Specialized Epic Ultimate

Pretty neat bike. The frame starts with a Merlin titanium frame that was chopped up to make lugs. The lugs were glued to carbon tubes. The bike is circa 1992. This one has all sorts of early 90s bling nonsense - Grafton Speedtrap (death-trap) pedals, Kooka cranks, White Industries ti hubs and an ugly Halston fork.

Blem WTB brakepads

One of the pads is on backward (probably just two rights). Funny.

GT frame with very nice parts

Came across this purple ano GT the other day. Neat frame, but exceptional parts. The brake is on its way to another build!

Doug Bradbury Manitou

I was blown away when I first saw pictures of the bikes Doug was making in Colorado. So much effort was made to tweak every part of the frame and parts to solve problems that Doug perceived in mountain bikes. He became famous for his suspension forks and he sold the Manitou company to Answer after only a few years.

He is said to have built 100-200 bikes. This one is a beaut with machined stem, rigid and pre-Answer suspension fork, front and rear IRD Progressive brakes and all the neat gussets etc. that defined the Manitou look. Sadly it is built for a giant, but I can make peace with that.

Old school Kool Stop brake pads

The best. 'Nuff Said.

Cinelli Giro D'Italia bars 42cm

Nice to find a relatively clean set of GdI bars in the relatively wide 42cm version. These are the It bars if you want to get custom modded dirt drops. That said, this set probably wont get modded - they are slated for use on an early 80s Cunningham road bike that I am building up.

XC Compe pedals

I am a sucker for these pedals, especially with the "one sided use" mod. Why not!

XTR M970 SPD

When Shimano first released their SPD pedals I tried them out right away. Since the pedals didn't have float, they lasted on my bike for around 50ft. Fast forward nearly, what, 20 years, and I have officially purchased my second set of SPDs. I had been dissatisfied with my Eggbeaters since I released randomly and the bearing/bushings got toasted quickly. So far so good with these new pedals.

Vittoria Open Pave Evo CG

This is an old item that I didn't get around to posting. I had been looking for a wider, tougher tire for rough roads and early season. I figured these would be a good fit as the description seemed to match. Sadly, these have proven to be extremely delicate and subject to cuts. Too bad.