pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
I've seen photos of the curved ones before, they're very cool!
'96ish Custom Bontrager CX
- Thread starter pw_pw_la
- Start date
I've seen photos of the curved ones before, they're very cool!
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Pulling up a chair. Take your time, I love a good slow burn.
I usually make a thread for a new build once it first arrives and update that as I go, dragging the whole thing on forever.
This one, however, was started once the bike was actually built (or an initial version of it, anyway), so it'll probably end up being quite compact and rapid for a change.
Not unlike the bike itself!
Right, more details and photos tomorrow...
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
As promised:
So the first thing to say is that this is obviously a work of art!
The paint is beautiful, and unlike anything else I have or have ever really seen. It's in pretty flawless condition too, and has a thin, liquid-like look to it up close. Some patches are more translucent than others, and it looks like maybe the paint didn't fully cure before the clear coat was added?
Overall tho, it's so nice that I wonder whether it's been repainted at some point in its life? Or perhaps it really did come out of the Cannery like this, and has simply been well-taken care of and minimally ridden?
The paint on the Salsa stem has slightly more fleck/sparkle to it, but it's insanely close for something that wasn't original to the bike.
I tracked down a previous owner online, and he had purchased the frame and fork from a bike swap in Northern California, and, in a stroke of blind luck, already had the Salsa stem in his possession. Who knows what that was for or from originally, but it certainly feels like it belongs on this bike.
Anyway, moving on to a few more detailed shots...
First, some classic Bontrager stylings:
Recessed headtube (ala Race Lite) for weight-saving.
(Side Note: this thing is ridiculously light!)
Wishbone rear, with the traditional Bontrager cable routing.
What's interesting is that, if my research is correct, this is likely a custom order from a little later on in Bontrager's history. By which point top pull mechs were readily available, the cable stop had been moved to the rear of the seat tube, and the pulley taken away completely as a result. That said, if it was a custom build, I'm assuming the original owner really liked those traditional Bontrager details and requested them for this bike?
(Much, much more on this particular cable routing later...)
Vertical dropouts with rack/fender eyelets. This is the first of many odd details, as there's none on the fork dropouts, and no braze-ons further up the chainstay for securing anything up there. So why add these to the rear?
Some nice detail on the bottle mounts (which will end up proving problematic on the seat tube), including what I had originally assumed was an extra set on the underside of the down tube.
However, once a wheel went in, it became clear right away there would be no room to run a cage and bottle there, while still having clearance for the front tire.
My next best guess? To mount some kind of mud guard, for cross racing, perhaps in the homemade Cunningham-style?
Otherwise I have no clue what they're for!
Anyone got any other ideas, or a reference for the type of mud guard that might go on there if I'm right?
Mmmm, top tube routing! Mmmm, paint!
So another strange one: a pump peg brazed on at an odd angle, pointing slightly down on the diagonal, rather than parallel to the top tube. Which is a bit odd.
But then also notice the overall lack of space on the inside of the head tube to even fit the pump! The diameter of which, would have to be incredibly narrow to even attempt to secure it there.
I've tried a lender frame pump, and it'll wedge in there, kind of. But it's not particularly pretty and certainly not secure.
Anyway, I have a theory about some of these quirks, but I'll save that for the next update.
For now, here's a couple more photos to whet the appetite...
So the first thing to say is that this is obviously a work of art!
The paint is beautiful, and unlike anything else I have or have ever really seen. It's in pretty flawless condition too, and has a thin, liquid-like look to it up close. Some patches are more translucent than others, and it looks like maybe the paint didn't fully cure before the clear coat was added?
Overall tho, it's so nice that I wonder whether it's been repainted at some point in its life? Or perhaps it really did come out of the Cannery like this, and has simply been well-taken care of and minimally ridden?
The paint on the Salsa stem has slightly more fleck/sparkle to it, but it's insanely close for something that wasn't original to the bike.
I tracked down a previous owner online, and he had purchased the frame and fork from a bike swap in Northern California, and, in a stroke of blind luck, already had the Salsa stem in his possession. Who knows what that was for or from originally, but it certainly feels like it belongs on this bike.
Anyway, moving on to a few more detailed shots...
First, some classic Bontrager stylings:
Recessed headtube (ala Race Lite) for weight-saving.
(Side Note: this thing is ridiculously light!)
Wishbone rear, with the traditional Bontrager cable routing.
What's interesting is that, if my research is correct, this is likely a custom order from a little later on in Bontrager's history. By which point top pull mechs were readily available, the cable stop had been moved to the rear of the seat tube, and the pulley taken away completely as a result. That said, if it was a custom build, I'm assuming the original owner really liked those traditional Bontrager details and requested them for this bike?
