superdan1984
Dirt Disciple
After spending so much time building this bike, i thought i may as well chronicle the different faises that the bike went through in actually getting there for anyone wondering how long it takes to build a dream machine, and just how much it costs in time and money.
It started off with an add for a 1995ish Rockhopper for £150.
I saw that bike and it just reminded me of the old JMC from dirt, it was obviously not quite correct, too big, not an M2 s-works, but having lucked upon finding a mark 1 transparent crud catcher at the same time, it became my starting point.
It starts!
December 2019 Photo 1
At this point I had no real intention of building a full JMC, i really liked my retro rockhopper and just loosely wanted to turn it into a bit of a homage, it was also there to get me back into mountain biking as i hadn't been riding for a few years... Then bang, covid.
Bike £150
Crudcatcher £40
Photo 2: The Sun appears! April 2020
Early April comes along, and holy god was the weather good. To hell with covid, i was riding! And absolutely loving it!
My bike at this point, was just a ragtag mishmash of parts.
Photo3: New Goodies May 2020
By May I had been riding non stop almost every day, and my bike had been recieving many new treats, and it was starting to look a bit tidier. I'd put alot of XT parts on it including a cog hog, i'd managed to find an azonic shorty stem, new tyres, grips and Azonic bars. I absolutely loved it!
Bars £35
Tyres £70
Shorty stem £40
Grips £20
XT Brakes £50
Photo4: My 1st big JMC Purchase August 2020
In early August i'd been doing the usual trawling through the retro bike forums on fb and here when i saw a very tidy set of Rock Shox FSX's come up for sale for about £450. I was skint at the time... This didn't stop me,ha!
I also managed to get my hands on a set of Odessy triple traps.
Pedals £45
Forks £450
Photo 5 September 2020 The end of a season
By the end of the summer season and my 1st year, my progress had been pretty steady, i was super happy with the bike still not really thinking i'd build the real deal.
Just time to enjoy the last of the sun and take some nice pictures of the bike.
1st year total £900
2nd Season
Picture 6 7 8 June 2021
The upgrades slowed in my 2nd year, though the one i really wanted was some wheels that resembled the one's off the JMC bike. By May i'd found some CD D521's and had paired them with some Silver Hope pro 4's. They were a lovely wheelset, but pretty soon the coating wore off making them look a little tatty.
But the first week with those wheel the bike looked so good.
£150 for the rims
£60 for spokes
£160 for the hubs
£45 for a new Hub rotar
Death of the Rockhopper September 2021
In early September i had been practicing riding harder for my 1st casual xc comp, and had started getting a lot of problems with chain slip, i'd replaced the chain and casette and it was still happening, i spent hours trying to fix the issue.
I finally went out on the bike riding as far as i could, and the issue kept happening. I came home fumming.
I gave the bike it's customary wash when i got home, still fumming, when i began washing the rear brakes my brush got caught on the brake, i couldn't get it off then i pulled slightly harder and the brake snapped back and caught my finger and hurt alot, it was like it bit me. I instinctively hit the brake just once out of anger, and it snapped the brake mount clean off...
I tried repairing it a few times nothing worked, the frame was dead.
2nd Season Total
£415
Birth of the JMC
3rd Season
After busting my original frame, i decided i'd had enough just doing a kind of homage bike, i wanted the real thing.
Searching for a real S-works M2 that was the right year was a huge pain in the ass, i searched for months, found one in California, but the seller was super flakey, and it was a size 18 inch, which at the time i would've been happy with but the seller wasn't getting back to me.
I continued searching for months, in the end i just got really impatient and decided to put up an add on all the FB retro forums and this one, offering £1000 for the correct frame.
I got ALOT of replies! HA
None of them were the right year, they were all a bit wrong in different ways.
I finally thought i'd settled on one when i got a message from a guy saying he had one spare after he'd finished building his.
The only issue was he was in the US with it moving back to the UK and it would be coming back with him to the uk, but it would be in a container and would take a couple of months.
I saw the picture, and jumped on it, it was the exact height, year, it was the real deal.
Waiting for that was hard, but we kept in touch, he also had a bunch of other parts to go along with it he would sell me.
In the end with all the parts he sold me it came to £750
These included correct headset, X-ray gripshift, seat, and seat post, and bars.
And while i was waiting for it to arrive i went a bit mad, bought the entire correct drive train, new tyres, new Dcd which i had to put a shout out for, which turned out to be the wrong bolt count. New cables, and grips. Bottle cage from California.
And by Febuary 2022 i picked up the frame and was ready to have a full day spent on the build the next day.
5 months after the death of the Rockhopper, i had started to build the proper machine.
M2 S-Works 1995 Frame
Ahead Headset
Seat post
Specialized seat Unknown model
Gripshift x-ray shifters
Green and Blackshifter grips
£750
XTR M900
Cranks £180
Rear mech £65
Front mech (wrong size) £50
Front mech Correct size £65
Bottom Bracket £85
Casette £100
Chain £65
Grips £35
New Tyres Smoke and Dart £70
New cables inners and outers £25
Bottle Cage £50
£1,475
Total money spent on this project at the end of Part 1
£2790
The End of the beginning..
