My circa 1999 Intense Tracer will get a major operation before this Summer. In fact, when it's all said and done, it will be a completely different bike! Don't get me wrong, it has served me very well over the last err... 13 years (gasp!) but frankly, it's waaay past it's freshness date and it has been for the last 5 or more years. Suspension was (and still is) all the rage when I got this bike, but after years of flogging on rocky trails, it sounds like a ricketty rocking chair now. Even the manufacturer can't help cause all the suspension parts are at this point obsolete. (heck, they've moved on to a few different suspension designs since.) Rant Alert!! Intense makes awesome bikes to this day, but their customer service left MUCH to be desired! So this time I'm moving away from a squishy rear end in favor of a rigid, nostalgic Reynolds Chromoly steel frame by Cotic. http://www.cotic.co.uk/product/BFe
Now my first choice for a new bike would have been a fully rigid, single speed, steel Space Frame and truss fork bike by Jeff Jones http://www.jonesbikes.com/production_framesets.html
But that will have to wait... A mortgage, 2 kids and a lack of $$ will put a damper on the toys.
I will be chronicling the build here as it goes along and will share with you the events as they take place. I hope it goes smoothly, but I can already tell there will be compatibility issues. After all, this is a totally different frame we are talking about here.
Let me fill you in on what's transpired prior to this posting: I've looked at Cotic back in 2010. The Intense's suspension link bolt stripped and I pretty much thought the frame was done for. I was sick of all the extra maintenance the suspension required, cause i had just changed out all the bearings a few months before. I read a write up on one of their models called the "Soul" in "What Mountain Bike" magazine. It looked like the kind of bike I'd be interested in. I wanted a hardtail that was capable of running a bigger fork than what most xc oriented hardtails were sporting at the moment. I emailed Paul at Cotic and asked him a few questions about the frames. He was very gracious and patient, even enthusiastic about answering these questions. (He was also an Intense owner at one time.) When I found out about the BFe (Beefy! Get it?) and it's alleged hard hitting antics, like the ability to run a 6in. Fork, I was even more interested! At this time there was no US distributor in place. Fast Forward a few weeks and I met a friend on the trails that later was able to machine the damaged suspension parts of my Tracer... My Intense was resuscitated for a few more years! Paul wished me the best and I happily kept beating on my bike whenever I could, but as most of you probably know, moving parts just wear out over time. Now I don't even know where all the creaking is coming from anymore, hence a good excuse to use some tax return $$ for this project.
I am currently dealing with Niall (Neil) Cotic's newly installed US Distributor. We have settled on a Small Cyan BFe frame and some various new doodads to make it all work. (Frankly, quite a few more than anticipated) To those of you still here... I'll keep you posted!
No comments:
Post a Comment