1994 Serotta Colorado ATi - and a Lot of DIY Anodizing

[MuchAlohaNui]

Aloha Kakou and welcome!

A new year and a new project. I was organizing parts and bins this morning and realized I have most of the the items on-hand to start this project. The bulk of the items are here and some will swap out as this build progresses. I accidentally bought a 1" Titec Titanium stem instead of a 1 1/8" so I need to get that sorted. Wheels and tires are probably going to be decided last.

I have a XTR m900 set on hand, but who knows. In an ideal world I wish to throw nice anodized bits and bobs on this frame, but currently isn't financially practical so for the most part I'll be using parts from other donor bikes I have collected throughout last spring 22' to present (with the full titanium cassette following me around since 2014 but has never been used until now).

The weight on the scale (in kg) is as shown with the Chris King No Threads headset, top cap and fork race. 1.53 kg!

Serial number: CC 49 0335
Serial info from another website (as I didn't want to plagerize the parties involved (Dave Kirk) with the data set): SN and Factory

This thread will be photo intensive!

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

Polished fork legs and new'ish sticker set. Looks outstanding in person. Picked this one up from a guy locally who scrapped his titanium GT project for other endeavors. Here is the fork as it sits pre-installation.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

Box-o-parts:
Carbon fiber bars,
Carbon fiber seat
Full titanium 8-spd cassette
XTR M900 parts
XTR brake & cable housings (in the sack)

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

I tried fitting the fork to the frame this afternoon, but the Chris King upper race is so exact that I found that the upper part of the steerer tube on the fork, say about 4 mm from the top, was slightly...ever so slightly mushroomed for whatever reason. The King upper race simply would not install. Zero issue with the lower race. I had to use one of my fine metal files followed by some 600 grit metal sand paper to massage this portion of the steerer tube back into spec. Measured and proof of roundness made with my micrometer, the upper race slides on uniformly. Also maybe the previous owner, maybe someone else cut the steerer tube without a jig resulting in a slight curve through the cut. This is every so slightly visible in the photo. Some kind of tooling marks by a previous owner as well.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

Before I build the frame I checked the rear dropouts for alignment. Very close to dead on. Picture looking at the frame from the drive side: X-axis alignment being parallel with the floor, Y-axis alignment being perpendicular with the floor, total misalignment for both planes is less than half a mil, so good enough for me. Will check derailleur alignment in the morning.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

This morning I checked the derailleur hanger alignment. Was off by about a 'large' 2 mm, kind of 3 mm in both the X and Y axis. Not a huge deal and not the worst I have messed with (abused Marin Team Issue)! Also the pictures show a slight reveal of the wheels (I maybe/maybe not will use). XTR m900 hubs and Sun Chinook rims with those cool American flag stickers.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

Wheel preview? Pretty much all I have at the moment to be honest without building something. These came off a donor Mk1 Trek 9900. XTR m900 hubs and Sun Chinook wheels with those sweet US Flag stickers. They are very dirty and not a priority to clean at the moment. Sold during the early to mid 90's. Reviews compare these to nicer end Mavic of the same era. Double walled. Front: 28H, Rear: 32H.

There is a very slight blunt force damage on the rear rim lip. Not sure if you can see that in the pictures. I will need to roll the lip of the rim/brake pad surface just a smidge to realign. Overall, the front and rear need to be trued as well. Once I get the wheel on the truing stand, I can determine how bad the damage is and if I proceed with these or not. But, working out some rim damage is good practice!

Do you have any wheel/rim recommendations? Lemme know!

Pictures of the weights are without skewers and rim tape.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

The front fork is fitted to the frame! Though, the metals of the legs and that of the frame are different alloys so the hue is noticeably different. But, it is what it is and I am not going to worry about it. That would involve painting the fork legs which I don't want to do because the polished look is IMO nice. Overall, these forks are so nice. Very light. The engraved astronauts are a cool touch. Never seen that before. Not sure what they are supposed to represent. Any ideas?

As previously mentioned before, I bought the wrong sized stem. 1" instead of 1 1/8". Any suggestions on a titanium stem around 110 mm?

 

[Frankenorange]

The front fork is fitted to the frame! Though, the metals of the legs and that of the frame are different alloys so the hue is noticeably different. But, it is what it is and I am not going to worry about it. That would involve painting the fork legs which I don't want to do because the polished look is IMO nice. Overall, these forks are so nice. Very light. The engraved astronauts are a cool touch. Never seen that before. Not sure what they are supposed to represent. Any ideas?

As previously mentioned before, I bought the wrong sized stem. 1" instead of 1 1/8". Any suggestions on a titanium stem around 110 mm?

View attachment 692957View attachment 692958View attachment 692959View attachment 692960

The spaceman is the Ultimate logo thing and you will see
It on other stuff they made. The Ultimate cnc crowns were available for a bunch of different forks, to replace cheap looking cast items, but maybe you know that already.

 

[MuchAlohaNui]

The spaceman is the Ultimate logo thing and you will see
It on other stuff they made. The Ultimate cnc crowns were available for a bunch of different forks, to replace cheap looking cast items, but maybe you know that already.

No, I did not know any of that. Thank you. I attempted a search for other parts they made to see what they were into, but the word 'Ultimate' has been used for just about anything and everything as a descriptor word . 'Here is my Ultimate Yeti', 'Is this the Ultimate crank?' stuff like that. If you have any links to old catalogs or something I would like to have a look.

The previous owner of the forks took a lot of care putting these together and I knew there were modifications when buying, but am totally unfamiliar with the brand and what they did. The crown is made by Ultimate, but the brake booster is made by "MD" and is quite thick at 10 mm.