1999 Specialized Rockhopper FS Comp

[sherlylock]

Bought this box of bits from my work colleague who had decommissioned the bike a few years ago in favour of a frame suitable for disc brakes. He mentioned selling it a few times but I'd never been too interested until recently when me and a few mates arranged to go for an off-road jaunt in Thetford forest. My bike is road-orientated so this seemed like a good opportunity to buy another bike......

This box of bits turned up at work and with 2 weeks until we'd planned to ride I set about sourcing the bits and pieces I needed to get it trail-worthy again.....

 

[coomber]

I love these frames, looking forward to updates.

What size is that? 18"?

 

[bikesnoopy]

What size is that? 18"?

Looks bigger than that - id say it was a 19".
Specialized always used to measure their frames from BB centre to a point midway along the crossbar, not up the seat tube like most manufacturers, so this always made the frame sizes seem slightly larger than most frames of the same "inch size".
Dont know if they still measure them in this way?

 

[Augustus]

always thought that 'grabber green' was a good colour.

 

[swos]

Nice looking bike and love that green colour

 

[sherlylock]

I must admit when he brought the bike in for me to look at it was the colour that instantly made me want to put it all back together and get it working again.....

Apparently it is a 19" frame although I haven't measured it - it seems to fit OK so I've not felt the need. Didn't realise Specialized measure their bikes in a different way though.

My work colleague came up trumps in finding as many of the old bits as possible.....even down to the original rear tyre and the original QR skewers....

The bits I had to source via bike shops/eBay and a few bits "borrowed" from my old road bike were:

shifters (ebay - secondhand)
rear wheel (borrowed - old bike)
9sp cassette (ebay - new)
rear mech (ebay - secondhand)
crankset (borrowed - old bike)
front tyre (from the spares box)
gear cables (new - bike shop)
brake block inserts (new - bike shop)
chain (new - ebay)
pedals (new - donated by a friend)
new headset crown race (for the forks) - apparently the headset had been changed at the same time as the forks were upgraded...hence the crown race on the forks matched the original headset and not the Cane Creek S2 fitted to the bike.

The last item caused a little confusion - I ordered what I thought was the right part but when it turned up it was to fit a 1" headset. SJS cycles were good enough to contact Cane Creek who told them that they don't do the S2 headset in 1 1/8" - after some email tennis and photos they managed to find out which crown race should actually fit my headset......all credit to them for being so helpful!

 

[sherlylock]

All the bits that I'd ordered turned up in plenty of time and I managed to complete the assembly of the bike in time for our trip to Thetford forest to have a go at the so-called black route.

Here's the bike cleaned up, taken on the seafront on the way home from work.....


rockhopper by sherlylock, on Flickr


rockhopper by sherlylock, on Flickr

 

[swos]

Looks really nice fully built

 

[Reluctant]

It's beautiful - nice work

 

[superstu]

Great build, good job