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)

Re:

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!

legrandefromage":rozrwo9u said:

Theres some bits on their way to you!

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

petitpal":3h1qq5kx said:

legrandefromage":3h1qq5kx said:

Theres some bits on their way to you!

Click to expand...

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

Click to expand...

Only if its my better side.