PaintedDesert
Old School Hero
- Feedback
- View
In 1995, after several years of leisurely MTBiking, I was ready to give XC racing a go. For my 16th birthday, my parents bought me a brand new Trek 8700. It was lightweight, fast, and it turns out incredibly reliable, in spite of horror stories about the carbon fibre detaching from the aluminium lugs. Here I am racing it in 1996 in Engis, in the Belgian Ardennes:
After several years of racing (junior and U23), it got retired to the status of travel bike. I rode it through Ireland, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway,...:
For the past few years, it was collecting dust in the basement, looking rather sorry with rusted parts and very poor paint. A few weeks ago, I decided this trusty stead deserved a proper restoration. I stripped it down and had it repainted, including new decals:
It's not perfect: the colour match is not perfect and there are some details on the decals that are not entirely correct, but for 200 GBP I'm pretty pleased with the result.
I'm now in the stage of collecting parts and polishing the parts that are still good enough to be re-used. I'll go for a more or less catalogue build, slightly uprated to full 737 XT instead of LX/XT.
More to follow soon.
After several years of racing (junior and U23), it got retired to the status of travel bike. I rode it through Ireland, Slovakia, Sweden, Norway,...:
For the past few years, it was collecting dust in the basement, looking rather sorry with rusted parts and very poor paint. A few weeks ago, I decided this trusty stead deserved a proper restoration. I stripped it down and had it repainted, including new decals:
It's not perfect: the colour match is not perfect and there are some details on the decals that are not entirely correct, but for 200 GBP I'm pretty pleased with the result.
I'm now in the stage of collecting parts and polishing the parts that are still good enough to be re-used. I'll go for a more or less catalogue build, slightly uprated to full 737 XT instead of LX/XT.
More to follow soon.