My 97/98 Orange X1

Recently rebuilt by my Dad. We put it together ourselves in the first place as I had to buy it bit by bit.

Bits that have changed since:

X2 rear cos kept snapping bolts in X1 rear. I thought we were being fobbed off, but it actually worked.
AC DH single ring & cranks - red (snapped) / replaced for some ol' deore
A few XT & LX bits changed for STX (just happened to be lyin' around)
Manitou rear shock in place of Strata Pro shock.
Errm, other than that mostly original... new saddle, bolts etc.

Used to look a lot more abused, it did even used to have a spoke guard thing, but it looked cool cos it was hanging off broken. I would like to put it all back to former glory if I get time.

The forks still work amazingly well after a quick clean. My dad put those massive wide boots on `em though which looks funny but they work.

Anyways, its my pride and joy and probably the most expensive thing I've ever bought... lol Just brought it home, very smiley me

wow - couldn't look more different to mine! Mine's chrome with orange rear triangle etc...

yours looks like a Small frame?

its 16 inch, or 16.5 i forget.

the back is slightly higher than usual cos the rear tyre is massive. if i take the boots off the front or find some thinner ones (haven`t found any long enough) then i can get the other fat one up front.

just remembered, the Mavic 121's on this have NEVER been trued, they got a few wobbles but otherwise remarkable condition. a week or so after buying them i saw someone at a race pancake theirs quite easily so i was concerned about that.

i`m just under 6 foot, so it is small but comfortable. i like to be able to chuck the bike around and i need to be able to jump off it in any direction in case things go wrong (they do far too often). the bike i had before this was a 21" townsend (lol...seriously...even attempted racing on it) but then got my first job when Orange started advertising the 'project x'.

anyways wanna get a DH crank set up again, maybe some longer forks up front... see how it goes.

I like the colour scheme on that.

Thanks I had chosen carefully to begin with. My dad was careful to get everything to match where he could. My original pedals were sharkbites (but red) quickly broken & replaced by red triple traps.
Cranks used to be red, and there was red and blue lizard skins.

The handlebars are the original ones (purple), extremely wide but forget the brand - really tough though and can take a beating. I haven`t found anything I like to ride as much since, so am well chuffed to be on this one again.

Reading back the whole thing with colours I can see why people thought I was gay with the bike or summit.

I don`t remember now seeing anyone else with an X1 with these colours, I remember crome/yellow and red/white.

I have a photo of a red one, but I don't think I've seen a blue one. I'll post the photo later when back home.

I would like to see what other combinations are out there, only seen loads of the combos I said before...
I dunno what choices other people had, the mate I was buying through was on the phone to Orange and relayed to me the choices they would do for me. I doubt it was a special service or custom whatever but I do remember Orange being really cool to deal with on the whole.