Soooo I took advantage of the break in the rain we have had lately and took a lazy Saturday arvo bimble at Lysterfield today on the modern bastard.
Compared to last time I took it out it was a revelation.
Reasons:
1. New tires, Holy shit! like night and day. I replaced the Maxxis Crossmarks with Schwalbe Racing Ralphs and the difference is staggering. Where as before it felt like I was towing a log, these bad boys practically fly along. Cornering and climbing were much improved too. Where as last time i took it out i felt like crying and cursing the cyclogods, today was like I was riding a totally different bike.
2. New shorter stem. The original owner put a long 3T ARG stem on, very nice but way too long. Steering was slow to react and climbing felt like i was using double the energy. Replaced with a Truvativ Boxxer shorty 60mm and wow, steering is Lighting McQueen, manuals are easy to perform and the bike feels a lot livelier through the berms and twisties.
3. Rebuild. Allegedly the dude I bought this bike off was a trained bike mechanic. Now if this is the standard of bike mechanics, then thank **** i do my own work. Last time I took the bike out I hated it, the stem and rear hub came loose. The chain felt like it was stapled together and twice as long as it should be and dry as a nun's nasty. Pedalling felt like a bag of marbles for a rear mech. Stripping the rear hub down (Deore XT for those playing at home) the races were bare with practically zero grease in them! So new bearings were thrown in along with new bearing grease and the cones nipped up to spec. Also added a new chain (Wipperman Connex, my chain of choice on all my bikes) and new cables (XTR).
I recently picked up a bargain of some carbon fibre Sram X0 shifters to replace the shyte X9 twist grips that were on it and also replaced the frankly hilarious "ergo" grips for some Lizard Skinz red white and blue Peatys!
I now love this bike!
I have some new brakes coming this week to replace the weedy Avid Juicy's, some decent sized Ashima rotors and Ashima PCB calipers and levers.
I reckon I'll fit a Hammerschmidt crank in the near future too.
Some pics from today