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...........

One wheel on my wagon

Holiday has put rather a crimp on buying bike parts and so has the monetary realities of being halfway through the month. Luckily it was my birthday so I have some cash with which to indulge this new hobby and buffer me against the latest purchases. I returned to the world of internet (mountainous regions do not have a good record for mobile signals) to find a crankset with bottom bracket and chain box unbid for. Perhaps due to the slightly high starting price, but when you totalled it up there was some wriggle room for a bidding war, you just weren't going to get an absolute bargain. The pics looked good and the bash guard looked pristine so in the last hour a bid was placed and bingo the whole lot for £50 as opposed to about £80 to buy separately.

Then there was the surprise purchase of a pair of wheels for £40 with an 8 speed cassette. OK so it's not my final destination, but the hub will accept a 9 speed cassette, so we are up one there. Plus the hubs are Deore LX which is a big step up and I suspect the rims will be slightly better than the budget ones I currently use.

So aside from a 9 speed cassette to get we are ready to load the bike with parts. In otherwords the fun really begins as I attempt to fit a style of bottom bracket I have never used before, align mech hangers and replace threadless headset forks (also a new horizon). I will be using my trusty Zinn as a guide and relying on Uncle Riotous' practical knowledge to get over edge of this horizon. Hopefully, a day or so of work and we should be out riding the trails.

Parts buying

Right we are almost upto date - the previous sections cover the last month, and in that time I have not been quiet on the sourcing some second hand or cheap parts. A pair of SRAM X.7 shifters of which I now only need one now from ebay. Along with some sale front and rear mechs SRAM X.7 and sale XT Brake arms from Chainreactioncycles.com. Then there are the front and rear Deore SL mechs I bought off ebay and then decided to divert these to a new project (my hybrid). So far no luck on bidding for new wheel/s for a 9+ speed and I realise that the current hub may take a 9 speed cassette as a result of its relative youth. It was clearly a bike put together with the cheapest parts to retail at the highest sales value before the buyer realised they were ripped off (sorry G but you said it). So I need to get it to Professor Riotous for an assessment as I have never seen a hub that accepts 9 compared with one that accepts 7 speed cassettes. Oh and I have double stocked on cables as well.

Current ebay pursuit is a Truvativ Hussefelt Cranks with Chain Guide, handily in Whyteleaf, various potential front forks (including a Z5) and an XT rear mech. I have as a result of being forced into a single chainset decided to try and return the bike to its original setup as much as possible.