1991 Gt Karakoram Elite - Update on page 3

[drystonepaul]

Finally managed to get hold of some decent skinwall tyres for my Karakoram. I had been outbid on a couple of pairs of Farmer John's Cousins from the US and was beginning to give up hope.
Anyway, a pair of Farmer John's Nephew's turned up on the Bay last week with a £15 start price. So I put's in my one and only bid and promptly forgot all about them.
Turns out that I was the only bidder.
So here they are in their 'as new' glory, and I'm very happy to have only spent a third of the money I was prepared to spend, on a pair of tyres which suit this bike and the riding I do on it perfectly.

New pictures of a lovely little ride out on the first page.

( Now all I have left to do is sort out the torn saddle. )

 

[SeeingisBelievingGTMuseum]

Superb – glad to see another GT lover on the site. A suggestion, if you struggle to get the saddle re-covered take a look at the San Marco Regal C40 saddle. It's basically the same as the one fitted to the avalanche upwards at the beginning of the '90s – perfect replacement. Nice and comfy too.

Seeing this is making me want to get on with the resto of my '91 Karakoram (normal version, black with dark blue streaks). It needs quite a bit of work though.

I just picked up another of those Viscount/GT saddles NOS last week and they are getting tougher and tougher to find. The new Velo 1221 saddle is close too. It's a newer saddle targeted at Single speeders. Can be found on page 9 of the Velo 2010 OEM catalog at this link:
http://www.velosaddles.com/Velo_09.pdf

 

[BlackCat]

Karak.

Sickingly good condition - need to get on with my build! Everything stuffed in a box beneath the bed at the min

Nice ride..

 

[drystonepaul]

I've been asked about routing the rear brake cable on this bike so here's an excuse to put some more pictures up.

And so to begin with, if you're running the rear brake lever on your left hand then route it something like this from the bar to the cable hole on the top tube:

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Nice smooth curves to stop it rubbing on the paintwork too much:

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Thread the inner cable through the internal frame guide and it'll pop out of the hole at the other end.... :

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...underneath the top tube at the seat cluster. Note that 2mm cables do seem a bit easier to thread:

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Back at the front end the cable outer locates into the stop just inside the hole. This frame was designed for 2mm cables and they fit perfectly. You dont even need to fit ferrules if you make sure end of the outer is ground flat:

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Back at the rear end the inner cable goes directly to the cable straddle yoke:

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And then goes around the plastic frame guide and crosses over to meet the U-Brake:

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Lovely job!

 

[reanimation]

When I had my Tequesta I worried if the cables would go back through teh tube if ya took em out, sounds like they do. these GT frames were so innovative. I need one in my life again.

As mentioned about the stem, the whole frame, forks, stem matching combo is great but i prob mentioned before, its not good to crack yer knees on, and I remember these being quite weighty but bombproof.

 

[feetabix]

nice......getting hold of your first bike again is a great moment!!!.....last of the first run of photos(the one with the trees) is nice too!!

 

[otherself]

It's a nice set up. Those webbed paint schemes are awesome.

What size frame is it and how tall are you if you don't mind me asking?

 

[kaiser]

there is something uber retro about the old GT's lovin it

 

[drystonepaul]

What size frame is it and how tall are you if you don't mind me asking?

It's a 16" and I'm about 5' 11", so it's a tiny bit too small if I'm brutally honest with myself. I can gain comfort from the fact that 16" GT's tend to be a bit bigger than some other manufacturers.
I would normally go for an 18", however my Karakoram is still very nice to ride and very nice to look at.

 

[rustythesheriff]

just saw the picture of the farmer johns nephews, wow I had totally forgot about those, great bike nice one