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I'm sure some of you will have seen this for sale recently. It was originally up for too much money, and if truth be told I still paid too much for it given how much the market's on its arse, but I sorted it for a price I was willing to pay and that's the main thing. If truth be told I thought I'd missed the boat on getting an old M1 back in the stable, although what I paid for this would have picked me up a full bike pre-Covid. In fact in early 2018 I saw a white one like this as a full period build with 888's and Hope brakes for about the same price as this cost me for just the frame but at the time I was about to take voluntary redundancy from work and had six months of climbing in the alps planned, so I wasn't exactly willing to spend the money, even if in time I probably would have been able to sell just the components off for the cost of the full bike. Oh well, c'est la vie. At least the white wasn't as desirable for most as the red was, whereas for me it was the only colour to have!
So it turned up today and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the condition, I think it's in better state than mine was after the first season on it, the bearings all seem original and still in great shape, and the paint is good too although someone's done something daft with polishing the edges of the chain stays so I'll need to sort that.
The bump stop on the Progressive 5th Element needs a replacement too as it disintegrated completely when I pulled the spring off. I used to service these shocks myself back in the day but it's been a while and I don't have the necessary clamps any more, so I'll see if I can find a bumper that I could warm up and squeeze over the end eyelet. If that fails I'll just suck up the cost and get Jake down at Sprung Suspension to give it a rebuild like he did to the Manitou Swinger on the Rotec as all the seals are still available, albeit not as a single kit! I'll not shim stack it though as I never had the M1's shock rebuilt away from the SPV/platform valve setup. There's also no Ti spring, just an underweight steel thing at 350lb which makes me think it's really not had a hard life. Annoyingly it wasn't that many years ago that I sold the Ti spring I originally had on mine, especially as most more recent examples are pretty short compared to the RCS/Progressive ones.
Kit wise for building it up I've pretty much got all the stuff I need, albeit it will mean pillaging the pile of parts I've got for the Animal 222 rebuild, but as that still needs repainted and some revised decals printed it's further away than this is so all's fair and all that. When it was first built it was an absolute ticklist of top drawer stuff; X-Lite, Easton EA70, MRP, mk1 Boxxer World Cups with nickel stanchions, Chris King etc. Wheel wise I have some spare 36h Hope Pro2's but they're too recent, albeit visually similar to the original 6 bolt Bulbs I was running, and they're running mk2 EX823 rims too. I also have Mk2 Mavic Deemax's that I actually did run briefly on mine, so they may be the interim choice, but then again I'm missing the adaptors for a non-12mm hub. That said they're easy enough to machine up on the lathe.
Back at the end of '02 I was riding for Sandy Wallace Cycles and had been for a few years. He was a great guy and really looked after those who didn't take the piss. I'd got my previous Animal 222 from him and was looking for its replacement. I briefly borrowed a Yeti DH8 through a friend who was racing for them at the time but after two months it was riddled with more cracks than an SNP budget and so I looked at something different, and the M1 was top of the list. I'd ridden with Pagey the summer before when he was running the proto frame with the bolt on seat tower which used the earlier FSR monocoque with modifications to run the longer 9.5" Progressive shock and the bike just seemed so trick and factory, back when bike stuff seemed all exciting to 16 year old me, and it had left a lasting impression. I've still got the receipt from the original build.
Compared to all my other builds which have been documented on here post-build, this one is very much going to be an 'as I go' kinda thing. I've got some Hayes brakes, the original stem and cranks, and a seat clamp I can take from the M9 as I never ran it on there originally. Things I'm looking for if anyone has them or knows where to find them (at reasonable prices):
- Easton EA50 31.6mm seat post with the red/yellow logo
- Easton EA70 Monkeybars in grey with 2.5" rise
- MRP World Cup 2
- Race Face Signature ISIS 118mm BB
- Rock Shox Boxxer World Cup (original 7" lowers + Nickel stanchions), or just the Nickel stanchions.
- Tioga Nicolas Vouilloz signature saddle
It also gives me somewhere to stick this chain stay protector that's been on numerous toolboxes for the past 20 years!
The frame number shows this to be an early one. So early it was still being made of parts from the first generation of FSR frames. The first gen could use all the holes on the swing link to adjust HA and BB but because of the size of the 5th shock this wasn't possible on this version, only the top two holes on the link. This one has been machined away post-anodising which also points towards an early batch. They removed the threads from the lower hole too on this one so you didn't end up clouting the piggyback on the underside of the seat tower, even though this one had the hammered dent applied to the underside to help clearance.
I was thinking about replacing the yellowed decals (any hints for removing the yellowing?), but they're otherwise in good shape so I think I'll leave them be. Aftermarket replicas are close, but things like the metallic silver bits are impossible for most producers to replicate which swung it for me.
