Dutch made Mountainbike Empella

Last week i found this very yellow mountainbike not far from my home and decided to take a look and pick it up. I was very surprised it was fitted with almost a complete XTR M900 gruppo!(only the brakelevers and shifters are not M900) Wasn't expecting this. Empella is the name for a local framebuilder Ad van Empel located in Erp. He is quite famous for his cyclocross frames and bikes. And there is a cyclocross modell which bears the name Bonfire (his daughter was interested in horses, Bonfire was the name of the horse of Anky van Grunsven, Olympic Champion) But this is a mountainbike also called Bonfire, don't know why? Can't find aby info about it.. Bike is in good shape only the seatpost is stuck. Shifters are Gripshift SRT-800 and the levers are very nice Suntour XCPro ones! Also good to see some kalloy parts standing the test of time. Fork is a Tange struts but the elastomers are shot.. If the weather improves i'll take it for a spin and see if i can take more pics.

Some interesting stuff going on there

What's with the seat tube extension being so long, and the rear canti studs, and the roller for the back brake cable?!

Cool

The xtr looks mint too, bonus!

Re:

Nice find! Did Bart (stumpjumper1990) not have similar frame? At least I remember him riding one on one of the retrorides.

Yes, Bart had a similar one found a topic about it, but his one was a teambike with the name of the rider on the frame. Rear cantistud is probably repaired I think. Don't know why the seatpost is that long, more strength?

Re:

Nice find!

When I saw this thread , I thought Bart must be having a sale!
I imagine the seatpost extension is for cmfort and to allow for a shorter seatpost.
Look at a photo of Edwig van Hooydonck's Buckler Colnago as reference. Extended both ends

Mike

Nice find, here's the link to Barts build http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewto ... p;t=130268

Thnx for the link. Was hoping that someone knew more about this particular bike.