ORRat - Crap mountainbike build

I'm not much of an MTBer and haven't off-roaded regularly since moving from Bath in 2006.
I keep a bike in the shed for occasional jaunts with mates to afan, cwm carn, swinley etc.
About 10years ago I sold my proper full-sus MTB and went back to my roots with old school steel rigid MTBs, firstly a Rockhopper

then a GT.

Meanwhile I also acquired something more sedate.

Recently the GT frame cracked and whilst I love the Saracen, it doesn't tick all boxes (in fact it doesn't tick many at all but hey ho)... So I'm in need of an MTB

In terms of a replacement, I'm thinking of going modern (ish) by which I mean 1x drive train, long travel suspension forks, hydraulic disc brakes, weird bottom bracket/cranks, integrated headset etc.

From a mechanical perspective, this is all new to me, my last proper mtb had magura rim brakes, Z1 bombers, cup headset, square taper bb etc.

To learn these modern arts I'm going to start from a bare frame
As with a lot of my bikes it'll be a low-budget ratty build with lots of learning along the way but hopefully I'll end up with more confidence, knowhow, tooling etc...

To begin, I bought a frame on ebay. It's a Czech-built aluminium XC bike made from Columbus Zonal. I liked the price but not the branding paint job...

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How long are you thinking when you say long travel suspension forks? If you are looking at 140mm+, you probably want something with very modern geo that is designed around it.

Good point
I wasn't planning anything that crazy - probably 120 - 130mm
Hopefully I'll find something adjustable....

Collected the frame the other day - it's covered in goop but superlight and I rather like it..

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I did a bit of trunking around on the internet and found this -which looks to be a similar frame and reasonably nice build

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The canti studs would suggest its something closer to this:

https://kolo.cz/clanek/author-vision-2006/kategorie/mtb-xc-ht-2006

That website has it spec'd with 80 mm forks, 26" wheels. I am running a 160 mm fork in a frame designed around 130. I wouldn't say it has the best handling going up hill and I am looking to drop it to 140 mm.

Therefore 120 to 130 mm might be pushing it!

Ah yes good link, thanks
80mm is punier than I'd expected - looks like an adjustable travel fork will be required to see how far we can go!!

I degunked the leccy-tape adhesive with some white spirit yesterday and had a go at removing the downtube branding - this turned out to be paint or print so and dug out a rattlecan of hammerite from the shed yesterday and dealt with this

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I had a GT Talera that looked like that. Where did yours crack?

right across the chainstay dimple

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I've passed the wreckage of that one onto @M_V so hopefully it'll rise again in an improved form!

Paint seems to have gone on OK

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Over breakfast this morning I was doing some Basquiat-esque doodlings....

That huge expanse of black painted aluminium looked to be missing something so......

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Not sure how much of the frame will get doodled on but that'll be a tea break challenge for me today

Ah, mine was at the other end of the chainstay, where the dropout was welded in.

Just using a normal white paint pen?

I’m guessing the weak spots are where the water ends up

Love that Saracen ^ up there.

Sorry back to the mtb doodling

Cheers it’s great, the drum brakes are a bit vague but other than that it’s a load of fun

Yep it’s a posca

I think this is probably enough

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I think in my case it was the thinnest part of the stay and it had also been joined there, so double whammy. Similar thing to what killed my 4SD though that was more shit dropout design than manufacturing issue.

Yes I've owned ancient 531 frames with the skinniest stays, ridden them really hard and they last forever so I take for granted that steel is eternal.
It seems that when you stray from the well worn path with frame design you're on your own and small design flaws can kill seemingly tough frames whilst the trad framebuilder rule book has learned all this stuff the hard way!

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I know what you mean. To stick up a little bit for the GT, I did ride the hell out of it - it went from SS commuter to SS MTB to trials bike to geared MTB to panniered up touring bike to commuter to courier bike. The fact it held on so long under me was probably amazing :D