1998 Orange O2 'Saved'

Hi to all,

Fantastic forum, love the content and memories browsing through all the 'old' bikes from my younger years. Recently decided to retake to two wheels and picked up a couple of bikes from eBay for a bit of restoration.

I used to have a P7 many, many years ago - so found a used Orange bike that was local to me. This one is for my other half, so a small frame was needed for her. The seller wasn't 100% sure what model or year it was, but the Orange support guy was extremely helpful in identifying it as a 1998 O2.

Unfortunately it had been stored outside (in the rain) for over 10 years - so there wasn't a great deal that could be saved on the bike. I thought about searching for all 'period' parts, but came to the concllusion that I could knock together something a bit more economical and reliable going with new parts.

This is how it started:



It now looks like this (Not quite an original, but still has the original frame, handlebars and stem (oh...and the head tube badge )





I did manage to rebuild the forks, but that was a longer term job than just getting the bike ready and back on the road - so went with some Rockshox to get it going at first. The old Bomber Z5's have come out nicely after a full strip down, new seals and paint. Just need to find another bike to put them on now!

Well done on giving it a new lease of life a bit to modernised for my tastes but looks good none the less

Re:

Love what you've done to this, great job.

You 100% need to get the Z5s back on the bike though, will look so much nicer and more in feel with the original look

I think I may have a battle with the other half over changing the forks back! This was the 'half way house' as she really wanted a new bike, but I couldn't bring myself to buy one when there are so many out there that can be brought back to life!

I have another project which needs a set of forks - but unfortunately, these aren't suitable. I was going to put them on eBay, but think I might stick them on here and see if anyone has a bike they would look right on.

Re:

Awesome job.

On bike and forks

rugbymtbr":2wgnifr7 said:

she really wanted a new bike, but I couldn't bring myself to buy one when there are so many out there that can be brought back to life!

Click to expand...

Great work on the O2
Thing is, if you had bought a new bike - how much would you have had to spend to get a frame weighing anything like the O2 - I think the 17" frame as about 1650g. So as a lighter bike for a lady - works really well

I have one - just reworking the build on it - but it will be pretty light once it's done.

Re:

When I 'weighed' ( pun intended ) it up - refurbishing an old frame just made sense. I was quite surprised once it was stripped down, just how light wieght it is.

I didn't go too overboard on the groupset, thinking that we might change it to a 1x10/11 after the winter. Seems to change nice and crisply and hopefully won't give too much trouble with the OEM cables replaced with Jagwires.

I used to have Maguras on my old P7, and remembering how good they were (and low maintenance) - thought that was worth the investment. They stop just as well as I remember!