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Yeti C-26 Team Homage
I’m in the final throes of bringing this build together so I thought I’d get a build thread written up just in time before the year ends, so that it can get into 2019 which is the 30th Anniversary of the first Yeti C-26 frame built by Yeti Cycles in Agoura Hills, California, in 1989. The C-26 has become somewhat of a cult bike, and much has been written about it. For my project, I feel that explaining some history is worthwhile and totally relevant. Hopefully this will be a thread for those who like a build story, but despite some reading, I've edited it down best I can and kept only the relevant photos (I have HUNDREDS and drafting this has been a nightmare).

At least it'll be concise as far as time goes. This build has now been more than a year in the making. If you just want pics and no story, maybe I’ll edit this post when it’s all complete so you can skip straight to the end with the juicy bits. It’s been a really exciting journey, and the end is now in sight. It’ll be like Marmite for many people. If you're a lover, I hope you enjoy the journey. Even if you’re a hater, maybe you’ll still appreciate the story of how and why it’s come to be…

History
Yeti Cycles was founded in 1985 by John Parker. He built the company upon one simple premise: making the fastest and best racing bikes possible. He built a hugely successful company and even in the very early years was setting new standards for mountain bikes and racing. Yeti was the first team to show up at races with its own team van! Yeti enjoyed many successes on the US domestic NORBA circuit as well as a great deal of coverage from the biggest US print publication, MountainBike Action (MBA) magazine. Yeti was about as cool as a company and a team got back then, even with their comparatively small budgets compared to other companies.

The C-26 was the result of Yeti designer Chris Herting’s desire to make Yeti’s hugely successful yet somewhat heavy 4130 aircraft grade cro-moly tubed racing frame, the For Racing Only (FRO), lighter, and Easton tubing having developed a thin-wall aluminum tube wrapped in carbon fiber (called ‘Easton C9’), which was purported to save huge amounts of weight against all-steel counterparts, which Herting used. Yeti star racer, Russell ‘The Muscle’ Worley, rode the first prototype frame at a couple of NORBA races in 1989. Chris lent his name’s initial, C, and his age at the time of making that first frame, 26, to the project name when MBA asked what the new bike would be called when they ran an article about the new tubing and Yeti’s frame development.


Following a great deal of interest generated by the magazine, and from showing it at the world’s biggest bicycle trade show, Interbike, at Long Beach, CA in 1989, Yeti decided to go into production with the C-26 in 1990.

Later that year, the Yeti C-26 would go into the history books as the bike ridden by Juliana Furtado, winner of the women’s XC race at the inaugural UCI World Championships, in Durango, 1990. It was also famously ridden to medal success at the same championships by the biggest MTB star at that time, John Tomac, who ensured that both he and his C-26 would achieve indefinite notoriety by riding on drop bars, even on the downhill course!


The C-26 appeared in the 1991 Yeti Cycles catalog (published late 1990) and besides team bikes, three known customer orders were fulfilled. And yet, doubts over the strength of the bonds between the C9 tubing and the cro-moly lugs caused headaches for Yeti founder John Parker. Production was cumbersome and time consuming, and to confound these issues, Easton had another tubeset under development by the time the Worlds were writing the headlines for Yeti and the C-26, which would itself go on to become a real gamechanger in the industry. That tubeset would eliminate any bonding worries or construction headaches and was even lighter than the C-26. That was, of course, the E9 VariLite® aluminum tubing, which Yeti would go on to create another new model for and become the company’s biggest seller, the Yeti A.R.C.

The moment the Worlds finished, so did the C-26 project. It was shelved in favor of adopting the E9 tubeset going forward, although several team bikes had been made and team racer Joey Erwin would still ride a C-26 on the NORBA circuit for part of the 1991 season. By this time, approximately a dozen full C-26 frames had been built, from a total of 50 tubesets supplied by Easton and several lug sets made by Yeti for production bikes that never were.

