Thanks again for all of your kind words. Ive not been near a proper PC for a few days - restricted to iPhone!
Lots of you asked about the origins of this bike and comparisons have been drawn to Ameybrooks BoTY winning C26. As I said, this project took three years to complete with the help of lots of the VRC community in the UK and USA - especially Ameybrook.
So the story is this. Whilst Ameybrooks frame was being built by Chris Herting (along with another frame that is now in mainland Europe), Mike (Ameybrook) contacted me with news of another Easton C9 tubeset and would I want it? I didn't have to ask a price I just agreed to pay whatever the seller wanted. At this time I didn't know if Chris would agree to build another frame and knew the lead time on his work is long....
With the tubes secured, I asked Chris if he'd build it. His reply was along the lines of "sure so long as you pay and are prepared to wait". Having dismissed using my own 20" FRO Frame I set about finding a donor bike.A good few months later this came up for sale here on Retrobike:
And so a deal was done and a long wait commenced.
Nearly two years and I got word that my frame was done:
Roll on another 9 months and I finally finished the build to a point where I'm at peace with it. It now hangs on my study wall frustrating me that it's too small (and I'm too fat) to ride it!