Ally O Resto first attempts

When I was a young loon, I used to own an Orange Ally O, which I raced





or you might say carried through a river, health and safety avert your eyes.

After I had owned said bike for a year, it was somewhat predictably stolen from me. Sad times.

Fast forward 20 or so years, and while scouring the For Sale section on here, the opportunity to reunite myself with one of these machines presented itself, I could hardly say no, so clicked a few buttons, and a few days later, a cardboard box arrived. yay!

This is how it looks out of the box






and without its parts











and its bits



So what now?

First step is paint stripping, and planning its new look. Back to the matt silver? As it is? Custom paint jobby?

You dont work for Park Tools do you ?.....nice workshop set up you have there !

.......oh.......and strip it and get it re-done in matt black ....v cool

thats the work workshop, not a home setup other tool manufacturers are available

Tool monkey

take some proper pics of the decals first with measurements

gil_m should have these on file but just incase he would be able to copy from the saved pics

There are a few good paint companies around should you want the orange white replicated

beyond that the world and your bank account is your only limitation

welcome

i would say keep to one of the original paint jobs. there were quite a few for that frame. i like the orange/white, also the matt grey is good, i never really liked the full purple paint job though.

when i had mine re-done i had it done in white with the decals you have one your new frame and it looked really good but i sort of regretted not doing an original paint job.

also, don't be tempted to look for the matching aluminium fork, i did and it rode awful with it, the steel fork rides better because of the rake and trail is different to the aluminium fork and also being steel has more give.

If you need a new headset I have a Mavic 317 1/1/4 threaded .
Matthew

Good choice that ..fit and forget and they look spot on with fat alu frames..

what about a reverse of the original paint, orange where its white and vice versa?

I think i need to get the old photoshop into action.

In terms of the headset there was an XT one in it, but its a bit scuffed, so I will keep that Mavic one in mind

I have a set of RC35s which I think may end up on it, will need new rubber bumpers, and a different steerer but i think it might work well. Ill get the original forks stripped and painted though at the same time.

i think this might be a long drawn out build

I love me an ole' Orange or two. A long drawn out restoration or not, I'm really looking forward to the outcome.

Great BITD pictures too