“C-46” and ‘Kit Bikes’
American vintage MTB enthusiast and stalwart, Mike Wilk (aka ridevintagemtb), unearthed some of those unused tubes in the late 2000s, which were apparently liberated from Yeti’s Durango factory in the late 90s by disgruntled workers after some difficult years of trading following the sale of Yeti Cycles to Schwinn and then re-sold a couple of years later to sports company Volant, which saw all but two employees lose their jobs. Wilk had Chris Herting revisit the C-26 project some twenty years after building the first, in 2009; ten years ago. Mike dubbed his the ‘C-46 project’ and it was one of the most exceptional retro/vintage MTB bike builds there’s ever been. Indeed, Retrobike members agreed and voted Mike’s C-26 BOTM and BOTY. Since then about a handful of other C-26 bikes have been built by Herting, and perhaps another handful using the lug kits and original tubesets have surfaced, no doubt all increasing the appeal of the original C-26s.


Swiss Attraction
One such original C-26 was purchased post 'C-46' in 2012 by Swiss enthusiast and bike shop owner, Stefan Utz of CycleWorks.ch, who last year, with the help of his friend and compatriot – a framebuilder named Reto Trachsel of RevlRevl Cycles – decided to make their own homage to the C-26. Using contemporary carbon wrapped aluminum sourced from Germany and asking customers to provide a donor Yeti Pro FRO, Stefan and Reto set out to purely honor the original C-26 by making “show bikes for display only”. Their original press release was done via Instagram (see inset). I had known about this beforehand. I had been friends with Stefan for a while and we’d both helped each other with some online projects as well as both having connections to some of the Marin County folks. Stefan knew I had recently purchased a Pro FRO and kept telling me I should (literally) chop it in for one of his C-26s. There was no way I was doing that.

I had a ton of plans for that Pro FRO which I’d spent a small fortune on and waited six weeks to get it from the US. However, a short time after Stefan’s last round of tempting texts, I discovered two dents on the downtube of my Pro FRO that weren’t declared by the seller, and which, in all honesty, I couldn’t say that hadn’t happened since I’d got it (but I suspect they were there when it was sold to me). It had been three months since buying it in July 2018. It was shipped from the seller to Rumpfy where it sat for a month whilst I had a bunch of other parts purchased and shipped to him to put inside the bike box and save postage. It took a further couple of weeks to get the paperwork sorted with BikeFlights. com, but less than three days from Rumpfy dropping it off at his local FedEx depot to arriving on my doorstep, where after the most basic cursory inspection, it sat in my garage untouched for another six weeks before I sought to inspect and tear down the bike in order to re-build as my own. That’s when I discovered the dents. From that precise moment, I knew a Swiss C-26 was on the cards.


To me, the C-26 is just one of those magical and legendary bikes. It’s been acclaimed as a great achievement by many - one of the first to use specially formulated lightweight carbon) whilst also derided in equal measure by many - still too heavy and potential killers due to unconfirmed bonding process. The later replicas and ‘kit bikes’ perhaps more so than the originals, again in equal measure. “WOW” and “what’s the point?” from each of the divided ‘Marmite’ factions. To date, I’ve had the same experiences from close friends and acquaintances within the global retro/vintage MTB community on my ‘homage’ (or replica, but I don’t like to call it that because it’s just so much more). It’s been applauded as well as being ridiculed. Being a show-only frame had a huge appeal to me. For this kind of financial and emotional investment in building a C-26 bike, I wouldn’t want to ride it anyway. But by building one, I could take myself back in time 30 years (ish) and put myself in a pseudo-imaginary situation of “how would I have specced a new C-26 in 1990/91?” but instead doing it for real.


There are no C-26 frames left anywhere now that were never someone else’s C-26 complete bike (as far as I know – maybe just Chris Herting’s personal frame, perhaps). So, I’m starting from scratch. Surreal and very exciting. And I’m doing it as a period specific build, because to do it any other way, would make it less worthwhile, I feel.



‘My’ C-26!
Having seen Mike Wilk’s build, having read through and pored over almost all print and online publications of the Yeti team C-26s and those of CycleWorks, Mike Wilk, Rumpfy, Second Spin, The Pro’s Closet, Chuck Teixeira (former Easton boss), Tucker (aka mtnwing), DL (aka fillet_brazed), Zap Espinoza’s ex-Tomac bike (MBA editor), 24pouces (Pierre), the Silverfish Tomac C-26 Replica (Kev Miller), et cetera, I was fully equipped with the information of what could or should be included for a particular period C-26 build, from 1990/91.

