Well that’s hopefully handelbargate over with...
When it came to chainset/cranks/chainrings, I originally wanted Bullseyes but wasn’t propared to pay the money for a clean set I saw (can’t remember if it was eBay or Facebook) but ended up regretting that since. I then bought a complete set of Bullseye cranks and BB but not until after the batch of parts coordinated by Jason Smith had been sent to DMF for fresh powder coating in dayglo yellow. Jason supplies the essential crank keeper part for me. They need to get repainted at some point when I can be bothered but until then, the second option of fitting Shimano Deore M730 was the next best and only choice I was ever going to make. I hunted for black rings to match the sets used by the Tomes and Juli at the 1990 Worlds. I ended up with two sets. I swapped the rings from one set to the other to make the best set of what I had. Clean enough for this purpose.
I also only ever considered SPDs for it. Launched before the Worlds in 1990, all the top Shimano sponsored racer had them, including my Team Yeti duo. I have a few sets, including some NOS. I’m fitting the used clean set to this, so that the shininess of the NOS pedals doesn’t detract from the other used parts.
These are unscratched and spin great!
Once those were in, I could fit the correct size FD, a Ø30 Shimano Deore XT. (FD-M735) This is the second NOS FD I’ve bought for this build, the first being the wrong size. :facepalm:
Then back onto the front end. As mentioned earlier in the thread, I wanted Manitou forks for this, just like the Worlds bikes. Those were some of the very first hand made by Doug Bradbury using different dropouts. These are later issues that came from the Durango Yeti factory with the YETI decals on the brake bridge. It’s taken a couple of knocks, Had these forks a while. They needed
a pretty thorough clean but I’be left some minute traces of Durango dirt on the crown, just for posterity! Internals are knackered, and despite having a new rebuild kit here (and a crazy long 5mm hex/Allen wrench) with new wiper seals, I’m sort of liking the fact they’re original, and because they’re not going to see any serious action, in cool with leaving them as they are.