A sad day

Well - following yesterday's discovery that the paint job on the Cinder Cone is not very resistant to scratching and chipping, I have done something drastic.

I've bought a new frame.

Its ok though - its a Kona, but not a Cinder Cone. Its a 2005 Kona Blast frame that I managed to get from my local dealer - iBikes in Crowthorne. This is not a standalone frame available from Kona - normally it comes as a prebuilt bike package. I know that the Blast usually sells for a few hundred quid cheaper than the Cinder Cone... but I think that this is mainly due to the specs of the components, not the frame.

I think I was slightly overcharged for the frame though (£150)... its obviously off an old bike as it not sold separately - but it does look unused (mostly). On the up side I did manage to get them to fit a headset (FSA Pig) and the forks for free!

Oh well - so ends the dream of renovating the old Cinder Cone frame! If there is anyone out there who wants it for a project then give me a shout as I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangementt!

Disaster Strikes!

Bugger. Whilst sitting in the shed my newly painted frame has somehow fallen over... and in the process has scratched and chipped a little. The problem is that it has chipped/flaked off right to the bare metal.

Bugger bugger bugger.

I'm now in somewhat of a quandary - if this has happened so easily then it doesn't fill me with confidence that this paint job will last past the first week of use. In which case I have five options open to me:

1. Ignore it and hope it doesn't happen again
2. Try and touch up the paint
3. Strip the whole thing again and respray it - this time giving better coats
4. Send it off to the pro's to get it powder coated
5. Give up and buy a new (Kona!!) frame.

I must say that I'm sorely tempted by the last option... but then I would have given up on the original dream of fixing up the old Cinder Cone. However, I have to take into account that powder coating is likely to cost around £80 - £100 + preparation costs. For £230 I can get myself a brand new 2005 Kona Cowan frame... or I can get a used full suspension Kona frame off of eBay for about the same price....

Anyone got any suggestions?

Saddle Sore

Got myself some more parts. Following on from my SRAM decision I've gone and purchased (again from eBay):

• SRAM PG980 9 speed cassette
• SRAM PC991 9 speed chain

When the shifters turned up they didn't have any cable hosing - so I got myself a Transfil Black Snake Gear Cable set.

Anyhow - "Saddle Sore". This is what I expect to be after seeing my saddle turned up - a San Marco SKN Titanium Saddle. I think I may have erred in the purchase of this product. Having arrived, it now looks a bit too much like a road racing saddle... might not be appropriate for MTBing.

I guess I'll find out soon enough!

S is for...?

Shifting.
As I imagine any MTBer does when he/she/it is in the process of giving their bike a makeover, I came across the issue of which shifting brand(s) to go with. The big two being, of course, Shimano and SRAM. All the bikes I've previously ridden have been equipped with Shimano of some form or another so I've decided to give SRAM a try.

The main difference (as far as I can see) between the two is that SRAM have opted for a 1:1 actuation ratio - as opposed to the 2:1 that Shimano use. Of course this means that if I'm going to opt for SRAM then its going to have to be all or nothing. I think its possible for some mix'n'matching with a few of the components - but I figure its best to stay with one brand on this.

So I've read through some literature and reviews on SRAM and they actually seem to be topping the market with their high end stuff - although this heavily depends on who you're talking to! x0 seem to be the top of the range shifters and so I've gone and got myself some x0 Shorty Twist Shifters (2006 model). Again, I got them off eBay at a fairly good price of about £50!

I can almost hear the outcries against Grip Shifters... but I like them and always have - so there. This has now committed me to getting SRAM derailleurs... so I'm off on the hunt for some decent priced parts!

A two pronged approach

Early on in its life, my Cinder Cone was running the awesome Kona Project II rigid forks. So good are these forks that Kona still make them today under high demand! After a few years however I ended up buying a set of RST 381's - admittedly this may have been due to the yellow colour matching the Kona's decals.... I know - that is no reason to choose forks... but hey - I was young!

Anyhow, the RST's have had their day - in fact they were never really very good anyway. They tended to always top out when lifting the front wheel fast. So now I've gone and bought myself some nice spanking new RockShox Revelation 426 Dual Air Forks (picture courtesy of SRAM).

Now I'd done quite a bit of reading up on these forks - and was pleased to see a full review of the lower spec version in the June 2006 edition of Mountain Bike Rider. It got a 9/10 rating and only lost out to the Fox Vanilla R in the group test based on ease of use - i.e. setting it all up before and in between rides. That's no problem for me - I like the fact that this fork has more settings to make your ride just right! What's more is that I got it for a bargain price on - yes you guessed it - eBay! I paid £200 for them when other online stores had them for more like £300 - £400!!

