2007 Orange Clockwork, number 200 of 200, update 11/4/13

[jonnyboy666]

i thought it was about time i did a thread on this bike, out of all my bikes it is my main rider and i love it. some who know me may say it's a little small for me but i am lucky that i can fit both the 17.5 and the 19. when i originally bought this frame i chose the 17.5 because i already had a racebike and i knew i was gonna build this as a day ride bike so i wanted a little more stand over height for riding in places like wales (at this point i didn't have a full suss for wales). after a while i decided to sell the race bike frame so almost all of the higher end kit went on this frame and since then it has become my favourite bike.

the feel of the steel is awesome, just the right amount of give, the handling is superb with 100mm fork upfront. spec wise it's king headset, rockshox reba world cup forks, hope hubs/brakes/bottom bracket, race face dues chainset/bar/stem/post, with mavic 517 rims on panaracer cinder tyres, and xtr mechs and shifters with sram chain and cassette.

some will notice the lack of wishbone rear end, when i first saw these frames (when i was still in the trade) i asked why it wasn't a wishbone and was told that they felt that this was the natural progression of the frame if they had continued to develope the model over the years that it didn't exist.

in my opinion this frame is the true meaning of retro (please don't start that argument!) something new and modern that looks like something old (meaning the paint)

also i asked specifically for number 200, only 200 were made of this frame, and technically i can say it's the last one!!

bearing in mind this frame is a 2007 model and it's now 5 years old i think it's in great shape, it has some chips but they are mostly from crashes in wales! battle scars i suppose!

anyway, here's a few pics

 

[jonnyboy666]

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[jonnyboy666]

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[Anthony]

Great-looking bike. I can't help being interested in the frame weight - funnily enough I have just yesterday acquired a 2007 Orange catalogue, and it's very notable what a contrast there is between the 2007 P7 and Clockwork. The P7 has fatter tubes, head tube reinforcement, 140mm fork, 68 degree head angle. The Clockwork slim tubes, 100mm fork, 70 degree angle. Much nicer looking, built lighter for a different purpose. Twas ever thus I think, but perhaps not quite to this extent. And BITD, the myth that lighter meant better made everybody think that the P7 must be lighter than the C16R/Clockwork because it was more expensive. But not so. I know which I'd rather have.

 

[poweredbypies]

Well know one likes a show off :mrgreen: I dont like it and I wouldnt want it for myself......honest.

 

[jonnyboy666]

yeah when this came out in 2007 the p7 had already become an 'all mountain' bike as opposed to the xc bike it always used to be.

don't get me wrong the p7 is a damn good bike but it's over kill for most people but they bought them anyway, and by that time orange weren't really doing a higher end xc bike. the 'g' series bikes were the xc bikes but they were specced as entry level by comparison. i remember in 2006 when Orange phoned the shop and asked why our figures with them had dropped, i had to explain that they weren't making the type of bikes that sold in our (flat) area anymore, we sold loads of the older type xc P7's and a few of the elite was it? the top end aluminium bike about that time anyway (perfect for the new forest) and the odd crush and 5 but the patriots and 222's were very few and far between. i remember asking for the clockwork to be brought back at which point i got the 'funny you should say that' response and we sold about 10 of them, mostly the lower spec version but that's quite alot of one particular model for a small shop. having said that it also helped that i was riding one, customers do pay attention to what the staff in a shop ride.

this bike does everything i need it to do, i couldn't tell you what the weight is though as i have never weighed it, i don't think it's particularly light as such but it's doesn't feel to tubby either.

i have to say though that the spec will be changing in a few months, not too much but a couple of bits will be being stolen for my Demon build (which is based on the geometry of this frame with a few adjustments) and then this will become my winter bike although it'll probably go back to bob jackson for an exact respray to tidy it up.

 

[raymondluxuryyacht]

Here, here. I almost fell off my chair when I saw Orange put iscg tabs on the p7. They seem to have gone with fashion and discarded the xc market. Sigh. The Evo has been ditched, as has the r8. The Elite is their only true xc model now it seems. Whilst the five is a good bike, its clearly not designed as an xc mile muncher. I'm sad to say that if I ever get another bike it probably won't be an orange.

 

[graham1975]

Maybe useable now in 2012 but with such a rear frameset i would of gone std, or atleast rigid up front and NON disc brakes, and put a middleburn on, don't get me wrong i think alot of old bikes are pigs to ride and i love my new modern bikes but your build doesn't do anything for me. sorry. :cry:

 

[Faghetaboutit]

i think its wkd, was watching one on ebay a few days ago, if i hadnt recently spent so much id of snapped it up. awesome bikes

 

[jonnyboy666]

Maybe useable now in 2012 but with such a rear frameset i would of gone std, or atleast rigid up front and NON disc brakes, and put a middleburn on, don't get me wrong i think alot of old bikes are pigs to ride and i love my new modern bikes but your build doesn't do anything for me. sorry. :cry:

you've lost me a bit here. "rear" frameset? do you mean rare? and "std" do you mean standard?

if so, yes, it is rare as such i suppose, and standard? why be the same as everyone else? did you think i had modified and modernised an older frameset or something? this is an actual model of frame that Orange made in 2007 not a butchered classic into a modern design.

rigid? no, this bike gets used in rough areas that justify a suspension fork.

non disc brake? it's a modern frame and as such is disc only so v brakes are impossible anyway.

also with regards to middleburn, i wanted middleburn cranks, i spoke to them at the time of buying/building this bike asking if their external bearing cranksets where gonna be available any time soon (in 2007) and they said yes, then delayed . . . delayed some more etc etc etc, in the end i went with raceface so that i had a matching bar/stem/post/crankset.

i hope that explains why it is what it is!