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@joel_austen
Component wise, I have now amassed pretty much all of it, I've been quietly collecting parts for around 6 months now. The M550 cranks on the Rockhopper were 175mm, the LH one also had its extraction thread totally stripped. I needed a pair of 170mm replacements, which ended up being another pair of M550 LX ones.
The brakes were acquired next, some M650 DX cantilevers and matching MT63 2 finger DX levers. I’m really happy with these so far and they seem to tick all the boxes - if I can set them up well enough. The bike will be heavy when loaded up so I need something that can stop me.
Other groupset bits picked up over the recent weeks have been, an M735 XT long cage rear mech, an M737 11-28 8s XT cassette and a bread and butter UN54 122x73mm bb (sadly the BB-M550 loose ball bb on the bike was beyond repair. I would have preferred to keep it looseball but 122mm x 73mm axles seem to be impossible to find).
The obvious choice for shifters would be XT thumbies but I remembered running these on 8s was a bit of a bodge. Less of a bodge would be some good 8s SIS bar end levers on appropriate mounts, so I located a pair of Ultegra SL64-8 shifters. I’m now looking for some Paul Components Thumbies if anyone has a spare set to shift?
Seat post and stem would be original, but I got a dirt cheap Salsa MotoAce bar to fit. This is wider at 680mm and has a 17 deg sweep so more like the position I want. The stem is typical for the age at 135mm long. I’d prefer slightly shorter, but want to keep an integrated cable stop. If I find something better I’ll change this.