1996 Mongoose IBOC pro sx
- Thread starter sparkybhp
- Start date
pwebb
Retro Guru
Apologies for continued hijacking of this thread btw.
I originally thought could be T for Taiwan, lower case m for Merida and then 3 digits 508 to somehow denote month and year and maybe model also. The Mongoose BMX forums are not much help here and numbering scheme different
The intriguing thing here is the use of investment cast BB shell and dropouts and neat TIG welding , none of which typical for mass produced framesets. The BB shell appears to be the ovalized item used by Ritchey themselves with a very bulbous shape where it meets the BB and the compact socket dropouts are definitely sourced direct from Ritchey. It was the latter that attracted me to this frameset as I have another Tange prestige frameset with exactly the same investment cast Ritchey dropouts ( Merlin Prestige) those dropouts tended to be purchased and used by esoteric MTB brands in USA and Canada predominantly and are very distinctive, I don't associate them with large volume factory output, but I guess Merida could have had a special orders unit a bit like sbdu and Raleigh?
The thing I am really trying to find out here is whether these frames were, in fact, just ordered direct from Ritchey and therefore may have come from the exact same framebuilders that Ritchey was using at the time...
. ..The use of these particular investment cast BB shell and dropouts lead me to conclude that was the case.
P
I originally thought could be T for Taiwan, lower case m for Merida and then 3 digits 508 to somehow denote month and year and maybe model also. The Mongoose BMX forums are not much help here and numbering scheme different
The intriguing thing here is the use of investment cast BB shell and dropouts and neat TIG welding , none of which typical for mass produced framesets. The BB shell appears to be the ovalized item used by Ritchey themselves with a very bulbous shape where it meets the BB and the compact socket dropouts are definitely sourced direct from Ritchey. It was the latter that attracted me to this frameset as I have another Tange prestige frameset with exactly the same investment cast Ritchey dropouts ( Merlin Prestige) those dropouts tended to be purchased and used by esoteric MTB brands in USA and Canada predominantly and are very distinctive, I don't associate them with large volume factory output, but I guess Merida could have had a special orders unit a bit like sbdu and Raleigh?
The thing I am really trying to find out here is whether these frames were, in fact, just ordered direct from Ritchey and therefore may have come from the exact same framebuilders that Ritchey was using at the time...
. ..The use of these particular investment cast BB shell and dropouts lead me to conclude that was the case.
P
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