Is it a......... Yes! Yes, it is!!! ;-)

LikeClockwork

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So....cast your mind back to 1996.....

A very poor girl working in an office suddenly decided she wanted to get back into MTB'ing, after having had a Dawes Jackel in 1989....cue lots of visits to local bike shops and countless questions of no doubt very bored cycle sales personnel.

I came away from one local dealer with the latest edition of the Bikenet catalogue, and immediately was fixated on the Zaskar, even though at that stage it was a 'frame only' option in the UK. What I ended up with was, of course, the far lesser Timberline model from the previous year in a size too big for me, which I upgraded at the shop with Judy XC's. It got stolen from outside the local bike shop and with the compo I got....I can't remember, a Haro full sus thing I think....

Anyway, fast forward a few hundred years and what do we have, a tatty 16" Zaskar on here doing the rounds and no one actually ever buying it....me with a 'wanted' ad for a hack alu frame suitable for a beach bike build....and bingo! (Beach bike for the sands and prom at Weston Super Mare, needless to say it's all off as All Men Are Bar Stewards :roll: )

So today he arrives! Complete with large dent and several 'skirmishes' plus evidence of a bad dark green repaint at some point, but he's mine...all mine....still a size too big at 16" c to c, but I'm ignoring that as the top tube is a measly 21 1/2" which is spot on for me. Build plans, I hear you ask?? Well, cheap and cheerful hack for now, rigid forks if I can swap out the Manitou's, got various nice LX bits lying around....who knows...for now it involves cider and polishing!!!

What year do we reckon, with the reinforcing gusset being on the down tube...? (No frame numbers as they have been ground off, just the '6061' moniker)
 

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Great stuff, iconic!

The year was 1991; my girl (now wife) was at Brighton Poly staying in Eastbourne. I remember seeing the Karakoram Elite in a bike shop and wanting one. The stars and galaxies on a midnight-blue background just looked mindblowing. A lot of money at the time, though, so I just bummed around on my mauve Raleigh Mirage...

Have fun and make sure you post pics! I wonder if anyone still has a Karakoram Elite with the original paint?
 
Re:

Thanks chaps! :p

Have found a mixture of T Cut and Autosol is working quite well, but it's very hard work....! May be parts of it that will still have the muck and old paint left as an homage to it's past life....

And the beach bike idea is back on! (Thereby proving that indeed, not all men are bar stewards, some are in fact welders after all) So probably single speed for now for simplicity. More later if I get anywhere with the polishing, in the meantime I need to get some proper work done.
 

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