So, I got me an addiction to french* steel.
I came across an ad for some bits on the french equivalent of fleabay, with the tantalising comment "I've got a lad of other Sunn stuff to get rid of, for example an Urge Comp 99 frame in L". A few emails back and forth, a quick trip to Lyon and an exchange of 50 euros, and I had me a slightly tatty Urge. Well, a tatty frame with decent enough stickers, a blocked bottom bracket, and half a headset, at least. Plus a few extras - a fairly heavy seatpost, some pedals, a crankset (not the one in the photo below), and so on.
I flogged my existing Xircuit frame for the same price I paid for the Urge. In under 24 hours. Perhaps I misjudged its value, but it went to a guy I know, and it will be loved.
It was fairly obvious it was going to have to be resprayed. No major frame damage or rust, but the paintwork had definitely seen better days. So full strip down, and let's get busy.
The bottom bracket proved to be a sticking point, quite literally. No way was it coming out (and yes, I do know which way to turn, forwards to get it off, and then "back on"). Big socket set with a 1.5m cheater bar, big vice, rattle gun, and even after massively brutalising the poor thing (ripping out the axle and bearings and smashing the cartridge in an effort to reduce the stickage) it wouldn't budge. The splines eventually gave way on both cups, and I had to resort to a caustic soda bath to get it out. Not pretty, but no frame damage incurred.
Stripping the paint off took 2 days.
Shot it with some white primer...
… some rather disappointing "pearl white" and then a clearcoat
A new FD-M750 goes on, along with a Ritchey logic headset and a Tange bottom bracket. The latter was a steal, less than the going price for a BP-UN55, from the highly recommended http://hubjub.co.uk, and weighs a mere 230g. New cable kits from jagwire, some mounting, and it looks like this. I also repainted my old FC-M510 crank arms, because they were tatty. I'll probably end up re-anodising them at some point, but white enamel works for the moment.
Waiting for a Woodman seatpost in black and clamp in red, find a way of resticking the un-re-do-able stickers, and it's done...
*actually very few of the Sunn bikes were actually made in France, only the real top of the range stuff was actually welded in St Gaudens, the rest was welded, like everybody else's stuff, in Taiwan. But I digress.
I came across an ad for some bits on the french equivalent of fleabay, with the tantalising comment "I've got a lad of other Sunn stuff to get rid of, for example an Urge Comp 99 frame in L". A few emails back and forth, a quick trip to Lyon and an exchange of 50 euros, and I had me a slightly tatty Urge. Well, a tatty frame with decent enough stickers, a blocked bottom bracket, and half a headset, at least. Plus a few extras - a fairly heavy seatpost, some pedals, a crankset (not the one in the photo below), and so on.
I flogged my existing Xircuit frame for the same price I paid for the Urge. In under 24 hours. Perhaps I misjudged its value, but it went to a guy I know, and it will be loved.
It was fairly obvious it was going to have to be resprayed. No major frame damage or rust, but the paintwork had definitely seen better days. So full strip down, and let's get busy.
The bottom bracket proved to be a sticking point, quite literally. No way was it coming out (and yes, I do know which way to turn, forwards to get it off, and then "back on"). Big socket set with a 1.5m cheater bar, big vice, rattle gun, and even after massively brutalising the poor thing (ripping out the axle and bearings and smashing the cartridge in an effort to reduce the stickage) it wouldn't budge. The splines eventually gave way on both cups, and I had to resort to a caustic soda bath to get it out. Not pretty, but no frame damage incurred.
Stripping the paint off took 2 days.
Shot it with some white primer...
… some rather disappointing "pearl white" and then a clearcoat
A new FD-M750 goes on, along with a Ritchey logic headset and a Tange bottom bracket. The latter was a steal, less than the going price for a BP-UN55, from the highly recommended http://hubjub.co.uk, and weighs a mere 230g. New cable kits from jagwire, some mounting, and it looks like this. I also repainted my old FC-M510 crank arms, because they were tatty. I'll probably end up re-anodising them at some point, but white enamel works for the moment.
Waiting for a Woodman seatpost in black and clamp in red, find a way of resticking the un-re-do-able stickers, and it's done...
*actually very few of the Sunn bikes were actually made in France, only the real top of the range stuff was actually welded in St Gaudens, the rest was welded, like everybody else's stuff, in Taiwan. But I digress.