I'll give it a proper review once its been fitted - but at the moment I'm waiting on other parts to turn up - e.g. the headset! Hopefully there won't be too much of a change to the ride geometry with the different fork length... one thing I have noticed now that its arrived is that the tubing looks quite oversized compared to the old-school style on the Cinder Cone frame. I hope it doesn't look too out of place!

Paint Job Done!

This is the finished product boys and girls. It doesn't look too bad actually. Ok - so close up and in the right light you can see some uneven coverage of the paint - but to be honest, the sparkly nature of the paint means that you really have to look damn hard! Here's a photo before applying decals and lacquer:



For those interested here's what I used:

• Halfords Grey Primer
• One can - 4 very light coats
  

• Plasti-Kote Metallic Blue
• One can - 5 very light coats

• Plasti-Kote Metallic Sealer
• One can - 2 light coats and one final heavy(ish) coat

Following all the guidelines on the various cans this was extremely easy to do - and what with modern paints being quick dry, it meant that I went from bare metal to finished product in the space of one weekend! Here's the end result:



All in all not too shabby! Meanwhile I've been ordering parts - stay tuned!

Rub a dub dub

As the avid bikeblurb reader may have noticed by the rapid succession of posts since the creation of this blog, some of the bike refurb stuff has already been done. I'm gunna keep posting it all in separate posts until the blog catches up with real-time - all in individual posts to denote the way in which I progressed through it all.

Anyway - back on post topic.... with the combined effort of paint stripper and a bit of sanding I managed to get the frame all rubbed down. As I mentioned earlier, all the rust was superficial but I wanted to rub it all down just to be sure. I've uploaded a photo of the job half done just to prove I'm actually doing it!


I must admit it was a bit depressing taking a sander to my beloved frame... but I just had to think of all the nice things I was going to buy for it - and that cheered me up a bit. (oh and yes I do realise that the headset cups and bottom bracket are still on in this picture - its because I was impatient whilst waiting to get my hands on the necessary tools to remover them!)

Some nice new Kona decals

After looking over the frame I've decided to completely rub it down and spray it back up. Usually the current paintwork makes a good basecoat (after a bit of a sanding) but the frame is in an awful condition! Chain slap on the chainstays has caused major pitting of the paint - right back to the metal in fact. There is also signs of rust where bare metal is being shown, but luckily none of it seems to be structural.

Now I could get it powder-coated professionally but I quite like the idea of having a go at spraying it myself using the old rattle cans! I figure that if it turns out crap then I can strip it again and ship it off for the pros to sort out... but if it turns out half decent then I'll have a bike that I don't mind scratching up because I know I'll always be able to touch it up!

First thing I needed to do was to get some new Kona decals as I don't want it to lose its branding identity. To my eternal shame, Halfords are now a stockist/dealer of Kona bikes so I trundled on down there with my frame's serial number to order some new stickers. Surprise surprise - no one on the entire staff (of 14 yr olds by the looks of it) can order the decals - apparently its no longer possible.

Luckily I was saved by the wonders of E-bay and managed to find these rather fetching silver decals printed on top notch vinyl - and all for less than a tenner!

Getting back on the bike

Rewind back ten years and I was a snotty nosed 15 year old with no other mode of transport than my good old bargain bin bike from Halfords. Jump forward a year, add to the mix a part-time job and a newly formed "Mountain Biking Club" at school to get me out of Cross Country Running... and hey presto... I was the proud owner of a '97 Model Kona Cinder Cone.

Pause here to bow down to the wisdom and might of the Kona Cinder Cone...

After a few years of half serious riding and trying to learn some neat tricks I was suddenly yanked off my saddle by a nasty fall whilst trying to jump off a brick wall. Doctors advice, yadda yadda yadda... and the Kona gets locked away and replaced by my first car.

7 or so years on and I'm back! Head's all healed, novalty of a car has long since worn off, and I now have some money laying around to splash out on bike bits... unfortunately the Kona has not had such an easy timeout.

During my absence its been fought over by my younger siblings and used for all sorts of random mundane A to B tasks. Worst of all its been left in the rain, abandoned, and fiddled around with to the extent that it needs some serious therapy.

This, ladies and gents, is the starting point of my blog. A decrepit 9 year old bike that I just can't bear to part with or cheat on with another frame. Me thinks its time for some overhauling action!