(Much, much more on this particular cable routing later...)
Vertical dropouts with rack/fender eyelets. This is the first of many odd details, as there's none on the fork dropouts, and no braze-ons further up the chainstay for securing anything up there. So why add these to the rear?
Some nice detail on the bottle mounts (which will end up proving problematic on the seat tube), including what I had originally assumed was an extra set on the underside of the down tube.
However, once a wheel went in, it became clear right away there would be no room to run a cage and bottle there, while still having clearance for the front tire.
My next best guess? To mount some kind of mud guard, for cross racing, perhaps in the homemade Cunningham-style?
Otherwise I have no clue what they're for!
Anyone got any other ideas, or a reference for the type of mud guard that might go on there if I'm right?
Mmmm, top tube routing! Mmmm, paint!
So another strange one: a pump peg brazed on at an odd angle, pointing slightly down on the diagonal, rather than parallel to the top tube. Which is a bit odd.
But then also notice the overall lack of space on the inside of the head tube to even fit the pump! The diameter of which, would have to be incredibly narrow to even attempt to secure it there.
I've tried a lender frame pump, and it'll wedge in there, kind of. But it's not particularly pretty and certainly not secure.
Anyway, I have a theory about some of these quirks, but I'll save that for the next update.
For now, here's a couple more photos to whet the appetite...
Last edited:
Spankyfart
Marin Fan
That paint is amazing also dig the colour.
What bits are you putting on there?
What bits are you putting on there?
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Hold your horses there fella, I'm getting to that!
If I told you what I'd put on it already, there'd be no point updating the rest of this thread...
I'm known to like to tease these things out when I finally get around to them!
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Right then, before we get to the (very taxing and, at times, incredibly frustrating build) I'll do some housekeeping in regards to the back story...
Which is thus:
The bike came to me via an eBay ad. A nice seller named Chadwick, who was happy to make a deal offline. I gave him a deposit, sold the too-small OR frame I had still sitting around, as well as the bar/stem combo and a few other bits, and paid the balance off a week later.
The bike was in Maine, but had spent some time in New York beforehand. Before that it had changed hands across several people from various swaps and states, before Chadwick, and then I, got to it. I've seen one photo of it fully built, and ridden, and a few others of planned builds but it seems like it wasn't ridden much at all.
Knowing what I know now, I can see why some people might have decided to move it along before getting everything figured out!
Not me though. I'm a sucker for punishment!
Anyway, before any of those guys had it, it was commissioned by a former Trek/Bontrager employee, who worked in product management. Apparently he had taken over in wheel development for Bontrager once the relationship with Chris King ended.
I know this thanks to the excellent Bontrager owners group on Facebook. There are a few ex-employees who post on there from time-to-time, often with great stories.
Such as this from Tom Clark:
Before we moved to the newer larger facility that Trek Bicycles ran for a year and then changed the door locks and told us to go home, a group of us got together and built a small run of cross/mountain frames.
Scott Turner, Doug Gadow, Kirk Pacenti, Ian Moore, Steve Mutchler, and maybe a person or two who I am forgetting, all contributed their assembly line skills on a weekend. I mitered the tube sets and fixtured and tacked them, Steve and Kirk aligned and final processed them. I forget who did the final welding (probably Alejandro Guttierez). What we ended up with was mostly a cross frame, but with Race Lite mtn bike chainstays, and I think we did some mod to the wishbone design. I still have mine in my frame pile in storage, never painted it or built it.
One day, when my barn is finished and all of my tools set up, I'll build my NOS creation. This frame in the original post does not look like it was one of that run though, because it looks like it has CX chainstays. I'll dig my frame up when I can get into the storage unit and take some pictures and post...
Or this, from David Barette:
Keith built his office up above the shop soon after we moved to the Seabright Cannery (late 1990-1991) and nearly never built anything on the shop floor after that. What he did do on the shop floor was build the testing equipment and he spent a fair amount of time modifying and improving it and coming downstairs to see what he heard break and analyze it as a crowd of curious employees grew around him.
After enough time losing his mind, trying to concentrate while we blasted tunes on the stereo and hooted and cat called and made fun of each other's music in loud voices to be heard over the din of the machinery, Keith packed up and moved to an office downtown. That was during the period when he was also getting a divorce from his partner. So, not much chance in the world that those mods would have been done by Keith.
The mods he mentions are in regards to those aforementioned odd little details on my frame.
