GT Forte 1998

At the end of summer last year this frame popped up on American eBay and although I wasn't in the market for a new road frame I had to snap it up.

After getting away with paying not much over a scores worth of customs charges it arrived looking like this:

1998 GT Forte TIG-welded Sandvik 3Al/2.5V Titanium with Tange Passage headset and 1" GT Edge carbon fork.

dibs

Ha, did I post this in Classifieds by accident? It's not going anywhere, ever!

We'll see...

Ha, did I post this in Classifieds by accident? It's not going anywhere, ever!

That's what they all say.

From what I've read it would have originally been built with a Shimano 600 Ultegra group and Mavic Open SUPs but I wanted to finish it with modern components and a threadless set up - I started by getting some Wound Up forks which unfortunately had to be ordered new because of the size of the steerer necessary and a 1" NoThreadset.

The rest of its first incarnation included a SRAM Rival group with S350 cranks, a Ritchey Pro wheelset, Thomson X2 and Elite seatpost, my go-to saddle the Flite Ti and Zipp Service Course Traditional bars.

It stayed that way for about 10-11 months (I did swap the forks to the full carbon version when I put the steel steerer ones on my Pulse) but it has recently undergone changes which prompted me to start this thread.

I bought some Zipp 303 clinchers from a seller who claimed they were a year old and provided me with pictures of some 2011 303s. When they arrived they were clearly not what he had advertised but an earlier model. He claimed not to have known the difference and I was going to return them until he offered me a financial compensation instead which made them a great deal. On they went with a SRAM Red crankset resulting in the current setup:

The only imminent change will be destickering the rims and replacing the decals with some without the red. Eventually the groupset will all be upgraded but I doubt that will happen for a while.

In spring I'm planning on fitting some nicer gumwall tyres and have toyed with the idea of white tape/hoods.

I'd love to see how much it weighs. The bathroom scales technique gave me a ballpark of 7-8kg but being tall and having bad eyes made it difficult to make out the specifics going on at my feet. I'm sure the pedals and tyres must weigh about a kilogram between them. Maybe Tenderloin will let me use his scales next week.

And into bike porn you go

Yep, straight up porn. Nice one!

And into bike porn you go

Beat me to it, looks rad.

Superb bike, but personally the layback doesn't suit - if it gives ideal position though it's doing its job.

Needs Syncros Ti post.

looks absolutely cracking, great job!

Thanks y'all!

The position with the layback feels perfect but I could try my inline post on this and see how that feels. I do really like the awkward look of layback Thomsons though so it'll probably stay unless that improves the ride. I have thought about looking for Titanium stems and seatposts and I agree with Malaysian the old Syncros are the dogs but I'd swap the groupset over before I changed anything else when it comes to it.

Bike porn brought me here. First thought was that I would desticker the rims but you've covered that. Also I like white bar tape on this sort of set-up although I'm not sure about hoods as well. Would need to see it.

Very nice. These GT frames look particularly good in big sizes.

Looks sick
What groupset would you want to upgrade to? Red 2013 looks lush and they sorted out the front mech...pricey though

boom ting

^^ Full Red when the time comes but not necessarily 2013. I don't particularly need any advances in shifting but it would be nice and the weight difference is appealing too.

I'm in love, what a beauty.

Hot

Think I have first dibs on this right?

Too big for you surely?

Think I have first dibs on this right?

HA.

Yeah. Right