dirttorpedo
Senior Retro Guru
So after a lot of shopping on Craigslist and a few unhappy test rides I decided to take a long hard look at Frank - my current back up commuter. I got Frank back in the early 2000's as an NOS frame for $20 and a pair of lightly used Free Ride tires. We were told Frank was the same frame as the Cove Stiffee and was made by Kinesis (which was proven out by some literature in the original packaging.
My goal was to build him up as a light hardtail for commuting and xc racing (I aspired to do more than one 24 hour relay race back then). Unfortunately my budget was limited so I built Frank from mostly used parts I had in my bin and a few budget new purchases. He started out fully rigid with a non-suspension corrected fork, early XT v-brakes I'd had on two of my previous bikes, a pair of well ridden Rhyno Lites, a cheap square taper bb and threadless headset. The crank was a fusion of an old Rocky Mtn. OEM drive side crank arm and some Shimano POS which in hindsight was 5 mm shorter than the drive side. Whoopsie. At some point I switched the rigid fork for a used Bomber Z4 a friend passed onto me that had a barely long enough steer tube.
I road Frank unhappily as a commuter until 2009 when I bought a purpose built commuter because I loathed riding him so much - he just never fit.
Long story short I've decided that maybe I was wrong about Frank that that I needed to give him some lovin.
Here is a pic of Frank in his current glory.
So the plan is to replace the Z.4 with a Surley 1 x 1 suspension corrected cro mo fork with some spacers I couldn't afford because of steer tube length, replace the frankencrank with an LX hollowtech Crank and Octolink BB, put on a new Race Face XC riser bar & a new seatpost (I bought the wrong size originally). I wanted to go with a silver build, but its looking like I will have to go with black because of the components I am able to afford. I will probably upgrade the stem to something black (and possibly race face) in the future - for now its a silver Ritchey.
The bike came a nice red, but the paint job hasn't held up well. It's flaking quite badly in places. Looking at what some people have done with stripping and polishing I'm tempted to go with that if the polish can be protected from the elements so it stays relatively good looking over the long term. Otherwise I hear that I could get it powdercoated white or black for $40 if I do all the stripping and I could get a colour for $75 with me doing the stripping. I think polish would look really good with the black build and it would be cheap which suits my budget. Seat will be the SDG that's currrently on there for the time being, same with the wheels, brakes and drive train. Seeing some of the pretty canti's out there and reading what some are saying about stopping strength, I may be tempted some day to try some (the frame was designed for canti's.
Edited to add a few more pics.
My goal was to build him up as a light hardtail for commuting and xc racing (I aspired to do more than one 24 hour relay race back then). Unfortunately my budget was limited so I built Frank from mostly used parts I had in my bin and a few budget new purchases. He started out fully rigid with a non-suspension corrected fork, early XT v-brakes I'd had on two of my previous bikes, a pair of well ridden Rhyno Lites, a cheap square taper bb and threadless headset. The crank was a fusion of an old Rocky Mtn. OEM drive side crank arm and some Shimano POS which in hindsight was 5 mm shorter than the drive side. Whoopsie. At some point I switched the rigid fork for a used Bomber Z4 a friend passed onto me that had a barely long enough steer tube.
I road Frank unhappily as a commuter until 2009 when I bought a purpose built commuter because I loathed riding him so much - he just never fit.
Long story short I've decided that maybe I was wrong about Frank that that I needed to give him some lovin.
Here is a pic of Frank in his current glory.
So the plan is to replace the Z.4 with a Surley 1 x 1 suspension corrected cro mo fork with some spacers I couldn't afford because of steer tube length, replace the frankencrank with an LX hollowtech Crank and Octolink BB, put on a new Race Face XC riser bar & a new seatpost (I bought the wrong size originally). I wanted to go with a silver build, but its looking like I will have to go with black because of the components I am able to afford. I will probably upgrade the stem to something black (and possibly race face) in the future - for now its a silver Ritchey.
The bike came a nice red, but the paint job hasn't held up well. It's flaking quite badly in places. Looking at what some people have done with stripping and polishing I'm tempted to go with that if the polish can be protected from the elements so it stays relatively good looking over the long term. Otherwise I hear that I could get it powdercoated white or black for $40 if I do all the stripping and I could get a colour for $75 with me doing the stripping. I think polish would look really good with the black build and it would be cheap which suits my budget. Seat will be the SDG that's currrently on there for the time being, same with the wheels, brakes and drive train. Seeing some of the pretty canti's out there and reading what some are saying about stopping strength, I may be tempted some day to try some (the frame was designed for canti's.
Edited to add a few more pics.
