I bought my first proper mountain bike in 1998, a Marin Mount Vision from the long-gone Denton Cycles in Newcastle. She’s done plenty of miles but always well looked after - that XT series seemed to last forever anyway. Other bikes have come and gone but this one’s seen my through a lot and given me some great times.
Although I’m 6 foot tall I bought the 17.5” (medium) frame as the 19” was way too much of a stretch for my top half.
Anyway, she celebrated 20 years last year and inspired by Benandemu’s spectacular work on his Mount Vision, a bit of a rebuild and a paint job was on the cards.
I wanted disc brakes, but the ‘98 vintage didn’t have disc tabs on the swingarm, but I managed to find one locally for virtually nothing. Originally she came fully equipped with XT everything so I wanted to try and keep the groupset at a decent-ish level, but at an affordable cost. So I kept my eyes open on this site, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace and various online stores for mainly XT/SLX components. I don’t think I paid full price for anything.
I decided to ditch the 3x9 XT chainset for a double SLX 2x10 and a bigger cassette.
Paint job was done by Bettablast in Shiremoor who as usual did an outstanding job. Matt black on the front, gloss black on the swingarm. Fancied a stealthy look, I might get the Fox Forks done at some point.
I’m a big lad so the coil on the shock is a whopper and rarely bottoms out. I’ve always liked it, and it’s easy to turn off when riding. I’ve got a Fox Float R that came ‘free’ with the new swingarm but I need to buy the fixing kit before I can try that out.
Managed to get a new aluminium head tube badge from Hong Kong which looks nice.
Only a couple of last bits and pieces to source, but they’re cosmetic so I’ll pick them up as and when.
Big thanks to Benandemu for the inspiration. I’ve looked at that build do many times and thought ‘I’ll get round to that, one day...’
Here’s to another 20 years.
Although I’m 6 foot tall I bought the 17.5” (medium) frame as the 19” was way too much of a stretch for my top half.
Anyway, she celebrated 20 years last year and inspired by Benandemu’s spectacular work on his Mount Vision, a bit of a rebuild and a paint job was on the cards.
I wanted disc brakes, but the ‘98 vintage didn’t have disc tabs on the swingarm, but I managed to find one locally for virtually nothing. Originally she came fully equipped with XT everything so I wanted to try and keep the groupset at a decent-ish level, but at an affordable cost. So I kept my eyes open on this site, Gumtree and Facebook Marketplace and various online stores for mainly XT/SLX components. I don’t think I paid full price for anything.
I decided to ditch the 3x9 XT chainset for a double SLX 2x10 and a bigger cassette.
Paint job was done by Bettablast in Shiremoor who as usual did an outstanding job. Matt black on the front, gloss black on the swingarm. Fancied a stealthy look, I might get the Fox Forks done at some point.
I’m a big lad so the coil on the shock is a whopper and rarely bottoms out. I’ve always liked it, and it’s easy to turn off when riding. I’ve got a Fox Float R that came ‘free’ with the new swingarm but I need to buy the fixing kit before I can try that out.
Managed to get a new aluminium head tube badge from Hong Kong which looks nice.
Only a couple of last bits and pieces to source, but they’re cosmetic so I’ll pick them up as and when.
Big thanks to Benandemu for the inspiration. I’ve looked at that build do many times and thought ‘I’ll get round to that, one day...’
Here’s to another 20 years.
ready for another 20 years no doubt.
