Fat Chance, Shock a Billy Prototype No4

[grd]

Back in April of last year there was an advert on the bay for this frame along with some other Fat Chance parts. It turned out that Wendyll was having a tidy up and long story short, I ended up being successful.

I went over to the 30th anniversary party and collected the frame from Wendyll and Chris.

I haven't been in a rush to put the bike together and have spent the last few months collecting parts.
I wanted to build the bike in the spirit of the 95 catologue one as this is also a prototype, but i also intend to ride it.

The front triangle was just polished up as it was in pretty good shape, however the rear has been resprayed as it only ever had a thin coat of satin black on it and was quite tied.

The spec is:-

Xray srt800 grip shifters
M900 front and rear mechs
Paul cross top on the front
Suntour self energiser canti on rear
Paul love levers
Cooks Bros cranks
Avitar rings
Syncros post
Flite
Ringle stem
Xlite carbon bars
Chris King hubs with ceramic 517 rims
Smoke and Dart tyres


Finally got it all together this morning and as the sun's out, thought I would take a few shots of it.

 

[Stylus]

nice!

 

[Dick Scruttock]

Looks veery nice Matthew. Good to see some pictures of it.

 

[kleinalpine]

Liking that alot!!

 

[mickey@spooky]

That's a pretty cool pivot location. Must pedal pretty well.

 

[grd]

I don't know yet, still to give it a ride. The trails are all still very wet around here but hope to give it a quick spin over the next few days.
The pivot location is very similar to where it ended up on the second generation Billy and even with a period Risse shock my Mk2 rides really well with no discernible pedal bob.
Chris really knew how to design a bike, whether it be a ripping hard tail, or a new fangle full susser.

 

[grd]

Took it out for a quick spin today. Nothing too strenuous as the trails are still pretty wet, but just enough to get a feel for it and to give it a bloodied nose.
Please to report that all went well. It climbs really well and has the stetched out, race feel of the first generation bike as opposed to the slightly more trail feel of the second generation SaB. I can see why the design developed as to give any more travel, a rocker is really needed to increase the ratio for the shock.
All in all, very pleased and can't wait to get some more miles in. Shame Thetford has been forced to cancel as this was the bike I had lined up to ride there as it would have suited it a treat.

 

[Dick Scruttock]

Matt when you get a minute can you check what the serial number is on this?

 

[grd]

No problem, I'll check it out tomorrow.

 

[grd]

Rick
I checked the frame number, it is C69P4M