Ritchey McKinley 1982

The bike was owned by a roadie and ridden on occasion through the early 80's. By the late 80's it found it's way onto a hook in a garage where it hung for a couple of decades. A short stint with the original owners grandchild landed it in the shape I found it in.

The paint is fantastic.

I spent the past few years putting together a different Ritchey spending way too much effort following a basic silver catalog build. Since the fork was era correct but not original on old blue here, it liberated me to get a little crazy (relative).

Early Mathauser pads, Potts fork, yellow Snake Bellies, gold rims, gold pedals, yellow on the post. I may even go with a set of solid center Roger Durham made chain rings. Not to exotic compared to the CNC era from the early 90's or, even the Klunker era that was coming to an end as this bike was created, but kinda out there for me.

Now that I am committed, I need to find those grips to pull it all together. Go big or go home right.

I recently picked up another McKinley that lived a different life than this one. Raced around N. Ca. early in it's life. ridden hard, and put away wet. The contrast is incredible and really puts how nice the paint is into perspective.

In order- Repaint black, abused original black, pristine original blue:

Got a set of Oakley 3's over the weekend. Time to stick a fork in it and call it done. waiting out the rain. Need to get some pictures.

:xmas-cool: looking really nice, and I personally think the colours work really well, helped of course by the stunning original paintwork.

That group photo is awesome by the way :xmas-cool:

Bling:

yup.

I love it! It is awsome!

I was luckily enough to see this in the 'flesh' yesterday. Such a rad bike. The yellow might be an acquired taste for some but it certainly made the bike stand out from the crowd!

Looking good!

What seatpost is that? I like fluted posts and would like to fit one on my build, but they were mostly made for road bikes, so finding one that's suitable for mountain bikes (ie, over 6" long) is a bit difficult!

SR Laprade. One of the reasons early Mtn. bikes were so big was the lack of suitable length for the seat post. Several of the early builders worked around this by creating their own tube and grafting them on to a different manufactures head.