Every now and then I have the pleasure of working on something really special. At the moment I'm assisting a friend with some minor restoration work on this beautiful 1986 Fat Chance Titanium. This is the first ever Fat Ti bike welded by Gary Helfrich before he left Fat Chance to start Merlin. Arguably, this is the first ever Titanium mountain bike, who knows. The geometry is identical to the Team Comp right down to the box crown fork. Gary built the bike to showcase what he could do in Titanium and when Chris said it wasn't something he was ready to do Gary left and started Merlin. The rest as they say is history.
Since the bike is in such good shape I'm merely assisting with some build details and component selection. As I mentioned the frame was welded up in 86, but the bike was assembled in 87. So, the parts are a bit of a mixed bag of M730 XT and some other bits. Planned changes include Specialized yellow label Ground Control tires, M730 XT front brakes, older Turbo or Avocet Racing seat, maybe black M730 cranks (doubt it though), some adjustment to housing lengths and a general tune up.
More pics to come when it's finished.
my holy grail... ;)
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