Hatty's Hardrock

I've mentioned a few times on here recently, but thought that it was about time I actually put a thread together for my daughter's bike. Background is - my son gave me about two weeks notice to find a new bike for him for the school's proficiency test. I've been through a bit of a dodgy few years and as a result not seen much of my kiddies or had much to do with bikes. After a week of frantic scrabbling I found him a lovely little 20" wheel Felt. Which sort of whet my appetite a bit - it felt good to strip down and rebuild a bike again.

As my daughter has now outgrown her 20" wheel Giant, I thought I'd build her up a 26" wheel - sort of retro thing. It started out as a 'so she didn't feel upset that her brother had something new' and I think is turning into a bit more of a labour of love, for me. I'm sure other parents who've been through the same stuff can empathise - if you can't be with them, you try and do what you can to compensate (and keep yourself busy).

Anyway - after a bit of searching on eBay I found a nice little Specalized Hardrock. Nothing special - just a nice small frame (we have short legs in my family) - looking for some love.

eBay pictures showed it was a little rough - but I though a quick power coat and a few retro components, and I'd soon be done. When it arrived - have to say that I was initially disappointed - felt like a brick. Stripped it down though and felt a lot better - cheap Suntour's on the front and a heavy BB didn't help. The guy on eBay was really nice and had sent me a crank, but again - heavier than my intended purpose!

First photo shows the original eBay pic, following are when I received it and stripped it down.

p.s. Sorry - I do go on a lot when I write... so bear with me!

So frame stripped - I sourced a local powder coaters. They stripped and painted satin black (my daughter's choice) for a mere 40 quid. And actually - did a splendid job - as, hopefully, these pics show.

What I forgot to add is that my girl wants to build the bike up with me - so I'm in the process of building it up (to do the major repairs and check every works together), then I'll strip it down and take the bits over - so we can bolt stuff on together.

Power coaters were Project Powder coat: https://www.facebook.com/projectpowdercoating

Based in the Midlands (in Lye) - so if you're a Black Country boy, like me, then you're in luck

Final one for the evening (before I bore everyone to death) - had a chat with my daughter and she wanted a purple and black theme (obviously not swayed by my love for purple anno - mwuhahahaha). Found a nice little sealed race headset from eBay for 6 quid which should do the job nicely. Hopefully this gives you a flavour of things to come!

£40 for a good professional powdercoating is definitely a good price. Looks like a fun project all in all, and I'm happy it makes for some quality time with your kids as well!

Cheers Genuinely lovely job - even copper greased the inside of the head tube / BB threads and so on, so everything wiped off / screwed back in nicely after. Only downside was that they forgot about the brake bosses - but I just unscrewed them and popped some new stainless ones in, so all good. 100% recommend them.

So today's update... a few weeks ago (a month maybe?) I was thinking about wheels (bearing in mind the black/purple theme). I have some lovely mid/late-90s LX hubs, which I'd bought through here a few years ago, that I thought would be perfect - and help to keep the cost down. Turned out that the rear was missing a spacer or two, but I managed to source some spares on the bay. Both hubs are now stripped, rebuilt and waiting to go - happy boy.

Meanwhile, I'd been hacking through the cheap / second hand rims on eBay and fell across some gorgeous purple anodised retro jobs - being sold by https://www.mtb-kult.de in Germany. Trying to stick to my budget I obviously immediately bought them. Very, very happy with how they look with the stain black frame (I'm a 90's boy - I can't resist a bit of purple ano.)

Remembering that the last wheel I built was on the back of my Zaskar (the bike it was going to be ridden on) I thought I should probably invest in something handier - and grabbed myself a heavily reduced truing stand from Amazon (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Minoura-FT-1-W ... B008ENQ39W).

Black spokes are on the way as I type - so hopefully get the first wheel built up this week!

(Stay tuned for 'the saga of the forks' - aaaarrrrgggghhh)

Looking good, although I must admit red is my thing. Don’t suppose you have a link to the headset do you?

Looking forward to this sort of thing with my boys but they are a little way off yet (2 &5).

Here you go Not had the chance to ride it yet, but fitted it fine and seems good enough so far - handily they do a range of colours, including purple... I mean red... I mean purple

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gineyea-1-1- ... lXGmZfPCcQ

Theres some bits on their way to you!

Superb thank you... you shall feature in an up and coming instalment!

Only if its my better side.