Awesome Foursome Part 1 - Formula 1

An education as always Carl

The only reason I assumed / questioned the tie up between Quasar and NTi is the equally billing both have in one of the pics above which seemed a little odd

For me NTi are synonymous for distributing the first batch of far east produced Rock Lobsters but of course they had a far wider portfolio than that.

Retro Spud":2d0m6cq6 said:

An education as always Carl

The only reason I assumed / questioned the tie up between Quasar and NTi is the equally billing both have in one of the pics above which seemed a little odd

For me NTi are synonymous for distributing the first batch of far east produced Rock Lobsters but of course they had a far wider portfolio than that.

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They did, (hows your lobster coming along...?) They brought loads of cool stuff to our shores over the years, Bontrager, RockShox etc, as the market grew, bigger players took some of it on though, it is hard to see in those images what components were supplied by NTI, id have to have a look and see if I could find out what NTI were supplying at this point in time, now you say it, its a good question.

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Great thread, thanks for sharing all that fascinating detail Carl Amazing woman to keep at it despite sponsors not backing her up properly.

sinnerman":1nudwajz said:

To be fair, there was a lot more to this project and its forward development than " Chas....Blah blah blah" as you put it, and perhaps its misunderstandings like this that stop it getting the notoriety that lesser frames/projects enjoy. (to be fair the D.O.G.S B.O.L.O.X has only risen in popularity and price in more recent years and mainly due to this site and a clearer understanding of it).

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Hi Carl,

Thanks for all the info which I’ve only just had time to read. I wasn’t being disparaging to either the F1 team or the Chas Roberts crew when I said blah blah blah, I just felt I’d made my point already about how much material value was in the frame before evening thinking about the R&D that went in to it. I’m a chartered engineer myself you see, with nearly 20 years experience at JLR, so believe me I understand and agree completely.

It’s the same reason I love Paces. There is so much thought and work gone in to working out exactly where all that micro milling could be done to reduce mass, but not durability. I also love the PRST1 - something that ugly can only be that way for a good reason, eh?

Anyway, here are some more photos with more appropriate, but not final parts......

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...and some more pretty shots...

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Got some Silver Pace rings which arrived today

Faded pink/purple Middleburn hubs are on it right now, along with a silver Pace stem which is in competition with a soon to arrive X-Lite L168

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Looking at the photos just added, I’m erring towards putting the sunset rims back on, albeit on different (British) hubs. I have a blue Goldtec rear which might be a bit new. The Middleburns won’t work as they are 36h and the Hopes on the black XC717’s in the photos are, well, a bit common (and also dibbed by the Bonty Ti)

Maybe the Nuke Proofs in my RC200 F1 post? They are British, right?

Thought / advice?

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The postie just bought some goodies for this from some awesome fellow RBers

- Royce BB and tool - Veedubba
- XTR M900 brakes and RD - Bikemi60

Lovely parts list Matt, a top build coming together on this one

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Just to add to some of Carl’s details about the rear end and why it was done in steel and not carbon, it was all to do with mud clearance. As Carl rightly points out, the mud clearance with the Roberts back end is superb and it was only because of the limits of carbon construction back in the day that F1 felt they could not do a carbon rear end that performed the way they wanted it too.

I’m not really sure why as my ‘94 Gary Fisher Pro Caliber which uses the ubiquitous Trek OCLV frame managed all right but there you go, maybe their design or manufacture process allowed them to do something F1 couldn’t.

I guess F1 wanted to keep mud clearance as good as possible, following the Mk1 version with its e-stays. They were unhappy about the lateral flexibility of the e-stay arrangement which is why they reverted to a more conventional rear end with more spaced out anchour points to the mainframe. If I could remember back to my engineering degree, I could probably recall the formula, BD-cubed seems familiar but might be utter bollocks!

Keep the comments and details coming