I definitely didn’t want to build a Tomac replica C-26. Tucker and Kev Miller had both done sublime replicas of one or other of Tomac’s three C-26s (his 1990 Worlds XC, 1990 Worlds DH, and a Worlds spare also used on some national events pre-Worlds). It would be a wasted opportunity to do something different. Besides, my frame isn’t the correct size for Tomac. Neither is it the right size for the other most famous C-26, Juli Furtado’s (now at The Pro’s Closet Museum. That, too, was unique in that the geometry of Juli’s bike was unlike any other C-26.

But I really wanted to do a ‘team’ spec build. Trouble was, I had nothing else to suit a 1990/91 period build for a Yeti C-26. My Pro FRO build kit contained a full M900 XTR build and Manitou 3. Too new by far for a C-26. So, I planned a rough list, using only components that I think would’ve been used by some or all team riders (Tomac being a completely special case due to his unique sponsorships), and came up with the main choices thus:

Manitou fork
Deore XT
Turbo saddle
A•TAC stem
Tioga Disk Drive
Onza Ti bar ends
Porc tyres
These were all musts.

I got in touch with Stefan and made a commitment to order. I knew I had to get in line fast if I wanted to get one of these builds. My Pro FRO was stripped down to bare frame, with original decals stuck to a piece of card to retain as a memento. The frame itself is a rare one, having team cut dropouts. I heard from someone that asked Chris Herting about the team cut dropouts on C-26 and Pro FRO frames that very few were ever produced in either model, because it was so labor intensive. I was told the number of Pro FROs with these dropouts may even be a single digit number. My initial deposit was paid to Stefan and the frame sent to Reto’s shop in Switzerland a few days into the New Year.




I still don’t know how many they’ve built (maybe six by now), but mine was scheduled behind Jason Smith’s, who’d been one of the first to order and whose FRO donor was already at RevlRevl when my frame arrived there in January. Knowing Jason was in the queue was great, because he and I bounced build spec ideas off one another and I have to thank Jason here, again, for all his insights and encouragement along the way, including making some discoveries that I might otherwise have had real trouble with, such as the front derailleur being a Ø30.0mm. I’d already bought a NOS Ø28.6 – doh! The Swiss frames are exact replicas of the original C-26, using a 1.18” OD seat tube. I mistakenly thought it was 1⅛” but it’s weirdly 1 POINT 18 of an inch or 30.0mm Luckily I found another NOS XT Ø30.0 DP in France. Some days I’d get messages from Jason showing me his frame in the jig or a new component he’d procured, or a message from Reto or Stefan showing one of their other frames which had been stickered up with team-spec decals – either way, my appetite was whetted from multiple sources as well as having the joy (and sometimes pain) of obtaining parts for my own build.
 

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Jason was always completely candid with his build plans. This was a great help as being in front of me meant that I might suffer from being a copycat of anything Jason did. But although Jason is hardcore Yeti and went for a truly period build for his – which is impossible not to love – he’s created something different to the vision I have for mine, although given that all but two C-26s that Yeti built were ‘team colors’, it’s always going to be similar at heart, especially sticking to a team sponsor-only palette of components. See Jason's 1989 Yeti C-26 Tribute Bike build thread if you haven’t already, or just need a reminder.


Hunting Parts I Wanted, Finding Some I Didn’t Need... But The Want IS Always Strong So I Nabbed Them Anyway…
Always a fun experience hunting down parts for any retro build, and this was no different. I already had in my possession the following:
Silver Chris King No-Logo headset with new 2-nut top nut
NOS Tioga Disk Drive Comp
Dayglo Yellow Answer TaperLITE bar (bought NOS for my Alpinestars Al Mega DX, taken off when I sold it)
A•TAC stem in grey with noodle (original from Pro FRO)
Short cage Deore XT M735 rear mech
Deore XT SL-M732 thumb shifters
NOS Deore XT SPD-M737 pedals
Onza Ti Bar Ends
Black Cook Bros. Racing CBR cranks with black Cooks chainrings (I bought those to fit to the Pro FRO but sold them to fund parts for the C-26 build which I’m now regretting!)

…and that was about it in terms of appropriate C-26 build kit and desired parts.

