Charlieboy's 1999 GT Ricochet Anatomica Winter Hack

Charlieboy28

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1999 GT Ricochet Anatomica

My aim had been to build a cheap winter hack to stop my lovely shinies being eaten by the winter gloop so setting myself a budget of £100 ish, I managed to buy a Wheeler 7980 as a donor bike for £40, and underneath the years of storage and gunk and grime were very good components mix of LX and XT in very good condition, but the frame was cracked and I did not feel any love for the wheeler in any case.

So then I found Easy riders Merlin and all seemed right with the world, I then went to London for the weekend and fell in love with a shiny Daewoo of all things with some funky tubing and found that the Merlin just did not feel right it was at this point I found this.

The bike was sold on the poo bay by a man who worked in a scrap yard, it was covered In scratches like someone had begun to remove the paint with a screw driver, and some ( I think the seller) had removed the wheels ( I saw them in another room) and any decent serviceable parts and replaced them with tat, the bike was also covered in a film of rust and oil and gloop buy it was the frame so like the Daewoo that I could not get out of my mind.
The bike was in a right old state and I wished I had taken more pics to show condition, seat post spun round and round and scored and grooved, handlebars marked and scratched and controls again spun round, shifter brakes all knackered ,forks scratched rusty stantions etc, but I just got carried away setting to work on her that same night.

Here she is how she was anyways and the daewoo that started it all
 

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So the next day i semi legitimately took a day off , bought meself nitromors, wirewool wet and dry and a super large tub of elbow grease set to work like a man possessed,

Front LX mech was original and cleaned up fab, the frame has taken 3 days 24 hours total solid hard work to get to the stage she is at, bars were stripped and semi polished, and the forks were derusted decals removed and a touch up here and there, ally sanded and polished and dont look too bad though i fear from the noise they make they are not long for this world, headset stripped degreased derusted also came up a treat.
the rest is from the wheeler donor bike.
In terms of labour i have not spent so much time on a bike before, and i now regretably realise that i have thrown away far better than i have salvaged for this bike.

anyway here she is,not finsihed but getting there, this first pic was taken day two, stripped semi polished but still with loads of gunky paint and nitromors in all the nooks and crannies
 

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and here she is tonight, frame is 7005 tubes which have been polished 400 grit in parts, then 1000, three grades of wire wool and then with 2000 grit and then autosol, bars quickly done as i was worried about making them too shiney, forks cleaned up as well as possible, seatpost course sanded then sprayed black with hobby paint masking of the top bit. headset made virtually new with effort

everything else came from the wheeler and has just been cleaned and then cleaned some more , Im running the bike as an 8 speed as that was what the wheeler was

some of the bits

Rock Shox Jett forks

M737 rear hub on a 237 i think mavic rim, front wheeler hub with sealed bearings and a date stamped and very nice quality on a rigida rim.

M570 Front mech, came up spanking

XT M739 rear mech, again spanking ,

kore Stem i could not sell

Full Cane creek brake set and levers, only thing bought so far along wit hthe Flite copy saddle which was new

shifetrs are very nice quality very light action, again from the wheeler but non series and in an all plastic housing

tyres which would have been original spec for the GT are virtually new Velociraptors again off the wheeler

well here she is
 

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As usual I got carried away and forgot to keep taking pics as i went along,
soooo sunday was her maiden voyage, just the usual 20 mile loop of some riverside trails and some of birmingham's finest canals.

Didnt trust the Jett forks that were on there so picked up some pretty mint Pilots Air SL more for the fact that they looked pretty :oops: :oops: ,but i have been pretty impressed at the fork, and they cope with the canalside raised cobbles better than my more modern Reba's.

bike is now finished and she is a peach in my opinion, I grinned all the way and the bike just felt right, i think its crazy she was reclaimed from a tip and makes me think how many other bikes have gone to their untimely demise, I think she knows this and rode like a giddy excited pony saved from the knackers yard, the front end does like to try and come up when climbing a tad but hey.
Decals are cheapy jobs just to give her an identity but look pretty,
Chainset is a Sugino Mighty 900 with Blackspire outer rings.
Full Cane Creek V brakes and levers.
Odi Rampage grips

bike in total has cost around £140, though as said before, the labour that went into it has been considerable, she is sooo pretty I think, and I'm happy to be riding her over winter
 

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some more with a bit of mud
 

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and after

clean and relax
 

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well done!
i really like this!
ive not seen this frame before and you have done a great job with it
when reading through, i forgot it was your winter hack
and what you have done on that budget is superb

how long a stem? :shock:
and you should change the grips(colour)
one of my favourite things is the gusset in the downtube :cool:
 
lol, do you think thats why the front comes up so easy, stem is 110 mm any shorter and i would struggle with the cockpit being too cramped, its these freaky long arms of mine, and a layback would give me the same problem i think with too much weight over the back, its easily counterable now i know its going to happen, bit of a shock the first time finding my front wheel very high off the ground at the beginning of a climb, im undecided about the grips, i kinda like them, was going to go for all black or some red sidewinders which i love, but i quite like the in your face yellow, and they are nice grips.

the frame is lovely and a bit uncommon too which i like

oh and see the yellow selle italia logo on the saddle is yellow, ties in nicely with the grips ;)
 

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oh josh i forgot, some of my reasoning too, the original orc stem was 90mm, but the fork crown was flat, the pilots crown sets the forks more forward, which made me think i could get away with the longer stem, or is my reasoning a bit shonky, the forks have the same travel as the original jett, i think it is just a very light front ended bike

oh and the gusset just for you josh ;)
 

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