I accidentally a bike. 1996 Alpinestars ASR140

Meet Molly. She's been a faithful steed for my family since being purchased out of the back door of a wholesale bike part warehouse in Bristol in 1996.



For a while she was my dad's. Then my mum's. Then she languished in the garage for a while, because my sister and I got to the stage where my dad needed to ride his road bike to keep up.

The N+1 philosophy took hold, and she was relegated to my grandfather's shopping and recreation bike due to diminishing space in the garage (I think she was number 8 at that point).

Then, I got knocked off my road bike around the same time my grandfather bought a new bike, and I needed something to do my shopping on. My very own retro bike! She arrived in a sorry state, brake pads wonkier than Bill Clinton's morals, more cobwebs than a Spiderman convention and handlebars so narrow my hands touched in the middle. But that's all OK, I've always wanted to own an Italian bike!

I replaced her tyres, cables, bars (up to a whopping 600mm), stem, seat, grips and shifters. Good as new!

Er, that was a bit longer than I expected it to be. I apologise, it's 2am and I've only been awake about 10 hours (Student life).

Specs:
(All original apart from handlebars, stem, shifters, saddle and grips)
22" Alpinestars ASR140 frame (still too small, **** being 6'8")
Alivio derailleurs and crank (Not the explodey one)
Acera-X hubs (not pictured, my slicks are on those wheels)
C-Star cheapo flexy canti brakes and levers
FSA 600mm bars and Ridgeback 120mm stem
'Monsoon' ebay special friction shifters (because friction shifters>grip shifters)
Tioga Factory XC tyres

Bonus family photo, featuring as yet unnamed 29er (modern bikes are awesome but have no soul), Fred and Molly.



I'll shut up now.

Oh yeah, ride report. She rips up fire road faster than my 29er, descends about as smoothly as a shopping trolley full of bricks, and squeals like a pig if the moisture content of the soil is more than about 0.5%.

Also I broke her chain 5 minutes in.

I assume you're quite big. That's a big frame and a lot of seatpost sticking out still.

Always nice to read such stories, so no need to worry about boring us.
Don't worry too much about the chain. These things happen, especially if the bike has been in storage for years and then gets ridden hard.


As for the squealing, I assume it's the brakes that do this? Do you have the correct toe-in?

Yep, 6'8". I ride XL where possible, and generally anything with 26" wheels is too small. This one in particular is a little short, I find myself wishing for an extra 30-50mm of reach. 150mm stem, maybe? I'm also 100kg, so I break things a lot. I went through three seat posts and a rear wheel on my 29er in 1000 miles.

The chain I believe is the original, although the cassette is original and only just wearing out, so it's not done a massive amount of miles. I'd guess about 2-3k? Most of that on towpaths and fire roads, at least until I got it.

I set the brake toe, but it's probably moved since, and the pads were so badly worn it was hard to tell. Not to mention the brake flex. It needs new pads, but I just bought a new laptop so am trying to hold off from bike parts for a while.