Working on a frame swap.
@OddJob gave me some inspiration this morning on this. His Gary Fisher build is amazing and I asked his opinion on my changeover.
It seems between the two of us we have a little Vintage MTB sub category going...
A couple years back I picked up one of the bikes I had tagged over the years as 'buy it' if you find it at a price you can afford. Will tell more on this bike and history as I get started with it.
1994 Proflex 554. 95% stock (missing stx crankset, tires, elastomer and grips)
Current condition: In the restore pile... I pulled the rear wheel off last night.
The plan:
Rebuild the fasttrax
Install and preload the new elastomer.
Clean off all the melted elastomer.
Lube anything that moves
Polish anything shiny
Add some personal touches to make it mine.
The start of the Story:
As some.of you know. I grew up in the Utah Mountains, in a small farming community. BmX was my mode of transportation, and I took the old Predator Everywhere. It was my Mountain bike before news of the mtb movement hit the area in the late 80s.
Getting married young, by the time 94 came along, I was a full time student, had a wife, a kid and one on the way, and a full time job at a local manufacturing plant. We were getting our first house and expenses were tight.
On campus, one of my friends rode up on this bright yellow ride with purple lettering. Rear suspension on the back. It was the first Proflex I had ever seen.
We were at the top of old main hill at Utah State, and he could see the drool... "Do you want to take it for a spin?" Was all I needed to hear.
As I stepped on the bike, he said to be careful, the suspension is nice but can be bouncy if seated when you hit a bump. I did a couple circles bouncing the bike front to back like mustang to get a good feel for it.
At that point, I surprised him by making an abrupt right, bunny hopping the curb and down the steepest part of the grass hill. About 30 yards down, I crossed the first walkway, and caught about 6 feet of air as I dropped the next 20 yards in the air, smoothly landing in time to catch the same walk way again.
The second hop, I put less into it, as I was 2/3 down the hill at this point and flying scary fast.
I angled the line to ride down the walkway the third time I crossed it, and started heading up the windy walkway.
The click shifters and gears shifted with ease and it was an easy climb. So, as I hit the stairway up the hill, I put in mid on front and low in back and went up the stairs with the bike. I was amazed at how easy shifting down and climbing was.
The bike,.as I have seen quoted elsewhere, climbs like a mountain goat. Hence the name swap, Old Goat.
Oh, that's the bike, not me (yet
)
There will be more to come.