Merlin 9443

Zorro

Retrobike Rider
This is my Merlin, frame number 9443. It's been my restoration project for the last six months, finally took it out for a shakedown this afternoon. I think it's 1993. Oddly, it doesn't have canti bosses, and uses a Merlin designed disc brake adaptor. There are no hose guides either, so I've used some BBB stick on guides, which have worked well. The head tube is 1", so I was a bit stuck for fork choice. I decided to take a chance with an Exotic rigid carbon fork, having read some favourable reviews. I'm impressed with it, seems solid. Its 39 A-C which seems to suit the bike, it's not suspension corrected. It did have a Pace RC-38LT and risers fitted when I bought it, which didn't feel right for me.

Since I like the Exotic fork I decided to use their seatpost, bars and stem to tie it all together. I took an inch off each end of the bars. The stuff is reasonably priced for the quality, and seems just as good as some more established brands. I'm quite light so not too worried about the carbon seatpost. I've used fibre grip on all the clamp areas. The 27.2mm seatpost is tight, need to pry open the seat clamp a little with a large screwdriver to get it to go in without trauma. Suffice to say I'm not planning on taking it back out now

Wheels are Shimano M-959. Not the lightest, but strong. They were on it when I bought it, along with the Panaracer tyres which I'll wear out and replace with something a bit fatter eventually. Discs are Hope Minis. I've changed the fluid so they're working nicely.

When I bought the bike it had a Royce titanium bottom bracket, which had been in there since day one. I managed to get it out by immersing the whole shell overnight in a bucket of Plusgas, and used Royce's tool to get sufficient leverage. The threads in the shell were fine. I sent the BB back to Cliff at Royce and he refurbished it -good for another 20 years. I reinstalled it with some Ti bolts (had to really), all to the correct torque using an ALDI torque wrench -fine for occasional use.

The drivetrain is Cooks cranks and Raceface chain rings, M952/953 XTR shifters and derailleurs. Picked up some Gore ride-on cables cheap on CRC, smooth!

Weight is just under 23lb. Hope you like it.
 

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Re:

That's cool, love the forks. Merlins do suit retro mod...or is it mod retro? :roll: builds very well. Royce living up to their reputation again too I see :D
 
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More pics:-
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Not much change recently. The XTR RD fell apart. I'm annoyed with the M959 wheels only allowing very specific cassettes to be fitted, which are old and expensive. I'm thinking new wheels, modern RD, shifters and cassette.
 
Not very good with posting pics :)
Shame since I would love to see this bike in more details.
Are you using Full Editor? It should post images for you without host.
 
Have tried full editor -it lets me insert a weblink, using the img button, but then it displays my personal email details. Have tried uploading as an attachment, but the maximum permitted size is 512kb. I tried uploading an attachment of less than 512kb and it said the size was wrong. So I'm getting a bit frustrated with the site tbh.
 

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