I know better than to do this. But I did it anyway. And now I'm wondering what I was thinking. This is one of those bad examples that everyone can learn from?
Back in the late '80s I took a trip out to Aspen to visit a friend. Of course I brought my mountain bike along with me... I've forgotten which one it, but while there I decided it was too big for me to be doing that kind of riding. When I got home, I sold it and bought a 1988 Rock Hopper Comp from the shop I worked at. It was smaller, in prep for the next time I went out west.
But I never went out west again. At some point I set it up for around town riding but got the feeling it was too small for that sort of thing. Which branched into me thinking it was in general just too small.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago. I'm looking through ads and stumble onto one for a 1988 Rock Hopper Comp. Same color as mine but one size larger. The wheels started turning. Long story short I went and looked at the bike, made an offer for a lot less than he was originally asking... and still more than I thought it should be, but come on! It's an '88 Rock Hopper Comp! In the right colors and everything!
I paid him the money and took it home.
The more I looked at this thing the more stuff I saw wrong with it, but whatever. I really only needed the frame and fork when it came right down to it. It's the one in the stand.
The guy told me it shifted like butter. Yeah, maybe, at some point. but not recently.
He mentioned it had a little rust because it had been stored outside... yeah, I saw that too. Nothing terminal though.
He said the brake was disconnected because he was trying to fix the rear flat. But it still had a leak. When I tore into that I noticed it had no rim strip, but there was a bigger issue. Yeah, that's where the valve stem used to be.
In the ad photos it had a trashed rear tire, but now it had what looked to be a new one, so, whatever. I'd rather replace a tube than a tire anyway.
The rear wheel was bent but I thought maybe I could make it good enough for use somewhere else. I only needed the frame, right? I did some caveman engineering that I posted in my Typhoon build thread to straighten it out, but as I was checking the offset I found the numbers I got on the truing stand didn't match what I saw when I dropped it into the frame for a reality check. It was way off looking at the seat stays. But it looked good going by the chain stays? Oh oh...
The righthand side seat stay.
The lefthand side seat stay
Houston, we have a problem. Again not terminal, but at this point I had to admit this thing was trashed and not worthy of the plans I had for it. I had already stolen some parts off it to use on my Typhoon, but the frame wasn't good enough to pull parts off my original Rock Hopper to rebuild. Nope. At this point it became the basis for a rat bike MTB with upright bars.
My goal now is to get it back together as a rideable bike for as little money as possible. I tossed a few things on it that were sitting around here and now it looks like this.
I'm not sure what I'll do for a bottom bracket and crank - I'm thinking of redoing the Typhoon so maybe it'll get it's original parts back. The front derailleur won't be going back on. The front brake went to the Typhoon and was replaced with a linear pull brake I had bought for another bike but it didn't fit. The tires are old ones from a previous version of my other Rock Hopper. When I was changing the front tire I noticed the front and rear rims don't match. They look pretty close but have a different construction. The stem and bars went to the Typhoon also, this now has the original stem off my Rock Hopper and the bars off my Sanctuary 7.
Oh, and this thing is too big for me to be riding off road. Which means the smaller bike wasn't a mistake to begin with.
So let's sum it up - I spent about three times as much as I should have on a bike that had issues I should have spotted from ten feet away, and my reasoning for buying it in the first place wasn't even all that solid.
Sheesh. Let's hope I learned something since now I'm searching for an old 3 speed... I need to be a little moe discriminating with these things!
Back in the late '80s I took a trip out to Aspen to visit a friend. Of course I brought my mountain bike along with me... I've forgotten which one it, but while there I decided it was too big for me to be doing that kind of riding. When I got home, I sold it and bought a 1988 Rock Hopper Comp from the shop I worked at. It was smaller, in prep for the next time I went out west.
But I never went out west again. At some point I set it up for around town riding but got the feeling it was too small for that sort of thing. Which branched into me thinking it was in general just too small.
Flash forward to a few weeks ago. I'm looking through ads and stumble onto one for a 1988 Rock Hopper Comp. Same color as mine but one size larger. The wheels started turning. Long story short I went and looked at the bike, made an offer for a lot less than he was originally asking... and still more than I thought it should be, but come on! It's an '88 Rock Hopper Comp! In the right colors and everything!
I paid him the money and took it home.
The more I looked at this thing the more stuff I saw wrong with it, but whatever. I really only needed the frame and fork when it came right down to it. It's the one in the stand.
The guy told me it shifted like butter. Yeah, maybe, at some point. but not recently.
He mentioned it had a little rust because it had been stored outside... yeah, I saw that too. Nothing terminal though.
He said the brake was disconnected because he was trying to fix the rear flat. But it still had a leak. When I tore into that I noticed it had no rim strip, but there was a bigger issue. Yeah, that's where the valve stem used to be.
In the ad photos it had a trashed rear tire, but now it had what looked to be a new one, so, whatever. I'd rather replace a tube than a tire anyway.
The rear wheel was bent but I thought maybe I could make it good enough for use somewhere else. I only needed the frame, right? I did some caveman engineering that I posted in my Typhoon build thread to straighten it out, but as I was checking the offset I found the numbers I got on the truing stand didn't match what I saw when I dropped it into the frame for a reality check. It was way off looking at the seat stays. But it looked good going by the chain stays? Oh oh...
The righthand side seat stay.
The lefthand side seat stay
Houston, we have a problem. Again not terminal, but at this point I had to admit this thing was trashed and not worthy of the plans I had for it. I had already stolen some parts off it to use on my Typhoon, but the frame wasn't good enough to pull parts off my original Rock Hopper to rebuild. Nope. At this point it became the basis for a rat bike MTB with upright bars.
My goal now is to get it back together as a rideable bike for as little money as possible. I tossed a few things on it that were sitting around here and now it looks like this.
I'm not sure what I'll do for a bottom bracket and crank - I'm thinking of redoing the Typhoon so maybe it'll get it's original parts back. The front derailleur won't be going back on. The front brake went to the Typhoon and was replaced with a linear pull brake I had bought for another bike but it didn't fit. The tires are old ones from a previous version of my other Rock Hopper. When I was changing the front tire I noticed the front and rear rims don't match. They look pretty close but have a different construction. The stem and bars went to the Typhoon also, this now has the original stem off my Rock Hopper and the bars off my Sanctuary 7.
Oh, and this thing is too big for me to be riding off road. Which means the smaller bike wasn't a mistake to begin with.
So let's sum it up - I spent about three times as much as I should have on a bike that had issues I should have spotted from ten feet away, and my reasoning for buying it in the first place wasn't even all that solid.
Sheesh. Let's hope I learned something since now I'm searching for an old 3 speed... I need to be a little moe discriminating with these things!