David also had this to say:
I know this bike. It was customized for an ex-product manager. No, that stem was not original to it- but nice match. I know who he was but his name escapes me. Right around 97-98, I believe he customized and sent it through the Trek paint line. He also had a nice SID fork with a Bontrager geo crown custom put on. He had it probably 10-plus years ago at the Madison swap. I already had one, so I passed on it. I’m sure I’ll remember [his name] sooner but probably later.
Then he remembered: Blair Winter!
I couldn't find much about Blair online. Although I did locate his LinkedIn profile, and, stalkerishly, added him as a contact:
4 months later and he still hasn't accepted, so I've not been able to message him to see if he can confirm any of this!
He does list the time he spent at Trek tho:
So, 94-1999. Which means he would have been there during the Bontrager takeover. Based on all the other details, and this time period, I'm calling this a 1996-97-ish bike! Mostly because it's bang in the middle of the time period Blair spent there.
And I'll leave it at that until someone proves me wrong, or confirms its real date of creation.
Right, that's all that taken care of then!
We'll get onto the build itself shortly enough...
Which is thus:
The bike came to me via an eBay ad. A nice seller named Chadwick, who was happy to make a deal offline. I gave him a deposit, sold the too-small OR frame I had still sitting around, as well as the bar/stem combo and a few other bits, and paid the balance off a week later.
The bike was in Maine, but had spent some time in New York beforehand. Before that it had changed hands across several people from various swaps and states, before Chadwick, and then I, got to it. I've seen one photo of it fully built, and ridden, and a few others of planned builds but it seems like it wasn't ridden much at all.
Knowing what I know now, I can see why some people might have decided to move it along before getting everything figured out!
Not me though. I'm a sucker for punishment!
Anyway, before any of those guys had it, it was commissioned by a former Trek/Bontrager employee, who worked in product management. Apparently he had taken over in wheel development for Bontrager once the relationship with Chris King ended.
I know this thanks to the excellent Bontrager owners group on Facebook. There are a few ex-employees who post on there from time-to-time, often with great stories.
Such as this from Tom Clark:
Before we moved to the newer larger facility that Trek Bicycles ran for a year and then changed the door locks and told us to go home, a group of us got together and built a small run of cross/mountain frames.
Scott Turner, Doug Gadow, Kirk Pacenti, Ian Moore, Steve Mutchler, and maybe a person or two who I am forgetting, all contributed their assembly line skills on a weekend. I mitered the tube sets and fixtured and tacked them, Steve and Kirk aligned and final processed them. I forget who did the final welding (probably Alejandro Guttierez). What we ended up with was mostly a cross frame, but with Race Lite mtn bike chainstays, and I think we did some mod to the wishbone design. I still have mine in my frame pile in storage, never painted it or built it.
One day, when my barn is finished and all of my tools set up, I'll build my NOS creation. This frame in the original post does not look like it was one of that run though, because it looks like it has CX chainstays. I'll dig my frame up when I can get into the storage unit and take some pictures and post...
Or this, from David Barette:
Keith built his office up above the shop soon after we moved to the Seabright Cannery (late 1990-1991) and nearly never built anything on the shop floor after that. What he did do on the shop floor was build the testing equipment and he spent a fair amount of time modifying and improving it and coming downstairs to see what he heard break and analyze it as a crowd of curious employees grew around him.
After enough time losing his mind, trying to concentrate while we blasted tunes on the stereo and hooted and cat called and made fun of each other's music in loud voices to be heard over the din of the machinery, Keith packed up and moved to an office downtown. That was during the period when he was also getting a divorce from his partner. So, not much chance in the world that those mods would have been done by Keith.
The mods he mentions are in regards to those aforementioned odd little details on my frame.
David also had this to say:
I know this bike. It was customized for an ex-product manager. No, that stem was not original to it- but nice match. I know who he was but his name escapes me. Right around 97-98, I believe he customized and sent it through the Trek paint line. He also had a nice SID fork with a Bontrager geo crown custom put on. He had it probably 10-plus years ago at the Madison swap. I already had one, so I passed on it. I’m sure I’ll remember [his name] sooner but probably later.
Then he remembered: Blair Winter!
I couldn't find much about Blair online. Although I did locate his LinkedIn profile, and, stalkerishly, added him as a contact:
4 months later and he still hasn't accepted, so I've not been able to message him to see if he can confirm any of this!
He does list the time he spent at Trek tho:
So, 94-1999. Which means he would have been there during the Bontrager takeover. Based on all the other details, and this time period, I'm calling this a 1996-97-ish bike! Mostly because it's bang in the middle of the time period Blair spent there.
And I'll leave it at that until someone proves me wrong, or confirms its real date of creation.
Right, that's all that taken care of then!
We'll get onto the build itself shortly enough...
