Update: quite a lot of faffing around and changing stuff out. Below is what the machine is looking like right now, which is approaching a settled configuration.
The forks have had the aftermarket v-brake mounts removed, as well as the stickers put on by the previous owner. Their inclusion rather elevates the general class of the bike, I think, and will probably improve its handling over previous options.
The Thomson stem I mentioned before has since been repurposed to service on the 99 Explosif, but I had this gold Tune item sitting idle -- a purchase in my early time on here from
@Magpiegifts which I got because . . . well . . . I'd never seen one and realised it wasn't expensive. I'm not a fan of gold but there it is -- and it doesn't look too bad with the red/cream frame. Also, as you'll see, being too fussy about colour coordination isn't going to work with this build and as it's a rider, that's going to have to be fine.
Similarly, the Middleburn cranks had to go because I couldn't locate the right bottom bracket in short order -- but luckily there happened to be a slightly scruffy XTR M970 crankset available on local Facebook Marketplace. Ebay yielded a 38t dropstop chainring, unfortunately only in blue, but see comments above about colour coordination. Red, cream, gold and blue . . . not the end of the world, right?
For a while I toyed with some second-hand Avid Ultimate disc brakes which had the requisite lightness and were in good nick. And they were both fully working, so no need to bleed them. But when I was tightening one of the levers up, the mount broke -- and I was hardly torquing it at all, I swear, your honour. With lightness comes fragility, I guess. So then I spent days messing around with super-hard putty to fix and reinforce the mount, but I wasn't happy with that and regretfully consigned them back to the spares box.
That meant reverting to the Hope Minis I have in the same box. These are tattier and need bleeding, if not new hoses. And the sharp-eyed will notice that my rotors are mismatched -- but that's what's available at the moment so on they go. The banjo on the front one is at a slightly odd angle so the hose is routed inside the fork. It's currently secured with unsightly zip ties so will need to find a better way once it's all up and running.
And of course, the rotor bolts are blue -- the choice was that or orange, so at least these match the chainring . . .
Next -- bleeding those brakes. I'm told Hopes are quite easy to bleed and I have most of the ingredients. Will update in due course.
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