Over the last week, I have cabled-up the Avalanche, new cables and cable covers obviously. It's only taken a month, but I wanted to get to the point where I could ride the bike to see if I liked it. I have a 16" 92 Karakoram I ride regularly and love. It reminds me a bit of the BMX's I used to ride when I was a kid, size-wise anyway....kinda. The Avalanche is an 18inch. I guess my ideal bike size is a 17inch, so I'm SOL as far as GT is concerned
. I have a medium modern GT Pantera 27.5 which is huge, how would the Avalanche handle?
I Fiddled around with the back wheel for ages, I stupidly forgot to record the order of spacers and nuts, but eventually found it through trial and error. The original derailleur has needed a lot of fiddling to get it to work right, not helped by the new cables. The front derailleur works fine, but I spent 3 or 4 hours trying to get the sifter to work, It's heavily corroded and despite my best efforts (It works for a bit then fails) It's gonna need replacing. So I have a 1x7 for the moment - but it is rideable!
So armed with a pocket allan key set and a screw driver, I took it on it's first post-rebuild ride (Probably it's first ride in a decade), just around the block...
It was great, but immediately felt loads of things that needed adjusting. plus the granny chainring kept slipping, the combination of the new chain and the worn teeth was not good. So back to base a few adjustments and a swap out of the chainring.
Then, back out for a proper 10km ride in the park. It was dark by this point so had to use my front light to illuminate it!!
It is such a nice bike to ride. Even with junker Hubs (They were seized, Finish Line Ceramic grease is a wonder!!) I know it's a race bike. But for my size it feels more like a tourer if that makes sense. I love it.
So what's next? Well phase two.I'll get a new shifter so hopefully can get all 21 gears working. After that I've managed to source a pair of NOS front and back original Hubs (M730) still sealed in their original packaging, so I'll be rebuilding the wheels. But that's a job for later in the summer, gonna continue enjoying riding this for now!!