Specialized Rockhopper Kid Carrier" v2, now with a Clydesdale fork is dead!

So a while back, I built up this awesome Paconi touring frame with the plan it'd be my kid carrier bike. It worked great as that... with some issues. Firstly the frame fit me perfectly as a normal bike, except the top tube was too short to comfortably have a Yepp Mini mounted without my knees hitting, even with the max height on the stem. Secondly, the standover height was fine as a normal bike, but caused some issues when the Yepp was on there. I also started leaving my regular daily Space Horse commuter at my mother-in-laws for when I dropped our son off at her house and rode that to work (plus the commute is three times longer than from home so it's nice to have a geared bike with full guards for the ride). This left me with the Paconi with a MTB triple and wide bars to commute on a few times a week. It wasn't much fun. Anyway... I ended up rebuilding the Paconi as a 1x10 commuter with drops and full guards, which left me without a dedicated kid carrier bike.

In comes the Specialized Rockhopper.

I picked this up off of Gumtree for $25. It's in reasonably good condition, no dents, some scratches. The main thing is the top tube is longer than the Paconi (by about 3cm), and the standover height is lower.

Parts from the Paconi that will be reused are:

• SimWorks Get Around bar
• PDW Whiskey Grips
• Shimano Alivio 3x9 trigger shifters
• Tektro v brake levers
• Tektro v brakes
• Brooks Team Pro saddle
• Shimano Sora 9 speed rear derailleur and cassettes
• Shimano Alivio triple front derailleur
• Sugino triple crank
• Jet Black MTB flat pedals
• Muji basket
• Crane E-Ne bell

I also already have a 26" MTB wheel set from my Mongoose rat build.

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One thing I didnt realise until I got the Rockhopper home was it is 1 1/8" threaded, not the regular 1" threaded. I was going to buy a Nitto Technomic quill, but this won't work unless I buy a shim to reduce it to 1" from 1 1/8". I wasn't overly comfortable with running a shim and the Yepp Mini on the stem. The other option is a 1 1/8" threaded to threadless converter. I didn't realise these existed, only having seen the normal 1" to 1 1/8" threadless converters. Turns out BBB make one, and it can easily be purchased from Wiggle. The plus side is also offers quite a bit of steerer to work with, so hopefully the seat will sit a bit higher as well.

I'll team this up with a nice Velo Orange stem. I'd love a SimWorks stem, but it's a bit out of budget for this build. Will probably get something like this.

I also need a new seat post, but that'll be a cheap alloy one from online.

The tyres I currently have are fairly off-road. As this bike will mainly be used as on roads and bike paths, I'll be looking at getting something like these Maxxis tyres.

I also would like full mudguards. I used Zefal Paragon on the Paconi rebuild, so I may get another set of them.

As the paint on the Rockhopper is fine, but not amazing (and kind of boring) and has chips and scratches, I thought I might experiment a bit. Not planning a full respray, but was thinking of adding some colour.

My ideas are either some Ten Speed Hero-type sprinkles, Firefly dots, or Blakey™ / Cook Paint Works splatter paint. The sprinkles and dots will take a bit of masking, time and skill... the splatter, not so much. I think the splatter would suit the era of the frame a bit more. I am thinking of doing white, black, electric blue and possibly pink splatter.

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All good ideas re paint etc but build it up and ride it about for a bit first to make sure it fits you?

Look forward to this one. I have a ritchey force 1 1/8 quill stem in the parts box I'm willing to part with if any good to you?

@russmeyer yeah, I should probably do that. I'm only going to cruise on it, so having a slightly ill-fitting frame won't (hopefully) cause too many issues. Having a longer top tube shouldn't be too bad. I'm going to run a slightly shorter stem, and the SimWorks bars are swept back.

@dazzrie thanks, but I'm going to go with the converter. More options, plus I'm in Australia, so postage would be a killer.

Yeah would be a killer. I've got family in Melbourne and it's ridiculous when sending parcels to each other!!

More paint-spiration.

https://instagram.com/p/BVW2t5vAEaD/

Crackle paint ftw

I would... but I am taping around the decals, it might look weird with the crackle paint. Unless I did some kind of fade.

Might do some experimenting with paint tomorrow if my son naps during the day.

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Played around with some splattering today. It's not that hard, but there is some technique to it. Only got the front half of the fork done in the first colour. I think I had the paint thinned down a bit too much as well. I might try it with thicker paint to get the longer stringy effect.

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Also started "taping over" the decals.

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Threadless adapter ordered. Almost ordered a really nice Nitto stem, but it was $33 postage from Japan.

subscribed, I always enjoy your builds

Thanks!

Mudguards ordered. $31 (shipped) for a set of the Zefal Paragon c50. Hopefully PBK don't eff me over like last time and forget to include the hardware.

Nice, look forward to this

Managed to find some spare time tonight (Saturday night party!) to have a beer and paint the frame (and finish the forks) with black paint. Had thicker paint which gave me a more "stringy" effect, which is what I wanted. Also managed to splatter paint my face and hoodie.

Hopefully it dries overnight and I can try and get another colour down tomorrow.

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Wife and son were still asleep, so I managed to "paint" the second colour, blue. It's more of a chalky blue, not as electric as I wanted, but that's okay. It's opaque enough, which was another concern. I'll probably have to lightly sand the frame once all the colours are down and dry to smooth it out, it's a bit raised on some of the splats.

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What sort of paint are you splattering with? Had an idea about doing my commuter white with flouro speckles before. Will you lacquer over it?

It's just cheap artists acrylic. I think it was $2 a tube. I'm going to clear coat with a spray can afterwards.

dont make it 'attractive' !!

Looks cool but I don't think acryling paint is a good choice for this application. Wouldn't it make more sense to do the splatters with a spray can with a slightly clogged nozzle?

I know the guy who painted this:

http://theradavist.com/2013/10/beautiful-bicycle-blakeys-splatter-kinesis-commuter-extravaganza/#1

He recommended the acrylic paint.

Also, I've gone this far, I might as well continue on.