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While the frame was stripped I decided to powdercoat it - toyed with the idea of spray cans but i'd probably have fucked that up & it would have looked shit and have to be re-done anyway.
It was going to be millennial pink or something gaudy but then I spotted some wheels hanging up with a really nice satin bronze finish & my fickle mind was swayed instantly - more pewter than brown/gold in tone - classy. Frame turned out pretty good so I gave the slightly crusty headbadge a polish too to finish it off.
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Cheers, you're obviously a man of fine taste - if this was made in a draughty shed by a man in carhartt overalls with a mullet it would make 2000 words over on the radavist
Meanwhile, in the pile of bits waiting for assembly is an xt 1x11 groupset & brakes providing go/stop functions and an E13 wheelset (with jazzy carbon hubs no less) which by all accounts is a light, stiff, shiny liability that will keep the entertainment value high when the entire rear hub self destructs completely at random.
Other notable parts of distinction include a Salsa seatclamp because it's a pleasure to use and most importantly is cheaper than a dropper, a brand new xt rear skewer which I genuinely adore, Richey Kyote bars which are almost as wide as I am tall, and some translucent glow-in-the-dark oury grips that might get it a radavist feature after all once I prize them off another less glamorous bike. I've also spent nearly ten quid on Chinese ti bolts from AliExpress to replace some of the rust coloured bolts on there just now - absolute filth
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Right - finally got a couple of hours to throw this together, back brake was a bit spongy but a quick ghetto bleed firmed it up a little until I can find the bits up the loft to do it properly, one of the BB cups was a bit reluctant to go in but a bigger wrench solved that one - it's a brute force & ignorance kind of build rather than fine tolerance & precision and I'm fine with that.
Pretty pleased with the result - gonna take it out tomorrow for an hour or two so I'll take a couple of shitty phone pics in the wild instead of next to the bins. Might even bump out of focus a bit & put a grainy 1200iso filter over it in a last ditch attempt to make it cool.
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Cheers - it's a bronze powdercoat, turned out a kinda satin without the gloss lacquer, they made a really good job of it. The guy had a couple of wheels lying outside to see how they held up with / without the clear coat - just as well or I'd have likely ended up with something hideous 😂
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Dragged this up the hill earlier - had planned to take a couple of pics that weren't completely shit but it was freezing on the Renfrewshire riviera this morning and my phone shut down after one that is.
First impressions: I like it - xt m8000 is lovely, the shifting is really impressive, shifter feel isn't as light as it probably should be, although that's down to me forgetting to order new gear cabling and having to use some old bits I had lying around... Wheels are noticeably stiff af - makes the bike feel really quite snappy in its new guise, pleasantly surprised with that. My ghetto bleed seems to have firmed up the rear lever enough so that's fine for now, brakes are good - got carried away & tried a stoppie coming down the road back to the house & nearly binned it, there'll be no more of that madness. Bars are great - wide / big backsweep / decent reach / look ridiculous - what else do you need?
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Cheers, it was a random selection of vague ideas that turned out better than expected - it feels a lot livelier than it did previously
@D_Mars It might end up with one eventually, none of the riding round here really warrants one but if I start going back to trailcentres more this year then yeah, although my knees are knackered so I tend to stick to the fast flowy stuff anyway & just drop the seat a bit on the way down - my days of dragging my arse on the rear tyre on steep stuff are long gone
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Odd one in a way, I came from ‘90’s MTB, then a 20 year gap, and back to the muddy stuff. None of my original riding was done with a dropper but now getting the saddle out of the way is such a key component of any technical riding that I don’t think I could go back.
Love the colour in this, dropper chat aside.
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Yeah I do like droppers, probably end up with one at some point, just easing myself back in - last mountain biking I did with any conviction was in Finale Ligure a few years ago & I soon learned to appreciate the one on the hire bike, I also soon learned that ambition & ability are sadly not interchangeable and I'm more suited to smooth flowy trails than steep techy stuff.
In all honesty I probably enjoy mountain biking more now that I don't feel the need to chuck myself down stuff that scares the shit out of me anymore - still wish I could manual though, or wheelie better than my current efforts but I've never really put the effort into that to deserve it!
The more I look at the colour the more I like it - got a BMX in the shed that would really suit it with the bars / cranks matched too, maybe subtle enough I could get away with it
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That looks great. Nice build and that frame colour is stunning.
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3 years already & as predicted, this hasn't seen as much action as i'd hoped - although this year i'm planning on changing that with the assistance of a small child who likes mud & cakes and can now handle easy trail centre stuff.
Final few changes in the shape of SIDs (not blue ones), a Thomson dropper & some Vittoria Barzos which are fine for the fair-weather trail centre stuff it'll probably see most & we're officially done.
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Certified 100% proper bike. Great job.
hippy
Rodolfo
Maj
D_Mars
Dammit
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About
Unfashionable steel mtb makeover - roll it in glitter retrospective
Posted by
@mcJ78
After a few years without a mtb I picked this up cheap a while back for knocking about the woods on - a 2013 Genesis High Latitude that looked like it had been already knocked about the woods a bit, perfect! I swiftly binned the bald original tyres, plastic pedals & old lady saddle it appeared with and found suitable replacements to get going to see if it was any good, or a heavy shanner as we say round these parts.
A bike light years ahead of it's time, Bikeradar gave it a glowing 2.5 out of 5 calling it a big wheeled oddball but after a couple of mild mannered outings I thought it had promise -a nice smooth, planted ride but it just needed a bit more travel than the poxy 80mm it came with & a slightly slacker head angle. Upon stripping the forks down for a service I discovered i could solve both these problems by removing an internal travel adjust spacer, this gave me 120mm of travel instead of 80mm and a head angle of about 67 degrees instead of 69, and also making it roughly 24% more fashionable into the bargain.
Round about this time I decided I actually liked the bike & decided it would be a rolling project, a few more changes appeared in the shape of the obligatory Thomson post & stem to replace the completely functional but uncool stock parts & an On-One OG bar because oddly shaped bars were all the rage (these turned out to be actually quite nice to hold which was an added bonus). I rode it like this for a while, then I ran out of pointless changes to make to my road bikes and decided to leave them alone, my attention then wandered back to this - I decided it deserved better, so it was stripped down & I flogged the old groupset / wheels & started looking for pretty much functionally identical parts to the old stuff, but shinier.
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