Saving an Orange MsIsle

Hi guys. I’m new to the forum but not to biking.
FIRST THINGS FIRST, CAN SOMENE TELL ME HOW TO UPLOAD IMAGES?? THIS THREAD WILL BE RUBBISH WITHOUT ANY.
Secondly, is this bike even "Retro" enough to warrant being in here? If not please move to the right place... but I'd seen a couple of other resto threads on MsIsles, so thought I'd be in good company

I’ve had a road bike and an old trek mtb for the last decade or so which has been great. But neither have been my dream bike. So I broke down the Trek and sold my road bike.... (to be honest that was the worst way round I could have done it as I lost a ton of cash on the roadie but hey... it’s done now.) So I was trawling through Ebay for sometime and stumbled across a bike i’d Actually forgotten about to be honest. But when I saw it I instantly remembered posters of it on my childhood bedroom walls, Steve Peat and all sorts of nostalgia came back to me.... so I placed a cheeky bid, won it. And set off to the wonderful city of Hull to pick up my used and abused Orange MsIsle.

It’s been repainted at least 2 times in its life (I’ll come on to this later) had some dirt jumper 3 forks which had seen better days. And had also been repainted. The headset was knackered, it had a road stem on it. And flat bars. And some alexrim wheels with commuter tyres .... wtf. But it was the frame I was after, and was well worth the money I picked it up for. I managed to Flog the wheels and stem/bar combo and make some money back. Anyway so has cost me about £90 so far......

So first things first was strip it down, and get the paint off that frame. Some came away really easily and some areas took more work. There were 2 shades of orange. And red at the very bottom.... so I’m guessing it left the factory a red colour. Then things took a bit of a turn for the worse when I found that the layers and layers of paint had been hiding a tiny crack in the frame. Right behind the chainring where the chain has clearly been slipping off and smacking into the arm for the last 15 years or so..........bummer. But took it to a fabricator to see what he could do and he sorted me out for 40 notes. Which seemed reasonable. But he also managed to fill in the gauges and divvets from the chain, so its looking pretty minty fresh. Top bloke

So... my plan is thus: spend the next month ordering parts, getting the fork serviced and painted. Powder coat the frame and decorate with original Orange decals if possible. Get a half decent group set on it and turn it into a fun jump/street bike which I can occasionally take down a country lane if I feel the need. I’d love to hear your thoughts comments , suggestions or abuse.

In terms of colours, I'm not precious about keeping it original. So I'm thinking of either an Engineering Green colour, Nardo Grey or hearing aid Beige..... thoughts??

Come at me

Re:

Not beige

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Or to put another way... Hi.

Piccies - I snap on my phone, use a photo editor app to shrink them to fit the forum limit and upload from there. Alternatively there are photobucket type things that work, there's a thread around here somewhere all about it.

Replacement decals should be no problem, several suppliers around doing that sort of thing. Most can customise to suit specific colours etc. too which is nice for these non catalogue builds.

Get some piccies up!

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Thanks for the photo advice
... and the strong direction on colour
So here is the poor old girl. A total mish mash of parts
And progress so far on the frame

Sorry. These are all in reverse order. But you get the jist

I quite like the orange colour.
You keeping the forks that colour or changing that too?

No I’m changing all the colours. So the forks are all taken apart and being serviced at the moment as I have no idea how long ago they were last done. And they e been spray painted by a primary school child from what I can tell. So they’ve going to be going back to Black.
The frame is being powdercoated as we speak, Nardo Grey, or as close to it as I can get.
The kind people at orange have hooked me up with original decals as well so can keep it looking factory fresh. Even all the “Quattro box” stickers and website details etc. Which I’m pretty excited about.
Not sure whether to keep and freshen up the original steerer tube logo, or to buy the new design one instead. That will be the last thing to go on, so don’t need to worry about that yet.

This week I’ve had the wheels, group set, (shimano slx) bars and stem all turn up. And grips too. So I just need to purchase brakes and seatpost/seat.

Any recommendations on the brakes??? I’d like to keep it shimano but not too precious

Ok not much interest on here so far it seems... it I don’t blame you as progress is slower than I had hoped for. However I’ll keep updating nevertheless. So all parts are ordered now. I settled on some entry level shimano disc brakes, race face seatpost and Nukeproof seat. It’s a dh seat but I like the look of it anyway.
Forks are finally sanded down and with the powder coaters as well. I’m hoping to get tinge frame back on Friday and can start getting bits out together.

One thing I have tidied up was the steerer tube badge.... I had been thinking about getting the newer style badge, but instead opted to restore the tired looking old badge and jazz it up a bit with the wife’s nail varnishes and a coat of clear. I’m pretty pleased with how it’s turned out, it’s far from perfect, but it was pretty battered up and the colours were faded so this looks much smarter.

So she’s finished... would be interested to hear your thoughts


Interesting thing is, it turned out not to be a Msisle at all, and in fact a SubZero. At first this upset me but actually they were very similar bikes and actually will be a bit more versatile not being such a slack hard tail.

I’m chuffed with how it turned out. It rides great. The front cot could be a little small for my liking but I can change that down the line.

Any orange fans out there show some love.

think that looks smart.

'modern' stuff never gets a lot of love on here so don't take it personally!