Over the next few months, through some luck, some bribery (j/k – I meant some swaps) and a few favors, I slowly obtained this lot, all with a view to using on the build:
Correct size Ø30.0mm FD-M735 DP
NOS 36H black M231 rim for the TDD with a matching 32h (used) for the front
NOS Deore XT 36H rear hub FH-M732
Black Bullseye 32H front hub
NOS Onza Porc’s RacingII Kevlar
NOS Smoke blackwall
Super clean silver Answer HyperLITE bars
Another A•TAC stem without noodle, gifted to me after putting a search out, from Henning Hansen in Norway. Takk, Henning!
Two pairs of Manitou 1 forks (one ex-Team Yeti which came with a Campagnolo headset attached)
NOS black Chris King headset
NOS ODI Mushroom John Tomac grips
Another pair of Onza Ti Bar Ends, these had OG decals, so I sold the other pair I had which had repop decals
Bullseye cranks and BB (needs repaint) (without the all-important crank keeper, but thanks to Jason for sending one)
Deore XT chainset FC-M730 with black SG chainrings
NOS HG90 12-28 cassette
NOS HG90 chain and NOS HG91 chain
NOS Deore XT BB-M730 bottom bracket
A set of M730 cantis, two sets (four pairs) of M734 cantis (one silver, one black)
NOS Shimano cantilver straddle-cable hangers
NOS Deore XT brake blocks
NOS set of black Grafton Speed Controllers
NOS 3DV Ringlé Ti Stix Holey wheel skewers
NOS 3DV Ringlé CamTwist seat skewer
NOS 1989 White Turbo saddle
NOS Deore XT Ø26.8mm SP-M730 seatpost
Clean set of Deore XT ST-M095 Servo Wave push-push brifters
NOS 6mm Deore XT SLR brake cable
NOS 5mm Deore XT SIS gear cable (plus a NOS 5mm SIS-Sealed SP cable for the RD)








With a few of the same types of components some tough decisions are having to be made – I still haven’t decided on the final build as I’ve been typing this and looking back at old photos. Even today when getting the front wheel components to take to by LBS I’ve decided not using the Bullseye because I don’t really like the worn braking surface on the 32H M231 I’ve got. When I bought the NOS 36H M231 it came as a pair, so I’ve decided I’ll find a 36H black M730 front hub instead of using the Bullseye, which will be a better pairing, and easier than finding a NOS 32H black M231.

With Jason steaming ahead with his build, I also happened upon a Yeti Accu•Trax fork (pre Answer). I knew that Jason was getting some parts powder coated in dayglo yellow by Ollie at Dark Matter Finishing in Colorado Springs, CO (Ollie at DMF used to paint for Spectrum, Yeti’s original powder coaters) so I packed my fork up with one of my A•TAC stems and sent to Jason, who combined mine with his, making use of a better price than I could’ve got alone.

My thinking at this point was that if I decided either to not use the Manitou or switch it out at some point, the Yeti fork would slot right in. I also had the idea that I would make a second complete front end build for the C-26, comprising of a 1¼” heat tube painted in turquoise and stickered up with a Yeti decal, with one of the headsets I’m not using, fitted with whichever fork I’m not fitting to the bike, and with the opposite stem and handlebar

– bear with me –

so, for the Manitou, I’ll fit the silver, no-noodle A•TAC with the yellow TaperLITE, and for the Accu•Trax, it’ll get the yellow A•TAC with the noodle and the silver HyperLITE. I still haven’t sorted that faux headtube out, but I’ll message Danson67 and ask if he can arrange it!
 

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There have been times when this project has been all-consuming. I’ve chased and hunted down parts from all corners and made some great new friends along the way. A couple of whom I got to meet in person back in September when I went to California for one of Yeti’s former big name racers’ induction into the MTB Hall of Fame (Myles Rockwell), where I also got to hang out with one of my all-time heroes, John Parker. John has been supportive of my ambitions in building this C-26 whilst also, at times, being critical of the whole affair.

I get it.

As I do with everyone else’s criticisms and critiques. (More on those another time.) But one of the guys I got to meet has been super supportive and extremely generous, and without whom, this build would not be exactly what it is. Robert Branchau is what you might call “a bit of a collector”. He also happened to have a bunch of those previously liberated original fifty C9 tubesets (see pic). Except the seat tube, stocks of which apparently no longer exist anywhere.


