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I'm sure many of you will know what I mean when I say my retro mojo had been lost for a while. In fighting on here, a general lack of time to ever get out on a bike, two house moves in quick succession....so when this came up on here, karma if collected, and it was local...I chose to ignore it for a while! 
In truth I had hardly been on the site, so I kind of felt it was meant to be that I owned it as it had appeared in one of my very few forum visits. Thanks beyond words to Jason (Cookie Monster) for his quiet generosity and enthusiasm that it should go to a good home. In truth, it's a little too big for me, but as I'll only be really using it for rides out on the level and the local canal path, I'm choosing to ignore the size. (Actually with the typical Spesh short top tube and bearing in mind the way they sized bikes back then...I remember my first ever MTB, a Dawes Jackal, was probably a lot bigger than this!)
I love this bike. It rides like an absolute dream, quiet and very steady, no twitchy head angles here! Can't get over the fact it's a 30 year old bike. The first pic is as Jason got the bike when he first had it, when I picked it up very little was changed. The rear mech and a couple of other bits were out of sync with the era so I changed them but didn't worry about authenticity! Today I happened across the saddle and blue chain ring at the local cycle charity/recycle place, so had to have them! The tyres were perishing on the side walls so I put my spare Conti's on, cut down a spare seat post to fit, fiddled for hours with the front brake (see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=386138 ), by comparison putting a longer cable on the back U brake was a doddle! Had to accommodate the new higher rise bars so that meant lengthening cable inner/outers. But the headset and BB etc were all freshly greased and pretty damn near spot on.
Over time, it needs better pedals and probably a better rear wheel. The original one is fine but very heavy, the front I swapped out for an XT on F519 I had lying around...so, not exactly a beautiful authentic '88 restoration, but a fun hack, and I've got my mojo back
I'd forgotten, by the way, how, erm....spoiled I'd been for the last 20 years by the efficiency of V brakes.
In truth I had hardly been on the site, so I kind of felt it was meant to be that I owned it as it had appeared in one of my very few forum visits. Thanks beyond words to Jason (Cookie Monster) for his quiet generosity and enthusiasm that it should go to a good home. In truth, it's a little too big for me, but as I'll only be really using it for rides out on the level and the local canal path, I'm choosing to ignore the size. (Actually with the typical Spesh short top tube and bearing in mind the way they sized bikes back then...I remember my first ever MTB, a Dawes Jackal, was probably a lot bigger than this!)
I love this bike. It rides like an absolute dream, quiet and very steady, no twitchy head angles here! Can't get over the fact it's a 30 year old bike. The first pic is as Jason got the bike when he first had it, when I picked it up very little was changed. The rear mech and a couple of other bits were out of sync with the era so I changed them but didn't worry about authenticity! Today I happened across the saddle and blue chain ring at the local cycle charity/recycle place, so had to have them! The tyres were perishing on the side walls so I put my spare Conti's on, cut down a spare seat post to fit, fiddled for hours with the front brake (see viewtopic.php?f=1&t=386138
), by comparison putting a longer cable on the back U brake was a doddle! Had to accommodate the new higher rise bars so that meant lengthening cable inner/outers. But the headset and BB etc were all freshly greased and pretty damn near spot on.Over time, it needs better pedals and probably a better rear wheel. The original one is fine but very heavy, the front I swapped out for an XT on F519 I had lying around...so, not exactly a beautiful authentic '88 restoration, but a fun hack, and I've got my mojo back
I'd forgotten, by the way, how, erm....spoiled I'd been for the last 20 years by the efficiency of V brakes.
