minor_LEGEND
Senior Retro Guru
A quick back story. When I was 11 or so I knew a guy called Barry, he was a pretty cool guy, he had the expensive Troop trainers, & the baggiest shell suit too. So when his choice of bike was a Diamond Back Apex, the one with smokey paint & Deore DX STI, I was rather smitten with the brand tbh. Fast forward a few years, my own MTB's had succumed to theft or wear & tear from my endless pedalling my folks were in a position to buy me a bike better suited to the local trails & races I was doing. When asked in 1992 what bike I wanted I replied a DB Axis. It wasn't the 91 like I lusted after for so long in the bike shop window the year earlier, but what my parents actually stretched to was an Apex. Awesome times!
So this here build is the bike that I couldn't even have, back in 1992 in more ways than one.
It's taken 7 years of searching for something the right size, in reasonable condition, at a sensible price, but eventually in November the planets aligned and this frameset became mine for a nice price. On arrival I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the frame, it's paint & graphics etc. I was prepared to completely repaint with new decals etc but this is definitely falling in favour of remaining original - (for now) I might tap up Gil for new decals, certainly not looking forward to removing the existing ones!
The pics are with a b/b chucked in to test for axle length & the wheels are also correct for this bike which was a stroke of luck picking them up so easily from this forum.
Plans are to rebuild it to close to standard spec. Allowing for a couple subtle changes/upgrades. Parts that can't be found or I don't wish to fit. Namely saddle & the Tioga T-bone stem (as much as I love Tioga stuff). It probably won't run Smoke tyres at either end as per catalogue spec.
Most of the parts are with me now, so this should roll along fairly quickly after I've removed the headset & properly cleaned/detailed the frame & installed the new headset.
Thanks for reading, better pics in future hopefully. Craig.
So this here build is the bike that I couldn't even have, back in 1992 in more ways than one.
It's taken 7 years of searching for something the right size, in reasonable condition, at a sensible price, but eventually in November the planets aligned and this frameset became mine for a nice price. On arrival I was pleasantly surprised at the condition of the frame, it's paint & graphics etc. I was prepared to completely repaint with new decals etc but this is definitely falling in favour of remaining original - (for now) I might tap up Gil for new decals, certainly not looking forward to removing the existing ones!
The pics are with a b/b chucked in to test for axle length & the wheels are also correct for this bike which was a stroke of luck picking them up so easily from this forum.
Plans are to rebuild it to close to standard spec. Allowing for a couple subtle changes/upgrades. Parts that can't be found or I don't wish to fit. Namely saddle & the Tioga T-bone stem (as much as I love Tioga stuff). It probably won't run Smoke tyres at either end as per catalogue spec.
Most of the parts are with me now, so this should roll along fairly quickly after I've removed the headset & properly cleaned/detailed the frame & installed the new headset.
Thanks for reading, better pics in future hopefully. Craig.
Was already built in my head :facepalm: 
