Intense M1 1996 - Palmer replica
- Thread starter Dami
- Start date
The fork issue is now solved also, couple of days ago visited a friend for a trade and came back with this one! It's one of the legendary Rockshox Boxxer prototypes from 1997. On Palmer's bike there was the first version of the prototypes that had black stanchions, but this is as close as I can ever get to that 
An old Rockshox engineer told that they made a total of 50 pieces of these protos, and most of them were sent back to Rockshox from teams and destroyed. He estimated that maybe 10-20 survived altogether. This one is number 3/50.
During the years someone has unfortunately changed the lower crown to a Boxxer Pro crown, and the brake studs are also missing, but those issues can be solved. I will anyway paint the crowns to graphite gray as in the first proto version and as these are not the original crowns, I can do it without messing with anything original
Also the DHO brake studs will fit this one with small modifications so hopefully can sort that one also. The decals I've already drawn based on the ones that were on the first batch protos. And if I want to bring this to as original state as possible, I can later paint the crowns to red and replace the decals with the Boxxer Pro ones that were used on these second batch protos. This is something I naturally want to keep as original as possible due to its rarity.
An old Rockshox engineer told that they made a total of 50 pieces of these protos, and most of them were sent back to Rockshox from teams and destroyed. He estimated that maybe 10-20 survived altogether. This one is number 3/50.
During the years someone has unfortunately changed the lower crown to a Boxxer Pro crown, and the brake studs are also missing, but those issues can be solved. I will anyway paint the crowns to graphite gray as in the first proto version and as these are not the original crowns, I can do it without messing with anything original
Also the DHO brake studs will fit this one with small modifications so hopefully can sort that one also. The decals I've already drawn based on the ones that were on the first batch protos. And if I want to bring this to as original state as possible, I can later paint the crowns to red and replace the decals with the Boxxer Pro ones that were used on these second batch protos. This is something I naturally want to keep as original as possible due to its rarity.rentedmule
Old School Hero
Wow - great find!
There were a few interesting details with this one. One was the bolts on the bottom of the legs which are some pentalobe style special pieces. I know that also Apple uses similar ones on their products to prevent people doing service on their devices by themselves so these are probably some "safety" bolts installed to keep competition away from opening these up and seeing what the protos have eaten. I know that Greg at Butter Suspension has opened up his proto and it's pretty basic coil sprung fork with open oil bath, but back then these weren't that common.
Other unique detail is the disc brake adapter which in these weren't machined at all due to the lack of common standardized brake mount system back when these were made. So there was just a solid flat brake mount piece where the mechanics could drill their own holes based on the brake type the teams/riders were using in each case. Kind of a similar type of case as with the 1st gen Marzocchi Z1s that had brake mounts on both legs before the industry settled on the left side.
Other unique detail is the disc brake adapter which in these weren't machined at all due to the lack of common standardized brake mount system back when these were made. So there was just a solid flat brake mount piece where the mechanics could drill their own holes based on the brake type the teams/riders were using in each case. Kind of a similar type of case as with the 1st gen Marzocchi Z1s that had brake mounts on both legs before the industry settled on the left side.
Unfortunately not much. I’ve been taking it easy during the Summer concerning any restoration jobs, because here in Finland the Summer is veeery short, and I know that I’ll have a lot of wet, cold and dark evenings ahead of me to continue the project during Autumm
I managed to find the brake studs and brake spring plates for the Boxxer, located a red Ringle qr skewer, and also the missing red Ringle rear hub on a parts donor bike, so partswise I’m pretty ready. I still have to respray the rear end of the frame with a darker red as the proto Boxxer red is currently so much darker than the frame red. But slowly getting there!
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