(probably not) a Scott. Actually, it is.

While I was out one evening with my wife, I spotted this bike abandoned by the side of the road. Several days later it was still there, so I locked to the nearest bike rack with a 1 euro lock. After several months, nobody attempted to reclaim it so I thought I'd take it home.

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As the title suggests, I doubt it's a scott. It's been poorly repainted with some stickers added on. It's a steel frame and my guess it's probably mid-90s. The Flex-stem and suspension forks are a bit belt and braces though.

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I thought it could be a 90s Italian custom built mountain bike, but these usually have lugs. However there is this nice detail here.

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The bike doesn't quite fit into my collection, so I'm in no particular hurry to sort it out. The plan is to scrape off the paint and hopefully find out its true origin in the process. This will also help me find out if there are dirty secrets. As you can see the handlebars are bent so there are probably a few other problems with it.

Good find this. With all the branded Ritchey parts on it I don't see why it wouldn't be a decent, relatively high end frame such as a Scott. Nice smooth welds as well. Pretty sure someone will identify it from that rear cable guide. Think Kona had one similar.

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/340821/ ?

Got some pretty cool components on it! I'm especially fond of that special edition lopsided Zoom handelbar. :)

drop bars, innit.. :D

Well spotted

I reckon you'd better change the title of the thread Benj

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Looks like it might be the same colourscheme as Wim's 1990 Scott Boulder too - does it have the white bits hiding out under the yellow?

I see white on the headtube and chainstays so you are probably right!

Thanks. It looks just like it. Paint job appears to be the same. Just at the top of the seat tube there's a faded square. Presumably where the Scott badge used to be.

Yes it does. It's white and turquoise under the yellow paint.

Just done it. Thought somebody on the forum would be able to identify it.

Ah splendid, glad that ID fits. Your pic rang a bell and I searched LFGSS and found that for sale thread but actually on further browsing I think it was this thread I remembered, a lot more 1990s Scotts in this one: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/339546/

I stopped working on this for ages. Then my wife and I decided to go on a cycling holiday, so I thought I'd get it up and running as a touring bike.
I finished scraping the paint off - no question about it's identity now.

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Unfortunately, I spotted a crack in the Girvin flexstem. It didn't come as a great surprise seeing as the bike came with bent handlebars.

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I also straightend out the gear hangar (this is a before pic). Time will tell if i've done it right.

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Excellent stuff - loving the green on aqua colourscheme.

Big fan of these old scotts.
Lovely find.

Here it is fully built up. It's a bit dirty as I used it on a cycle tour. My wife and I rode 520km. We started off in France, crossed the border into Switzerland and then followed the Eurovelo 15 until Laufenburg.

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Here it is outside a youth hostel in Chamonix.

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On the road.
The bike was nice to ride. The only problem was that sometimes the front mech couldn't stay in gear so occasionally I had to ride holding on to the gripshift.
Unfortunately the rear axle snapped, which cut short our trip by a day. It seems that in the south of Germany and Switzerland, rear axles are as rare as the proverbial rocking horse excrement.

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What are these???!

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took a while for me to notice the BMX levers! There’s a lot to “what are these?” about this bike.