Hello, etc

So, just got my first ever mountain bike.

Which is a bit crap for someone who works as a chairlift driver, lifting bikes off the lifts all day in the summer. And who has 2 kids that race MTBs at regional level. But there you have it. When I've actually needed a bike, I've been able to rent or borrow one.

But the desire to have my own has been eating me for a while now, to be honest. Beating up the passes on my (also retro) roadbike is becoming less fun, what with it only having 2 chainrings, and with me getting older; I've actually taken an old beater road frame and been using that offroad, including doing the downhill tracks where I work. Which latter stunt got me labelled as a madman by the bike patrol boys, but that's a whole 'nother story.

So, I took the plunge. Rather than picking up some bargain-basement crap, I figured I'd go retro. And after a certain amount of waiting, I picked up my 1996/7 Sunn Xircuit yesterday. It's not exactly stock (not that I care) but it's had some - "odd" decisions taken.

The guy I bought it from had bought the frame, and had it built up with Deore stuff across the book - that's good - some pretty lightweight Look bars and stem, also good, VP combination SPD/flat pedals - good, and then for some insane reason put the most awful, scraping the bottom of the barrel Suntour M7600 "suspension" forks on the front. I asked him about the rigid forks

Oh, I had those, but I threw them away. Junk, right?

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There were also a pile of questionable stickers all over the frame, which are now mostly removed. What idiot puts Cannondale, Specialised and Mavic stickers all over a gorgeous Sunn chrome frame anyway?

Still, picked it up for less than a supermarket cheapo kids bike, and it comes in at around 11.5 kilos even with those horrible bouncy boat anchors up front. There's some very slight pitting on the frame around the bottom bracket, and it's missing the stem logo, but otherwise the frame is beautiful.

Obligatory bad photo taken with worse camera:


I'll try it out at work tomorrow.

Looking pretty decent even if the the suntour forks were a let down the main setup was worth it to say the least so depending on where you mainly plan to ride it those tyres should do you for now .

Oh yeah, don't get me wrong - I'm very happy with it, and knew the forks were junk before I even went. They'll do until I manage to find something else, as they still manage to hold the front wheel pointing in more or less the correct direction...

The tyres are a couple of half-used spares I had lying about from the kids' bikes, as it had rather "road-biased" tyres on as I picked it up. The bike had been used for some light commuting rather than any sort of off-road use, which, I suppose, kind of explains the forks - if all you need to handle is a pothole or two and the occasional kerb, you don't need anything much in the way of forks. On the other hand, with the stock rigid forks, he would have had a sub-10-kilo screamer.

Go figure.

Well it's good to see the bike is more than upto the job atm and yes a pair of rigid forks would transform the bike into a fast track road racer so it's a good job the previous owner hadn't realised it otherwise their is the chance you'd of missed out on a bargain .

Yes those tyres are certainly the better choice compared to road tyres as i can't imagine road tyres being up to much when trails get slighty muddy .

so what's the initial plan on the forks then ? ..

Initial plan is to see how awful they are in real world conditions. On the quick test ride I was able to do today they bottom out fast and appear to have approximately zero damping, I'll sling the bike in the car and see what happens on real trails tomorrow lunchtime. The only problem with that plan being that there's nobody to replace me and start the chairlift after lunch, so I have to pedal back up

I'm guessing that they are totally shot, in which case a potential temporary option would be to swap 'em with the rigid forks from my wife's rockrider. Meanwhile, I'm watching ebay, leboncoin and troc-velo for lighter & better short-travel forks that haven't had the steerers cut down.

Re:

Welcome to the forum, I do like a nice Sunn!

Go rigid, like mine



Mike

Gorgeous.

Re:

Welcome aboard, i'm sure you'll soon get the bike the way you want it to

Re:

Thanks! Not fishing for compliments

Just to give you ideas. The forks are Kona Project Two, and the groupset, LX M650/3

Lovely ride, and not as common as ^^^ some makes on here!

Btw, must be lovely riding in the mountains! Are there many trails?

Mike

Re: Re:

Mike Muz 67":3if82wfo said:

Are there many trails?

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One or two, yeah.

The resort I work in has something like 150km of crosscountry stuff, 4 big enduros, and 13 downhill trails. And that's only the signposted / official stuff