1993 GT Borrego.

Well this one stared of as an 18” frame karma to me from Rob Atkin (nice one Rob) with the intension of transplanting the components from my 16” Karakoram as it a bit small for me. Well I couldn’t do that to the Karakorn as its to nice, but it just so happened a 16” Borrego tuned up on eBay. I got for a very good price and it came with some very nice period Tioga suspension forks.

I had every intension of spraying the Karmaed 18” frame and putting new decals on etc but I ran out of funds, time and patients. So embarked on a full strip down of the forks to start with even thought they looked in very good condition. I removed the scruffy decal and they now have new oil and oil seals in, they are standard 25 x 35 x 7 R23 oil seals. The rest of the components, full Suntour XC expert group set got a full strip down and rebuild. They are all in very nice condition but have obviously been well used. Some new rims are going to be needed sooner rather than later. The seat post was very unsightly so I clean it up as best I could and polished the visible part of it. Just need to work out how to set up the bloody cantilever brakes, they are pain in the bask-side. If I get on with it it’s going to be my regular XC bike so I’m fitting some new modern rubber this weekend.

Here it is, not that pretty to look at, apart from the bar stem and forks that all look NOS now.

WOW! That look excellent - great job you've done. Looks better than OEM to me.

nice one! i think a frame with a little patina is a good thing. i bought the same model borrego bitd. at the time, i also bought Mag 21's for it. got many many years out of that bike, the frame was bomb proof. even in the late 90's my mates were calling me 'retro' for continung to ride it...

i know exactly the frustrations with those suntour brakes. they have fiddly little bolts, and all the concave surfaces and convex washers are a pain. i took mine off pretty quick, and ran my old 92 era DX low profile cantilevers and SLR levers on it instead.

the thumbshift levers are really quite good though. their action was a bit nicer than my DX / Deore thumbies

Cheers, I'm taking it out on Sunday for its first ride, its long one but I guess I will know if I'm going to be happy with it after 30ish miles xc riding. Started swetting about spending 3 hours on that seat as well. :shock:

Very nice , where did the Borrego sit in the GT lineup in relation to the Karakoram etc ?

I'd have been very keen on your lovely 16" Karakoram if i had'nt just got my Bravado done and also bought a road bike :roll:

jimihendrix":2pdtyshk said:

Very nice , where did the Borrego sit in the GT lineup in relation to the Karakoram etc ?

I'd have been very keen on your lovely 16" Karakoram if i had'nt just got my Bravado done and also bought a road bike :roll:

Click to expand...

I think looking at the new price range in 93 there wasn’t much in it Karaakoram and the Borrego where about $550-$600 new. The same Tange infinity MTB frame as far as I can tell, just that the Borrego was Suntour XC expert and the Karakoram was Shimano LX. I would be hard pushed to pick between them from the 93 line up.

Fork decals added.