First day out on the original:
Probably the following winter at an Inners Brass Monkey race:
This was a full page pic in Dirt Mag back in the day (pretty cool that I've had a few full pagers over the years and my dad got a cover shot), and thanks to Mike it also made an appearance in Intense's recent history review that they were posting on their US site and instagram:
So it turned up today and I was actually pleasantly surprised by the condition, I think it's in better state than mine was after the first season on it, the bearings all seem original and still in great shape, and the paint is good too although someone's done something daft with polishing the edges of the chain stays so I'll need to sort that.
The bump stop on the Progressive 5th Element needs a replacement too as it disintegrated completely when I pulled the spring off. I used to service these shocks myself back in the day but it's been a while and I don't have the necessary clamps any more, so I'll see if I can find a bumper that I could warm up and squeeze over the end eyelet. If that fails I'll just suck up the cost and get Jake down at Sprung Suspension to give it a rebuild like he did to the Manitou Swinger on the Rotec as all the seals are still available, albeit not as a single kit! I'll not shim stack it though as I never had the M1's shock rebuilt away from the SPV/platform valve setup. There's also no Ti spring, just an underweight steel thing at 350lb which makes me think it's really not had a hard life. Annoyingly it wasn't that many years ago that I sold the Ti spring I originally had on mine, especially as most more recent examples are pretty short compared to the RCS/Progressive ones.
Kit wise for building it up I've pretty much got all the stuff I need, albeit it will mean pillaging the pile of parts I've got for the Animal 222 rebuild, but as that still needs repainted and some revised decals printed it's further away than this is so all's fair and all that. When it was first built it was an absolute ticklist of top drawer stuff; X-Lite, Easton EA70, MRP, mk1 Boxxer World Cups with nickel stanchions, Chris King etc. Wheel wise I have some spare 36h Hope Pro2's but they're too recent, albeit visually similar to the original 6 bolt Bulbs I was running, and they're running mk2 EX823 rims too. I also have Mk2 Mavic Deemax's that I actually did run briefly on mine, so they may be the interim choice, but then again I'm missing the adaptors for a non-12mm hub. That said they're easy enough to machine up on the lathe.
Back at the end of '02 I was riding for Sandy Wallace Cycles and had been for a few years. He was a great guy and really looked after those who didn't take the piss. I'd got my previous Animal 222 from him and was looking for its replacement. I briefly borrowed a Yeti DH8 through a friend who was racing for them at the time but after two months it was riddled with more cracks than an SNP budget and so I looked at something different, and the M1 was top of the list. I'd ridden with Pagey the summer before when he was running the proto frame with the bolt on seat tower which used the earlier FSR monocoque with modifications to run the longer 9.5" Progressive shock and the bike just seemed so trick and factory, back when bike stuff seemed all exciting to 16 year old me, and it had left a lasting impression. I've still got the receipt from the original build.
Compared to all my other builds which have been documented on here post-build, this one is very much going to be an 'as I go' kinda thing. I've got some Hayes brakes, the original stem and cranks, and a seat clamp I can take from the M9 as I never ran it on there originally. Things I'm looking for if anyone has them or knows where to find them (at reasonable prices):
- Easton EA50 31.6mm seat post with the red/yellow logo
- Easton EA70 Monkeybars in grey with 2.5" rise
- MRP World Cup 2
- Race Face Signature ISIS 118mm BB
- Rock Shox Boxxer World Cup (original 7" lowers + Nickel stanchions), or just the Nickel stanchions.
- Tioga Nicolas Vouilloz signature saddle
It also gives me somewhere to stick this chain stay protector that's been on numerous toolboxes for the past 20 years!
The frame number shows this to be an early one. So early it was still being made of parts from the first generation of FSR frames. The first gen could use all the holes on the swing link to adjust HA and BB but because of the size of the 5th shock this wasn't possible on this version, only the top two holes on the link. This one has been machined away post-anodising which also points towards an early batch. They removed the threads from the lower hole too on this one so you didn't end up clouting the piggyback on the underside of the seat tower, even though this one had the hammered dent applied to the underside to help clearance.
I was thinking about replacing the yellowed decals (any hints for removing the yellowing?), but they're otherwise in good shape so I think I'll leave them be. Aftermarket replicas are close, but things like the metallic silver bits are impossible for most producers to replicate which swung it for me.
First day out on the original:
Probably the following winter at an Inners Brass Monkey race:
This was a full page pic in Dirt Mag back in the day (pretty cool that I've had a few full pagers over the years and my dad got a cover shot), and thanks to Mike it also made an appearance in Intense's recent history review that they were posting on their US site and instagram: