And so the Legacy begins

In the absence of any project bikes, and despite my recent experience with bits falling off the P3 frame (must buy torque wrench). I decided to start work on my hybrid bike. Over the past couple of months I have been assembling a series of spares to overhaul the quite frankly knackered shifters and the aging drivechain parts. The experience of changing gears has reached the top end of tempermental. Which is to say the occasional inconvenience of forgetting your house keys as opposed to the Alzheimer memory loss.

This bike is a Ridgeback Adventure SX120 - bought back in the early 90's and still going strong. When it was relatively new there was an inadvertant upgrade of wheels and hubs which looks to have been a very positive move as they run as smooth as the day they were fitted. It will also allow me to fit a 9 speed to them taking the range for the cassette from its lowly to 7 and adding a bit of low climbing gears for my tired old legs.

In my previous round of parts purchasing I had picked up some Shimano LX mechs and although I had planned to put these on an MTB build, I have decided that these should be the basis of the equipment change. Should these second hand parts fail then I have the option of buying a new part that will slot into the system. As this is to be a workhorse bike I wanted all the parts to be of a decent level of mechanical soundness. Most LX parts are relatively cheap and the shifters were easily located at a low price due to discontinuation of the items. A 9 speed chain and an HG50 cassette make up the drivechain parts.

The brake levers were also a little tatty and quite frankly as the levers themselves are plastic, I decided that replacement with some Avid Juicy 7's was a nice touch. Finally to complete the comfort rating I am going to add some Ergo grips and a new saddle (the old ones have been on from new, and I'm sure I deserve it).

My first task will be to strip down the bike and clean, I will leave the cantilevers on the bike. I'm not sure I want to go as far as a bare frame rebuild, but when I look at the bike I may change my mind.

It costs how much?

I have just finished reading an article on "Bike Radar" about custom resprays. When I first started the rebuild project I did consider getting a professional paint job, but decided that the aim was really to get a cheap mountain bike on the hills, not a labour of love. If you remember, the paintwork on the frame was OK if alittle stone chipped. So to keep the additional damage to it down to a minimum, I did a quick and dirty cover up job. It would have been possible to just about do a strip and respray in the shed I have, but it would never have been clean, and besides the bike didn't need one.

At first glance the prices quoted in the article are really reasonable, and I would say I'd happily keep a specialist frame builder afloat with a respray. At £120 for stripping and £45 for one colour, its not too bad. I could have added extra cable guides and had a front mech and even fitted disc brake mountings to the frame. Bootstrap evolution would have occured on the old P3 as it's DNA was tweaked with small biochemical changes. Then I totalled it all up and the price came to close to £300, rather defeating the object of a cheap rebuild as I could get a decent hardtail for the final build and spray price with all new shiney components on. Even having a simple clean and respray adds significant costs to the project.


I can see the attraction, but I can also see the article writer's point that this is something you do for a one off frame or a frame to which you have some deep emotional attachment. I suspect if it is the latter you should probably stick the bike on the wall where you can see it everyday, because otherwise you may leave it in the shed and never appreciate it's beauty.