Thursday, February 23, 2012

The question of NOS...

So, I've spent a fair amount of time thinking about what to do with my new bounty of NOS parts. At this point, I am no closer to figuring it out than I was when I originally found them. I mean, what do you do with this stuff??? 



One option is to build a bike with them and ride it. But it seems sort of silly to use brand new, boxed parts when so many good condition, fully functional alternatives are available. A bike built with NOS parts would be shedding dollar bills with every stroke of the crank, why bother? On the other hand you can just keep it, and then what? Display it? Save (hoard it) for future projects, for that one special museum bike that you hope to find someday???



Once upon a time it was easy to find these things. I remember back in the early 2000s when I could drive up and down the east coast, visiting local bike shops with shelves upon shelves of old XC-PRO they couldn't give away. Now, it's a little bit harder. They're still out there, you can find bits and pieces sitting on eBay or some online forums, but it's sporadic. At some point in time, we'll reach a place where there are only a few people that have some stashed away and that will be that. No mas!


For me, I'm right back to where I started. I have this stuff, more than I need, but I am unsure what to do with it. It's only new once, you can't build a bike, ride it and then take it apart and put the parts back into their boxes and call them new. So, their value is only retained while they stay in their boxes, unused. But, somehow that seems to defeat the purpose.



So, with a few exception of parts I know I won't ever use, the rest will cataloged and safely stored away until I can figure out what to do with all of them.

Sunday, February 19, 2012

Klein Attitude Storm fuselage complete

Finally got around to pressing the fork into the frameset to start getting the bike built up. Not sure where I'm going to go with this yet. Ideally I'd build it with Shimano M737 XT, but I don't have any. I suppose M900/M910 XTR would be great as well... we'll see.














The paintwork is excellent, the attention to detail amazing! I am really impressed with Jon's work and am looking forward to the 2nd bike he's doing for me.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

I need NOS...

To borrow the famous quote of one of my generation's best actors "I need NOS." Well, let's see what the delivery man brought me today...


It was a long time in the making, but I was finally able to secure a very nice cache of vintage NOS Suntour XC-PRO and Shimano XT parts for use on some of my builds.












The kit consist of partially complete XC-PRO MD and non-MD gruppos, with a bunch of various spares, probably enough to complete 3-4 bikes.

















Similar deal with the XT parts (another 2 full NOS take off grouppos not shown), so probably enough for 4-5 bikes.

I definitely have some inventory work to do, and start looking into some safe storage space to ensure that these parts don't get damaged. Thank you Ed for making this happen, I look forward to going through all of this bounty and figuring out what to do with it all...

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

1988 Fat Chance Wicked

Just thought I'd throw up a quick set of pics of the 88 Wicked before I box it up for it's overseas voyage. This was a fun bike to work on, and ride around for a little while. Los Angeles was definitely the place for it, as evidenced by the number of "You must be a Laker's fan" comments I received when riding it around town (for the record I'm not).
 
 
 
 
The bike was in pretty good shape, and just needed a few things done to it. I installed new BB bearings, overhauled the headset, replaced cables and housings, put on some old school tires and a gave it a general tune up. Although it didn't hurt the performance in any way the shifters, brakes, brake levers, cranks were all really ratty so I freshened them up a bit here and there. Otherwise the old girl was in tip top shape, a real testament to the old adage "They don't build them like they used to."






These two-tone Wickeds (as well as other unusual colors) are getting harder and harder to come by, (especially in good condition) so it's nice to see this one going to a good home. Hopefully it'll see some singletrack in the near future and not be relegated to another 10 years as a garage queen.