normally i won't touch coloured crank arms as i fear them becoming ugly with scratches and wearing. but these NOS pewter/gunmetal RF turbines i just couldn't resist picking up. probably paid too much for these, but they did come with a nice set of NOS Crank-o-matics as well!
will either use the other set of RFs to donate it's rings or perhaps go with a new set of matching pewter/gunmetal triple Pro chainrings from Canadian Blackspire company.
finally got a temporary fork sorted out to work how i want it to. thanks to mechagouki for supplying a spare Manitou crown and a long 1" steerer for what i wanted to do. only issue was the 1" steerer had a part of a quill stem stuck in it. took quite a bit of work but managed to get it out and salvage enough steerer length to use my RF Ti ahead stem.
was hoping for about 7" of steerer but i just couldn't bang out the quill even after soaking it with penetrating oil overnight as there was just too much stuck in there. so i decided to cut off the threaded section with a hacksaw, which was about 1.5" or so. even with that cut off, there was still quite a bit of quill left in it, but i managed to bang that out.
but when i re-assembled the fork i realized i ended up with about 6.5" of steerer. luckily it was enough, but it would have been nice to have raised the stem a tad higher, as it has no rise and the bars seem a bit low for comfort.