It started off with an add for a 1995ish Rockhopper for £150.
I saw that bike and it just reminded me of the old JMC from dirt, it was obviously not quite correct, too big, not an M2 s-works, but having lucked upon finding a mark 1 transparent crud catcher at the same time, it became my starting point.
It starts!
December 2019 Photo 1
At this point I had no real intention of building a full JMC, i really liked my retro rockhopper and just loosely wanted to turn it into a bit of a homage, it was also there to get me back into mountain biking as i hadn't been riding for a few years... Then bang, covid.
Bike £150
Crudcatcher £40
Photo 2: The Sun appears! April 2020
Early April comes along, and holy god was the weather good. To hell with covid, i was riding! And absolutely loving it!
My bike at this point, was just a ragtag mishmash of parts.
Photo3: New Goodies May 2020
By May I had been riding non stop almost every day, and my bike had been recieving many new treats, and it was starting to look a bit tidier. I'd put alot of XT parts on it including a cog hog, i'd managed to find an azonic shorty stem, new tyres, grips and Azonic bars. I absolutely loved it!
Bars £35
Tyres £70
Shorty stem £40
Grips £20
XT Brakes £50
Photo4: My 1st big JMC Purchase August 2020
In early August i'd been doing the usual trawling through the retro bike forums on fb and here when i saw a very tidy set of Rock Shox FSX's come up for sale for about £450. I was skint at the time... This didn't stop me,ha!
I also managed to get my hands on a set of Odessy triple traps.
Pedals £45
Forks £450
Photo 5 September 2020 The end of a season
By the end of the summer season and my 1st year, my progress had been pretty steady, i was super happy with the bike still not really thinking i'd build the real deal.
Just time to enjoy the last of the sun and take some nice pictures of the bike.
1st year total £900
2nd Season
Picture 6 7 8 June 2021
The upgrades slowed in my 2nd year, though the one i really wanted was some wheels that resembled the one's off the JMC bike. By May i'd found some CD D521's and had paired them with some Silver Hope pro 4's. They were a lovely wheelset, but pretty soon the coating wore off making them look a little tatty.
But the first week with those wheel the bike looked so good.
£150 for the rims
£60 for spokes
£160 for the hubs
£45 for a new Hub rotar
Death of the Rockhopper September 2021
In early September i had been practicing riding harder for my 1st casual xc comp, and had started getting a lot of problems with chain slip, i'd replaced the chain and casette and it was still happening, i spent hours trying to fix the issue.
I finally went out on the bike riding as far as i could, and the issue kept happening. I came home fumming.
I gave the bike it's customary wash when i got home, still fumming, when i began washing the rear brakes my brush got caught on the brake, i couldn't get it off then i pulled slightly harder and the brake snapped back and caught my finger and hurt alot, it was like it bit me. I instinctively hit the brake just once out of anger, and it snapped the brake mount clean off...
I tried repairing it a few times nothing worked, the frame was dead.
2nd Season Total
£415
Birth of the JMC
3rd Season
After busting my original frame, i decided i'd had enough just doing a kind of homage bike, i wanted the real thing.
Searching for a real S-works M2 that was the right year was a huge pain in the ass, i searched for months, found one in California, but the seller was super flakey, and it was a size 18 inch, which at the time i would've been happy with but the seller wasn't getting back to me.
I continued searching for months, in the end i just got really impatient and decided to put up an add on all the FB retro forums and this one, offering £1000 for the correct frame.
I got ALOT of replies! HA
None of them were the right year, they were all a bit wrong in different ways.
I finally thought i'd settled on one when i got a message from a guy saying he had one spare after he'd finished building his.
The only issue was he was in the US with it moving back to the UK and it would be coming back with him to the uk, but it would be in a container and would take a couple of months.
I saw the picture, and jumped on it, it was the exact height, year, it was the real deal.
Waiting for that was hard, but we kept in touch, he also had a bunch of other parts to go along with it he would sell me.
In the end with all the parts he sold me it came to £750
These included correct headset, X-ray gripshift, seat, and seat post, and bars.
And while i was waiting for it to arrive i went a bit mad, bought the entire correct drive train, new tyres, new Dcd which i had to put a shout out for, which turned out to be the wrong bolt count. New cables, and grips. Bottle cage from California.
And by Febuary 2022 i picked up the frame and was ready to have a full day spent on the build the next day.
5 months after the death of the Rockhopper, i had started to build the proper machine.
M2 S-Works 1995 Frame
Ahead Headset
Seat post
Specialized seat Unknown model
Gripshift x-ray shifters
Green and Blackshifter grips
£750
XTR M900
Cranks £180
Rear mech £65
Front mech (wrong size) £50
Front mech Correct size £65
Bottom Bracket £85
Casette £100
Chain £65
Grips £35
New Tyres Smoke and Dart £70
New cables inners and outers £25
Bottle Cage £50
£1,475
Total money spent on this project at the end of Part 1
£2790
The End of the beginning..
waiting for that container must of been torture 