Anyone building a C-26 now has to use a ‘new’ seat tube, even if, like me, you have the other two (which are 1⅜” O.D.). I have read that some of the replicas were made using all three 1⅜” tubes. Not sure I believe that because I’m not sure such a diameter front mech is possible, even using an endless clamp braze-on type. Anyway, this frame of mine has to look ‘proper’ and completely legit - even though, yes, I KNOW it’s NOT the real deal.



I’d seen Robert’s tubes advertised for sale on Facebook a long time before I’d even bought the Pro FRO. After the news of the Swiss C-26 hit Facebook, Robert re-listed a set of tubes for $1,000. Not unrealistic, I suppose, given the rarity. I posted a tongue-in-cheek comment asking if he had a payment plan option. :p Robert replied, “PM me”. After some discussion regarding my intentions and the whole project, and with no money exchanged, Robert gifted the tubes to me. He’s a friend for life now. Within a couple of days, the tubes arrived at Reto’s shop.

My lugs weren’t yet prepared, so Reto was able to make minor adjustments for the Easton C9 tubes, once the frame arrived with him and after a thorough degreasing and inspection. I believe that the lug work took quite some time – the workmanship is exceptional – work duties of the various machines were split not only with mine and Jason’s C-26 builds, but Reto’s other custom frame orders simultaneously.






Then off for paint. I didn’t bother to ask if it was powder coating or wet paint. I do know that it was done to the original color spec. :cool:
 

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As soon as the jig was available, in it went. I don’t know anything about framebuilding jigs, but this looks the shizniz. The process of bonding and adhesive used is Reto’s secret – so don’t ask me. He says not to ride it, but I know that it IS possible, just that Reto and Stefan are saying DON’T EVER RIDE IT and there was some disclaimer involved, in the order, I think. It really doesn’t bother me. I hate riding retro bikes anyway, and even if this was original and fresh out Durango from actual Chris Herting’s hands I wouldn’t know if it rode like a dream or if it was a bag o’shite. So, it really doesn’t bother me that I won’t be riding it. The other thing is, it’s only an ornament. An expensive, rare ornament. But an ornament, nevertheless.



The finished look is just amazing. I feel proud in giving those tubes a life, at last, after sitting in various boxes and moving around from California to Colorado to New York and then to Switzerland. Doing their proposed job of becoming tubing for a Yeti C-26.


Then Came A Bit Of A Wait... Until About Three Weeks Ago.

I was supposed to drive to Switzerland the weekend after Mayhem this summer to collect it and meet Stefan and Reto, see the workshop, tooling, all that shiz. But I crashed my car pretty badly and broke my ankle really bad, the weekend before Mayhem, meaning I missed out on that and the Swiss roadtrip, plus the car was a write off. I still haven’t been, and instead opted for the frame to be shipped to me after loads of procrastinating and indecision whether to go over or not, but time just got the better of me and my ankle still causes me problems with pain, stiffness and some swelling, so a 2000 mile roadtrip isn't exactly appealing.

I’m gutted I didn’t get to meet the guys, Stefan and Reto, who put this superb project together to honor my most favorite mountain bike ever – apart from the Breezer Lightning GT3, a one-off show special Joe Breeze built in 1994, which can never be replicated – so this Yeti C-26 team homage will always be the best I’ll ever own and one I simply love looking at in complete wonder every day, and will continue to as long I have eyes.

It arrived here three or four week ago (it even got decorated for Halloween with faux spiders' webs and a spooky looking skeleton hanging off it! (I did say it's an ornament, right?! :p )

One of the things I am seriously proud of is the head tube sticker. I asked John Parker a while ago about the different head tube stickers that were on Juli’s and Tomac’s C-26s. He told me that they were caricatures of two flat-track motorcycle racers who were Mert Lawwill’s teammates at some point on the Harley Davidson team in the 70s and 80s. One was Rex Beauchamp, the other Gene Romero. John saw the stickers in an advert in Dirt Bike Action Magazine in the 80s, sent a check (cheque) mail order, then cut them out and stuck them onto the bikes for the Worlds. There were also at least two other bikes I've seen that John put those stickers on which were special orders for a FRO and an Ultimate. All other C-26s had 'regular Yeti Man’ head tube stickers. I searched EVERYWHERE for them, for weeks scouring the internet, looking in flat track forums, even speaking with Jim Conquest of Imagine It Graphics near Los Angeles, who made all the original Yeti bike graphics, even wrapped the Yeti team box van - to no avail. So, with John’s help, I managed to get exact copies of those stickers remade for this bike. Others have tried to recreate them with quite bad results. This one is perfect, even though I stuck it on too high, so I’m peeling it off and replacing them when I get another Yeti Man sticker to cut out the YETI and CYCLES pieces to reposition it about 5-6mm lower. (It’s seriously bugging me as it is – it must come off.)




