Most recent activity
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Cheers! Yep, all just for fun, I just enjoy putting things together really. Having said that, this Merida has been sat in the shed for ages. It's always good when the enthusiasm hits and I'm enjoying hunting out bits and spending a bit more time on this one.
Getting stuck in with budget/quality but ratty/4th hand bits is great too.
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Plans for the Merida are starting to form. The paint is very ratty, tempted to either leave as is with lots of wax or fully strip and powder coat. The Hooger Booger will be the main donor but I picked up a 90s Scott this afternoon too, which has a decent haul of lovely grey XTR M950 bits.
It's got XTR Fr and Rr derailleurs (Rr needs new jockey wheels and will most likely go on the Tricross), XTR triple with a reasonable BB (preliminary research indicates that Garbaruk do a direct mount single ring, which would replace the integrated triple spider), and the wheels are XTR hubs with 26" Mavic 217 Ceramic rims. Frame is way too small for me, so along with a few other bits from it, will get sold on. Sadly the green Michelin tyres are well past it..
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Really enjoying using the cycletruck around town, it's getting ridden almost daily at the moment and the Bob Yak was a great borrow. Think I found the limit weight wise yesterday, with a week's worth of shopping, 4 bags of cat litter and 80 pouches of cat food. It was very squirmy and snakey!
Starting to get ideas for the next project, involving using most of the bits from the Hooger Booger and a late 90's (?) Merida Dakar frame. Preliminary thoughts are lots of brazed bosses, a dyno hub, the silver moto bars, and another bright paint colour - yellow maybe?
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Thanks both! All finished up now, managed to miss the cross race yesterday but going again next week.
Really happy with how it's turned out, and the fresh cables and chain etc have got it riding nice and smoothly again. I've dropped the stem as far as it'll go and it's still plenty comfortable. Slick GKs, guards and dyno lights are waiting to go back on next month.
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Thanks! It's nice to bring some fresh enthusiasm and life to an old bike. Worked out that it's the frame I've ridden the most miles on of any I've had, I've got a soft spot for it.
The light's a bit poor for photos but I've got all the bits on it this evening, minus cables, chain and final adjustments.
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Managed to get rid of the Specialized Mindset headset too. Previously it was poor quality caged bearings that sat in integrated cups in the frame, with additional races that sat on the crown race and beneath the split ring at the top. After lots of googling and a but of guessing it turns out you can ditch the caged bearings and extra races and just drop two Cane Creek sealed 1 1/8th cartridge bearings straight into the frame. It does need an additional 2mm 1 1/8 spacer above the top split ring, but under the headset cover, as the top cup is quite deep and the bearing is recessed. All successfully sorted.
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Build time! Put the hardware back on the frame at lunch and hopefully will get a good chunk of the rest of the build done this evening. Cabling and chain can wait. Need to swap the tyres for some knobblies too.
Really happy with how it's turned out, it's not perfect but it's my winter road bike and it'll be getting ridden around a muddy field in a few days, so I'm not going to be too precious about it. It's got a Tester low profile top cover so I've gained another 20mm drop potential at the front. Realised I've stuck the Specialized text on back to front so it's not readable from the driveside, oh well.
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Both the Marin and the Minerva are brilliant, great details!
Love them all! Disappointed I couldn't make it up. Have you got any more pics of the tall bike?