TomvanHalen's MTB allsorts - drop bars are dead

Bonus spooky figure in shed window.

Evil clock is watching you..

"Clock"

Riiiiiiiiight....

Face hanger more likely

I'm going to need a really good alibi this time...

Going to add my other mtb projects to this thread because tbh they're probably more interesting.

My only mountain bike for many years, since the theft of my Cannondale years and years ago and the unfortunate demise of a Kona Koa through aluminium corrosion has been this Saracen Kili Comp. I picked up the frameset at my local bike co-op for £50, including the original Ritchey headset, almost sold it once, and then built it up with the assortment of 9sp parts I'd collected for the Kona over its short lifetime.

Occasionally I take nice photos

I love this bike to bits and can't really contemplate selling it. It's fairly impractical, as it's basically a race bike, and has a few rust patches that really need dealing with, but I'm still faster on it than on the Oka - it really goes on cross-country trails. Since building it, I've given it progressively wider and risier bars and shorter stems, and it handles brilliantly. Looks like this currently, but with added basket for commuting duties.

The other project, and siginifcantly more current, is Kate's Raleigh M-Trax, in this fetching shade of burnished gold. Kate tends to refer to it as "poo-gold" and isn't quite so fond of it as me.

As originally purchased

I originally bought it off eBay to poach the middleburn cranks off it, and then fixed up a few problems and gave it to Kate for her birthday. She's somewhat disinclined towards spending money on it so it's a bit of an uphill struggle, but we're finally getting towards something that rides well. I've convinced her to ditch the awful, barely-functional Manitou Axel for the OG P2, and scrounged enough parts that it's a pretty good single-speed shredder.

With Wales on the horizon though, I've managed to cajole her into a real upgrade, from @BareNecessities seemingly endless hoard of useful bike parts - a proper fork wot actually works. Pristine and probably better than mine.

Behold its adjustable, coil-sprung glory

So this weekend it's getting a real overhaul - new wheels, wider bars, better cranks, Avid levers and front BB7 courtesy of @Chak and for this year's birthday, something I hope will turn out pretty special.

So we'll see how it goes

Going to have to remove a LOT of fork steerer there.

eeeyup. Going to go with the standard 180mm I think. Should make it compatible with pretty much every normal-person sized MTB ever.

the saracen is amazing, much envy

Embarking upon this project. The bike was stripped.

So now I have a clean frame:

A box of bits:

And some shiny spray:

I was intending to do the paint today so I could refit everything tomorrow after a bit of fork-fettling. Unfortunately the paint is worse that I remembered. Really, really thick, badly applied and flaking off in places.

I've already spent £45 or so on the colours, I can't bring myself to try and do it over that. Going to bang the cups out the frame and take it down to a local wheel shop on Monday to get it stripped, and start from there.

More quality time at casa del @BareNecessities today making the fork suitable for midgets retro frames.

Our leggy vixen bares all

Pete was gracious enough to lend his absurd polishing skills to the task

I don't remember there being beer?!

Wouldn't be the first time, I guess..

Frame is back from the strippers.

Have set up a ghetto spray booth round the back with the bits of my fence that blew down in storm Doris. Light sand, rub down, bung all the holes and away we go

Where did you take it to get stripped?

^ and how much was it?

@spotter, a little alloy wheel refurb place down the road from me here in Norwich, BA Wheels. Cost me £30, not too shabby I guess, next day service was the priority.

2 dust and 3 wet coats of black on. Will be starting to apply the chameleon next.

Not unhappy with the finish so far, couple of little mistakes. Hard work getting in all the little crevices without overdoing it, this was after two coats

Chameleon and gloss coats finally finished as the light's dwindling. Much nervousness until I can see how the fully-dried finish is tomorrow, but I'm pretty pleased!

Now we just need the sun to come out on the weekend. So glad I managed to get it done, only the rebuild to worry about for the rest of the week until Kate comes back from Helsinki

So. Fucking. Cool.

wow that's rad

That's lovely!

Thanks guys, really happy with it. Hope it stands up to riding D:

I've lost my magical PVC crown race setting tool, so a trip to Evans might be in order... But should start getting most of it together tomorrow evening.

As somebody asked how I did it, will crosspost my response here

This is the paint and the shop I bought it from.

matt-pack.co.uk/shop/fd/fdaerosol­s/fdaerochameleon/fld704/

It's applied over a matte black base coat, with a clear coat of the same company's "Super Gloss". I also used a spray-gun type attachment for the cans, which is much easier than just holding the can.

First I lightly sanded the surface, then rubbed down with ~70% isopropanol/water

I applied a couple of dust coats of black, then three wet coats, with some touching up. I then applied about four coats of the chameleon. I waited approx 15 minutes inbetween each application. I did maybe four coats ish of the gloss, the more coats the shinier it gets. I could have done more, it ended up a bit thin on the tops of some of the tubes.

I used blue-roll to stuff the main frame openings and bolts in all the braze ons. The paint is a vinyl so it was easy to scrape off the seat post.

In total I used less than a can of each of the black, chameleon and clear. I had enough black left to spray some fork lowers also. I bought two cans of the chameleon so wasted a tenner there. I did apply the paint a little thickly in a couple of places and got runs - the nozzles are quite temperamental. I'd also recommend a mask, the solvent is quite potent.

Hope that helps