Offroad Proflex 552

[weeman_mtb]

Picked up this frame/forks/stem combo from LGF at the FoD meet back in May for a bargain price. The next day I had it all stripped and made myself an elastomer for the back end at work that week. Since then the thing has stopped in bits but I've been slowly gathering parts from here, ebay and even the car boot sale when the prices have been right.

Well I've finally got into gear and got it back together, partly inspired by johnnypie13 starting on his 752, partly because I'm worried about losing all the little bits but mainly because I'd love to ride it in the Peaks on September 10th.

I have actually already hit an unexpected stumbling block in the form of the flexstem which has a load of cracks around it. There's no way I'm going to risk it and have put an ad in the wanted section.

So here's where I'm at, nothing done to it apart from a clean and regrease of the moving bits and then lots of greasy fingerprints liberally applied everywhere. A quick sit and bounce followed by a ride down the steps (a bit hairy with no cranks/pedals/brakes) is telling me I might just have the elastomer about right buts it's early days.

 

[weeman_mtb]

Stumbling block has now been overcome in the form of a 1 & 1/8" steel Flexstem from forum member "stu". I've made a shim from a seatpost at work to get it up to size so I can now get back on with it. In the long run I would hope to replace the stem with one like the original but I want to ride the bike next week.

I'd love an hour or two on it tomorrow but I suspect that the wife and kids won't let me with it being the last Sunday of the six weeks holiday :cry: .

 

[weeman_mtb]

I managed to spend about 1 & 1/2 hours on the bike before we went for a drive to the river today. I wasted far too much time cleaning out the rust from the fork steerer to get that shim to go in nicely so progress wasn't great. I did manage to get most parts on it, all of which (apart from the pedals) were cleaned and earmarked for this build.

Hopefully I'll be changing the brake levers as I have some in the post from "supergoose", pink toestaps will obviously go and brake blocks are coming from ebay. I just need to cut the gear cables to length and get them on and this might just happen in time for Saturday.

 

[MiniNinjaRob]

That looks excellent!! Remember BITD looking through the OffRoad catalogues at these bikes and wanting one. Yours looks really clean and simple, fantastic!

 

[weeman_mtb]

Thanks for the kind comments Rob, I was beginning to get a bit lonely in this thread.

I have managed to gather a few nice bits for peanuts for this build but with time running out it's turned out to be a bit of a chuck together. I've lost another evening's work tonight with it throwing it down outside so it's getting too close for comfort now.

I'm still waiting for the brake blocks from ebay too (1 week), I wish I'd used CRC but like a tart I had to have yellow ones .

 

[chrisv40]

Very nice, I used to have a Proflex 852 and miss it a lot.