to fasten.....along with a few zip-ties it looks like a right mess! congrats anyway on the rear v brake mounts too! Wish i could do the same

As you know the guides that run along the top tube don't accept brake hoses, so as I only have one gear cable to worry about I could modify one of the others.

I cut a section off with my hacksaw and filed the rest away until the hose fitted in there. I got a pair of Shimano Deore hose clips from CRC which I used in the middle guide to securely hold the hose in place. I could have just put the clips in the outer guide and not bothered to do any modifications but I wanted it to look a bit sleeker. Anyway, a bit of rubbing down with some sandpaper and ta dah!


The V brake mount was done largely the same way. I already had a blanking bolt and a hose guide available, but it made the hose stick out along the side of the seat stay too much. I wanted it to run along the centre a bit more. So I cut off what I didn't want of the mount, then cut a v-shape which I filed it until the hose sat in there nicely. I fashioned the clip to hold the hose in place from the old hose guide. While I had the files and sandpaper out I smoothed the welds to make it look a bit tidier. Admittedly I did cut a bit more off of the mount than I had meant to, hence the rubber washer, but it hasn't been a problem. It works well and doesn't look too shabby an effort for a complete amateur at this sort of thing.

I recognize that frame! It's sold under many names, Brand-X amongst others (which is what I bought it as). I had some similar fun with mine, cut off the disc-brake tabs, smoothed out ALL the welding with file and sandpaper, cut off all the shift/brake housing tabs and drilled the frame for internal shift/brake housing. Also did a 'Klein'-inspired paintjob, no clearcoat on this pic though...



Just as some inspiration, as it's the exact same frame as yours

Nice build btw!

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Roadbike
Kinesis RaceLight T2

Mountainbike
Van Nicholas Zion Ti

@DMF

Thanks for your comments. I like what you've done with your frame. It must have taken you a while to smooth all of the welds down, especially around the BB area. Good colour choice too. I don't think I'd have the patience to do the same to mine.

Cheers, colinmack.

Bit of an update here, I've decided to have a go at painting the frame myself. So I stripped most of the old paint off of the rear end of the frame and polished it up. The front end I've painted satin black with rattle can car paint. The results are pretty good really, it's not perfect by any means but for a first attempt at spray painting I don't think it looks too bad.




The transition from paint to bare metal meant that I had to add something along the edge of the paint to stop it chipping off, hence the red stripes, which are strips cut off of a car stripe decal that I bought when I got the black paint. I'm not sure about them at the moment, one has to stay there but I might remove the other two.



Stripping the paint and polishing up the alloy took an age, and the worlds supply of sandpaper! I stopped at 1500 grit paper, but I'll probably go over it again with some finer grit paper at some stage.



After all of that it's still no lighter, but I think it looks better than it did originally.

Cheers, colinmack