rigidftw
Retro Guru
Good morning gentlemen,
despite being registered for 10 years I have not posted much at all. So I'd like to make up for it now.
I became interested in retro MTB's around 2009, when I was studying geology, delivered mail by bike and early 90's MTB stuff was plentiful and cheap to buy.
I went through quite a number of bikes and parts in a relatively short while but ultimately settled on the thought that old stuff just does not ride well. Despite that I always kept at least one old bike with the parts that seemed most desirable to me.
The first 'keeper' was this 1991 Bridgestone MB-1. I got it on February 2011 and put it through a number of iterations. This is how it looked right at the end.
I liked the look of the horizontal top tube and relative light weight of frame and fork. It was also cheap and repainted by a particular shop in Berlin.
It rode ok, but ultimately became too flexy, feeling like a wet noodle flopping down the trail, so I took off the parts, put them in a box, got rid of the rest and focussed on more modern bikes.
Around this time last year a guy on a very different forum gave away a 1993 Giant Cadex CFM1 frame with the original Giant box crown fork. I had a 1991 CFM2 at one point and regret selling it deeply. So I kindly asked whether I could give it a home.
It was fun, but the frame is just too big and it rode like a wooden gate.
Having established the niche for a rigid bike with bad brakes in my stable I now did not want to get rid of that sort of bike entirely. I wanted to replace the frame and fork with something nicer.
At the start of the year I became interested in Paul Brodie's YT videos and became a fan quite quickly. I knew he made some pretty nice bikes back in the 90's, so getting one of them for my collection of old parts would be great.
In May this year a friend told me that another friend would be selling some his stuff. So out of the blue I asked him whether he'd have a Brodie frame for sale.
To my amazement he did, but not without a fork. We agreed on a reasonable price and here it is:
The bike is finished by now and some might have seen it on FB, PB or that yellow German forum, but if it's ok with you I'd like to continue pretending it is not.
I'd like to share the process of building it, a bunch of pictures and some more info with you.
despite being registered for 10 years I have not posted much at all. So I'd like to make up for it now.
I became interested in retro MTB's around 2009, when I was studying geology, delivered mail by bike and early 90's MTB stuff was plentiful and cheap to buy.
I went through quite a number of bikes and parts in a relatively short while but ultimately settled on the thought that old stuff just does not ride well. Despite that I always kept at least one old bike with the parts that seemed most desirable to me.
The first 'keeper' was this 1991 Bridgestone MB-1. I got it on February 2011 and put it through a number of iterations. This is how it looked right at the end.
I liked the look of the horizontal top tube and relative light weight of frame and fork. It was also cheap and repainted by a particular shop in Berlin.
It rode ok, but ultimately became too flexy, feeling like a wet noodle flopping down the trail, so I took off the parts, put them in a box, got rid of the rest and focussed on more modern bikes.
Around this time last year a guy on a very different forum gave away a 1993 Giant Cadex CFM1 frame with the original Giant box crown fork. I had a 1991 CFM2 at one point and regret selling it deeply. So I kindly asked whether I could give it a home.
It was fun, but the frame is just too big and it rode like a wooden gate.
Having established the niche for a rigid bike with bad brakes in my stable I now did not want to get rid of that sort of bike entirely. I wanted to replace the frame and fork with something nicer.
At the start of the year I became interested in Paul Brodie's YT videos and became a fan quite quickly. I knew he made some pretty nice bikes back in the 90's, so getting one of them for my collection of old parts would be great.
In May this year a friend told me that another friend would be selling some his stuff. So out of the blue I asked him whether he'd have a Brodie frame for sale.
To my amazement he did, but not without a fork. We agreed on a reasonable price and here it is:
The bike is finished by now and some might have seen it on FB, PB or that yellow German forum, but if it's ok with you I'd like to continue pretending it is not.
I'd like to share the process of building it, a bunch of pictures and some more info with you.
