.. and still I did not manage to finish my FSR-Project. 12 years!


This is the frame that started it all. I got it on ebay. 10Euros, large dent in the top tube, but wtf I thought, its steel, has not to be pretty. And I never had a rear suspension before. So I got the frame, tried to build it, but at that time I had close to no tools, no parts and no knowledge about suspension. I did a crappy build, rode something like 2km, the old Fox Alps souped out all the oil that it had left and lost all air. I was so disappointed I threw the thing into a corner and did not touch it again for a loong time..
Children were born, continents moved a few centimetres..
And one day some 3 years ago I stumbled across an add of an old Scott team racing. 50Euros. Really? I bought it. And man! That lit my spark again.

Back in the mountain bike world and lusting for all those once unreachable now cheap and rather easy to get frames and bits I remembered the old FSR sitting in my basement. I did a few searches on the interwebs, saw quite a few awesome builds and decided to give it a go, once again. I thought with that shot frame I cant do anything wrong, it's too late for that one anyhow.

I was thinking about making a rat kind of build, only using parts that were heavily used and I imagined I would polish or paint them so they become shiny again.
Like these pedals for example:

After hours of fiddling:


Or those Magura race lines that were really ugly when I got them:

Polished a crank:

I had to buy all the polishing equipment to get there.

Got into serious money to buy a bike that had this nice little fork on it that would suit my FSR so well. And managed to totally redo it so it works like new:

I even managed to build my own sand blasting box to get rid of the paint:


Then I bought a few spray cans of primer, red colour and lacquer.



And this is where it started to go wrong.
To be continued...
(nice cliffhanger, isn't it?

)
_________________
My bikes:
1995 Specialized FSR,
1995 Ibis Szasbo,
1992 BikeTech Hikari, 1997 Klein Mantra
(pics),1992 Scott team racing
(pics), 1989 Kuwahara Pacer
(pics), 1992 Centurion Titan
(pics), 1985ish F.Moser jodler
(pics), 1992 Hercules Titanal
(pics), 1994 GT RTS-1
(pics),
1995 Klein Pulse,
Current projects: 1996 GT LTS Thermoplast,
1992 Klein Pinnacle,
1992 Marin Rocky RidgeEx bikes:
1992 Rocky Mountain Cirrus, Cannondale
SM2000, Specialized
Rock hopper comp,