MuchAlohaNui
Senior Retro Guru
Hello. Long time lurker, relatively new poster and collector of things.
I picked up this 1998 Bianchi Nth recently, for some of the parts, as a means to an end of a very very slow build up of my 1999 Schwinn Homegrown Factory Team that has spanned close to a decade. At the time of acquisition of the Homegrown frame, I was a Sophomore in college and on a very limited budget. Over time, and to my ignorance, I picked up M950 parts along the way to get the bike in a ride-able and personally acceptable state. To my lack of knowledge, I was unaware of the switch in 1998 being M950 XTR 8-spd to 1999 being a sprinkle of M950 and primarily M951/952/953 Mega 9-spd. So this Homegrown was built with M950 and 8-spd. Oops. All the parts ended up being M950 with the cranks M952 (at least I got one thing right). To add insult to personal pride I had to swallow that at the time to muster up the funds, I bought these powder-coated red crank arm M952's in the picture. I got a screaming good deal and believe it or not the only bidder!
FF to current time, life is on a different track personally and financially so I am able to start projects and finish them within the decade. As mentioned above, the goal was to buy this Bianchi, take the original green Wild Grippers and the 1999 Sid fork, put those parts on the Homegrown and sell the rest. Too bad so sad, change of plans.
This steel-framed Bianchi is pretty neat and I like steel frames. So the Bianchi stays and so is the star of this build thread, this makeover thread if you will. I think my wife saw it coming when she looked at the bike the morning after I brought it home.
Moving along, XTR M950 is period-correct for 1998 and my 1999 Homegrown is covered in M950. Easy decision: pull off and part out all the XT M750/760 parts because I am too pretentious for XT
and laterally move the M950 parts off the Homegrown to the Nth. Though, I digress this makeover isn't going to be a full on period correct effort. The Sid fork is a 1999 XC model and I want the 1999 SL for the Homegrown, so this 1999 fork will stay on this Bianchi frame. The previous owner told me he bought the frame new in 1998 near the end of the year and by that time the 1999 model year Sid was available at his LBS so he went with that one instead being as there were significant internal updates between 1998 to 1999 Sid's. I'll leave that as-is, good enough logic for me. Primary color time: red crank arms, yellow frame and blue Sid fork, what can honestly go wrong here?
The following pictures are taken over the last few days of the Homegrown tear down and parts transfer. Personally, I like the Wild Grippers in black/black, but they don't do it for me on this bike with the dark ceramic Mavic x517 wheels and black spokes. These prominent all black donuts detract from my primary color admiration. Any tire suggestions? I have repro Smoke/Darts, but a different color variant of Wild Grippers would be neat as well (or something else). Anyhow, stay tuned as I wait on parts to arrive!
I picked up this 1998 Bianchi Nth recently, for some of the parts, as a means to an end of a very very slow build up of my 1999 Schwinn Homegrown Factory Team that has spanned close to a decade. At the time of acquisition of the Homegrown frame, I was a Sophomore in college and on a very limited budget. Over time, and to my ignorance, I picked up M950 parts along the way to get the bike in a ride-able and personally acceptable state. To my lack of knowledge, I was unaware of the switch in 1998 being M950 XTR 8-spd to 1999 being a sprinkle of M950 and primarily M951/952/953 Mega 9-spd. So this Homegrown was built with M950 and 8-spd. Oops. All the parts ended up being M950 with the cranks M952 (at least I got one thing right). To add insult to personal pride I had to swallow that at the time to muster up the funds, I bought these powder-coated red crank arm M952's in the picture. I got a screaming good deal and believe it or not the only bidder!
FF to current time, life is on a different track personally and financially so I am able to start projects and finish them within the decade. As mentioned above, the goal was to buy this Bianchi, take the original green Wild Grippers and the 1999 Sid fork, put those parts on the Homegrown and sell the rest. Too bad so sad, change of plans.
This steel-framed Bianchi is pretty neat and I like steel frames. So the Bianchi stays and so is the star of this build thread, this makeover thread if you will. I think my wife saw it coming when she looked at the bike the morning after I brought it home.
Moving along, XTR M950 is period-correct for 1998 and my 1999 Homegrown is covered in M950. Easy decision: pull off and part out all the XT M750/760 parts because I am too pretentious for XT
and laterally move the M950 parts off the Homegrown to the Nth. Though, I digress this makeover isn't going to be a full on period correct effort. The Sid fork is a 1999 XC model and I want the 1999 SL for the Homegrown, so this 1999 fork will stay on this Bianchi frame. The previous owner told me he bought the frame new in 1998 near the end of the year and by that time the 1999 model year Sid was available at his LBS so he went with that one instead being as there were significant internal updates between 1998 to 1999 Sid's. I'll leave that as-is, good enough logic for me. Primary color time: red crank arms, yellow frame and blue Sid fork, what can honestly go wrong here?The following pictures are taken over the last few days of the Homegrown tear down and parts transfer. Personally, I like the Wild Grippers in black/black, but they don't do it for me on this bike with the dark ceramic Mavic x517 wheels and black spokes. These prominent all black donuts detract from my primary color admiration. Any tire suggestions? I have repro Smoke/Darts, but a different color variant of Wild Grippers would be neat as well (or something else). Anyhow, stay tuned as I wait on parts to arrive!
