Fork it

Change of plan, I had thought that getting a fork for the bike that was as good as or better than the Suntours lent to me by Uncle Riotous would be impossible for under £30. So imagine my surprise when I managed to bag a pair of Marzocchi MZ Comps for £21 on eBay. Now from what I understand about them they will not take any great hammering, but they are supposed to have 100mm of travel. They will do either as replacements for the Suntours on the P3 or on the Salcano. The process of fitting will be the same, and obviously I will need to fit the crown-race to either fork. Since I planned to add a very cheap pair of forks to the Salcano I think I should return the Suntours to Uncle Riotous who had planned on fitting them to his son's rigid frame, before he loaned them to me as an emergency replacement.

I think experience has shown that the Salcano is not capable of taking much more than the occasional drop and so over expensive forks are just a waste of money. I really don't want to spend a lot on getting a bike which will be used for family cross country rides up and running. Perhaps the best option is to now save like mad and get some bigger forks for the P3 and then transfer back.

Now though, I have the bike building bug. I am already planning on the next rebuild. Should Santa be kind and allow me to buy a good touring bike to replace my hybrid city bike, I may change it to a fixed wheel, now that would be an adventure into the unknown. My first bike was my grandad's bike which was a fixed wheel with a Sturmley archer hub. I resprayed it and cleaned up the gears, but I can remember nothing more of restoring the bike. It was great fun, it survived a side on impact by an inattentive driver, as did I. Then some git stole it! I ask you it wasn't as if it was expensive even in the 1980s. Then of course there is getting a full-suspension MTB and then there will need to be a full racer and then...........