All along I didn’t want this built to be just about donating a frame and throwing a ton of money at it. Some of these parts are just so hard to get hold of now it’s almost impossible to do it again. Now that I had original C-26 tubing, the game got raised!

I wanted to go the extra mile wherever possible.

Upon reading one of Second Spin’s blogs about one of his awesome bikes, I learnt that the original C-26s all had a red anodized Bullseye jockey wheel, machined down to create a pulley for the front derailleur cable. I wanted to get one. This sounded easy, especially as I remembered seeing a stack on eBay a few years ago when I bought some for the Alpinestars builds I made. I ended up searching for over two months before finding a NOS set of original Bullseyes which I had shipped directly to Reto in Switzerland. He did a great job creating the pulley, but I hadn’t anticipated a bare aluminum silver streak where it was machined. This has been fixed now though! (Attention to detail and all that. Pictured with red hex bolt on Jason’s frame at RevlRevl, here in last photo with black bolt.)




Another of my own creations is the Easton C9 tubing sticker. This was extremely complicated to render because I couldn’t find a single image of it that wasn’t stuck on a frame, and even then, not clear. Having two original C9 tubes on my frame makes it somewhat legit. Huge thanks to Joe Whitaker of SignW.co.uk for printing this on foil, just like the originals. NORBA sticker is a real one. (From Jason, thanks bro.)




The seat collar / seat clamp was a bit of a challenge. Even though I now have an original Yeti FRO seat collar, I couldn’t find one anywhere for love nor money. It seems that anyone who has one, just doesn’t want to let them go, but even with a ‘genuine’ seat clamp, some machining is still required. [Good job Reto is such an expert. He had to make a jig to machine the clamp for me! The clamp I got is a NOS genuine 80s’ BMX seat clamp made by Landar. When I first found it, I was convinced it was the exact same model that Yeti used, but it had radiused corners compared to the beveled chamfers on the Yeti ones. Still, it looks great, and not all C-26 bikes had the same seat collars (Chuck Teixeira's, for example, is totally different to the others), so mine is just another little nuanced difference to make this build more unique.





I also made the EASTON® decals. YETI C-26 decals came with the frame, but I do have some originals in pink and yellow that came via ex-Yeti mechanic, Chris ‘Monkey’ Vasquez’s estate (RIP Monk Dawg). I might put one of those on the other side. I chose the dayglo pink* for the EASTON because it appears in pink on a few of my favorite Yeti C-26 frames (ex-Joey Erwin now belonging to DL). Also, on one of Tomac’s, given by him to Zap (photo from Mike Wilk’s ridevintagemtb blog.
But just like the positioning of the headtube decals, the EASTON, YETI & C-26 decals need to be peeled off and new ones stuck on about 3mm higher up the tube. (I have spares.)
*the Easton decals are dayglo pink, like seriously neon but it doesn't show up on the photo :x




So, with less than six weeks remaining till 2019 is no more and the original C-26 becomes more than 30 years old, I’d better get a move on building it…

More to follow. Soon.
 

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Re:

A great read to wake up to, and the right place to put it.

Get on mate, well done.. :cool:
 
I read your description well, you are doing a great job! :D
replica or original? unimportant, now this frame is yours and everyone will envy you.
hurry up, I want to see the complete bike :cool:
 
Wow, what a project and a good read (even though i was in a rush i still found myself wanting to finish it :LOL: )

Only thing, maybe mark where you want decals first, sounds a right pain having to re-position them :)

With all the thought and effort that has gone into this, hopefully you have a plan for displaying it, maybe a nice cabinet or something, not just sat in the corner of the room like any other bike :)

Look forward to seeing this get built :cool:

Mark
 
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