albystarvation
Dirt Disciple
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lel0PzhU6Pk
Let me introduce myself, before getting to the point of this thread.
I'm 49, a mountain biker since 1996.
In 2000, after 4 years of cross country, I tackled with downhill, getting more and more entrapped in the gravity aspects of this sport.
In 2004 I married my beloved Paola, and stopped DH'ing, but continued biking off-road.
In 2012 I bought another DH bike, and used it... 'till now. that is ( due to a kidney injury in my last day of shuttling, my Dh days may be over.. but that's another story).
Now for the really to-the-point part.
It all started here:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=140396&start=325
(first post)
and here:
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=266526g
In the past years, a Karpiel Armageddon was my holy grail: not necessarilly the fastest bike on the track, nor the most useful ( if you don't happen to be used to haul your carcass off cliffs and vertical chutes, anyway) if all you do is riding down some DH trails, but you know the story... once a retrobiker gets fixed on a pursuit,....
So, a long and friendly conversation with Dan28 started.
After quite a lot of messages, and some phone conversation, we agreed upon a transaction. A few days later, this
appeared at my door.
Inside, quite a lot of goodies: a frame, a fork - not, let's say 'THE FORK!', couple of wheels, brakes, and so on.
The journey had just started!
first, a look at all the contents:
plus some other bits and bobs.
My intention was having the frame restored, the fork redone ( seals, bushings and oil). Then build the bike to huck standards: 24"x3 tires, Supermonster T, cromoly cranks, Gustav brakes.
I would have used as many parts from Dan28 as possible, substituting when they were beyond restorable or not functioning properly.
I started from the fork: dissasembled it, cleaned, examined all parts:
Mechanically it was more than Ok. However, the top crown had been substituted with a previous year one ( pre-2003) and, since it had a little different rake, it was really hard to mount and somehow twisted the structure; moreover it would not permit to mount a direct mount stem. also the lower crown had the steerer elongated by inserting an extension: I would have to see if it was strong enough.
so, for the fork, the plan was: first wrap the sliders in helitape, then reassemble, search for the corrrect upper crown and for the direct mount stem.
Let me introduce myself, before getting to the point of this thread.
I'm 49, a mountain biker since 1996.
In 2000, after 4 years of cross country, I tackled with downhill, getting more and more entrapped in the gravity aspects of this sport.
In 2004 I married my beloved Paola, and stopped DH'ing, but continued biking off-road.
In 2012 I bought another DH bike, and used it... 'till now. that is ( due to a kidney injury in my last day of shuttling, my Dh days may be over.. but that's another story).
Now for the really to-the-point part.
It all started here:
viewtopic.php?f=41&t=140396&start=325
(first post)
and here:
viewtopic.php?f=39&t=266526g
In the past years, a Karpiel Armageddon was my holy grail: not necessarilly the fastest bike on the track, nor the most useful ( if you don't happen to be used to haul your carcass off cliffs and vertical chutes, anyway) if all you do is riding down some DH trails, but you know the story... once a retrobiker gets fixed on a pursuit,....
So, a long and friendly conversation with Dan28 started.
After quite a lot of messages, and some phone conversation, we agreed upon a transaction. A few days later, this
appeared at my door.
Inside, quite a lot of goodies: a frame, a fork - not, let's say 'THE FORK!', couple of wheels, brakes, and so on.
The journey had just started!
first, a look at all the contents:
plus some other bits and bobs.
My intention was having the frame restored, the fork redone ( seals, bushings and oil). Then build the bike to huck standards: 24"x3 tires, Supermonster T, cromoly cranks, Gustav brakes.
I would have used as many parts from Dan28 as possible, substituting when they were beyond restorable or not functioning properly.
I started from the fork: dissasembled it, cleaned, examined all parts:
Mechanically it was more than Ok. However, the top crown had been substituted with a previous year one ( pre-2003) and, since it had a little different rake, it was really hard to mount and somehow twisted the structure; moreover it would not permit to mount a direct mount stem. also the lower crown had the steerer elongated by inserting an extension: I would have to see if it was strong enough.
so, for the fork, the plan was: first wrap the sliders in helitape, then reassemble, search for the corrrect upper crown and for the direct mount stem.
.
