Trimble refresh

[denco.h1e]

Hi,
Shamed by the stunning bikes featured on the site I pulled my Trimble from the spare bedroom where it's been sadly ignored for 10 years, and stripped it down last weekend.

It's more of a refresh than a restoration, so I'll try to bring the aluminium back to something close to its original shine, but I won't be touching-up the paint - it'll wear its scars. It'll be put back to the spec I originally built and luckily I kept most of the parts that were swapped out over the years.

Today the seatpost, BB and head races went in, but there will be a delay until the next instalment as I have an impending knee op and it'll fill my time after that.

For any Trimble watchers, as can be seen, it's #356, a 20 inch frame size and weighs 2.69kg. I've owned it from new and bought it late 1991.

 

[Dr Dremel]

Stunning! And good thinking to keep the OG parts (wish I had the foresight BITD). Hope you also kept the zebra lycras

 

[denco.h1e]

Thanks.

Oh, and I'll need zebra baggies these days

 

[Bike Hoarder]

Wow! I really love that.

The view from your terrace doesn't look too shabby neither.

 

[denco.h1e]

Thanks.

It's why I moved here

 

[Bike Hoarder]

Trail centres on your doorstep too.

Can't wait to see more of your build, will it get ridden? What else is hiding your spare bedroom (that sounds slightly wrong... !)?

 

[denco.h1e]

Never been too precious about mountain bikes or motorbikes. They were built to be ridden, no matter their age. Try not to crash 'em and keep 'em clean.

Having said that, it'll be kept for fire roads and farm tracks, nothing too serious.

What else do I have secreted away? They'll pop up in time...

 

[Star12]

Subscribing to this one. Gorgeous frame.

Star12

 

[denco.h1e]

Considering that the first carbon fibre monocoque Formula 1 chassis wasn't raced in 1981, tor the normally reserved cycling world the 1989 I-4 was highly advanced for its period, but it wasn't without its design issues, and forgive me if what follows has been covered before by others on the site,

The image shows the underside of the right rear fork. Well, they're neither a seat stays or chain stays, so what else do you call them?

In cross section the left fork is more or less an elongated oval with a flatter side on the wheel side. But the right fork is scalloped in the cassette area - you can just about make out the concave curve where the paint is missing. Obviously, there still wan't enough clearance and I remember the rattling as the chain came into contact quite often. I've always assumed this was the reason the later bikes had curved dropouts. But this was just my guess and I'd be happy to hear from anyone with a later bike as to whether this was the case.

 

[lukewheels]

Mine's the same on the underside of the stay. Like you say, shows provenance!