More Red and Black

As you might have figured, from my last post, I like the red and black color combination. I had originally planned on just painting this bike black, but I added the red last night (in the dark) when I went out to check on how the rattlecan paint job was drying. I have to admit, I am not real proud of the paint quality. It's one thing to do a bad paint job on purpose, and quite another when a paint job just turns out less than perfect, despite your best efforts.

Now, to my credit, this is what this bike looked like when Brad found it, and later traded it for my Bridgestone MB3 frame. The paint was chipped and scratched, and the decals were pretty ratty. So, as I began to build it up, I decided to paint it.

Once again, I converted the old mountain bike to 700c wheels. I had a rear wheel (nice, high-end Specialized hub with a Mavic CXP33 rim) which I had gotten for $10.00 at a yard sale. I replaced a broken spoke, and it was good to go.

The front is the orphaned mate to the rear wheel on my commuter. I replaced the solid axle with the hollow axle and quick-release from an old XT front hub. That gave me a set of QR wheels.

On those wheels, I mounted a pair of Maxxis WormDrive 700x42c cyclocross tires. Monstercross, baby! Seeing these brand-new tires lying about, unused and loved, prompted this build.

It's funny how, occasionally, I look at all the loose parts lying around in the bike shop, and realize I have a bike there, just in the exploded-view.

The bike ended up with a steel cyclocross fork I bought for an abandoned project, a threaded Tange Levin headset (converted for use on a threadless fork), 1997 XT V-Brakes, a mismatched pair (one Avid, one Forte') of v-brake levers, 7-speed Deore thumb shifters, 7-speed LX cassette, Origin8 Gary Bars, my trusty old BOA stem which has been on and off of a half-dozen bikes in the last 12 or 13 years, a Shimano Deerhead front derailleur, a 200GS rear derailleur, some random old Shimano cartridge bottom bracket and mtb crank (from the Performance Bicycle dumpster, found while I was getting packing material to ship a bike), Brooks Professional seat, and a metric butt-load of headset spacers.

EDIT: I used the brake adaptors I made for the Stumpjumper, on the rear brakes, so that the pads would hit the rim. See the Comments section for more info.

As usual, with these 700c RockHopper conversions, it rides great. Now, I have to decide if I'm keeping this one, or the Ghetto bike. I want one or the other, but I just don't need both.

I ended up buying cables, housing and a chain. I need some decent pedals for it, but I can transfer some from an unused bike, for the time being. Then, I'll just wait until something falls from the sky (like the rest of the bike).

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