So a little background about the bike: In its early days it had a Litespeed Titanium fork fitted which turned out to be terrible off road. It was replaced by a Rock Shock Judy XC. It also had Grafton Speedcontrollers mounted for some time. These were super noisy and couldn't be silenced and got replaced by Magura hydraulic breaks. It's the second set of Syncros cranks on this bike. I managed to break the first set in a jump. Kindly replaced on warranty. The seat post used to be a Syncros Propost 2nd gen clamp. It broke whilst going downhill somewhere in the beautiful Austrian mountains. I had to continue without a saddle and - many stops later
- eventually found a bike shop and got the Richie. The rims also got destroyed a couple of times.
The plan is to refurbish the frame, remove what's left of existing stickers and apply replacement stickers. I got a set of original decals that Merlin sent on request to owners. Everything else will stay if still in decent shape except:
The seat post should be a Syncros Propost again. Looking for a 3rd generation, 27.2 mm.
I would love to replace the Rock Shock fork by a Marzocchi Bomber Z1. Superior suspension tech, no elastomeres, more travel, from the same decade.
The 0 degree stem will potentially be replaced by a 15 degree Syncros Cattleprod, depending on if and how the Marzocchi changes the handle bar position. The 0 degree looked cool but is simply too uncomfy for Alpine touring.