First off, I've been a roadie since my knees went out on me in 1989 (cycling worked to restore my running, but the way). I went into the local shop (BikeWorld in Paducah) to buy a mountain bike, but they wisely steered me toward a road bike as I lived all the way down town and would have had nowhere to ride a mountain bike. I've always had it in the back of my mind to give mountain biking a try, but my darned guitar habit always had me low on funds...
Fast forward to last week. There's a second hand shop a block down from work that gets in all kinds of items, typically bought in lots. He keeps a number of cheap used bikes for sale but occasionally there's a diamond in the rough to be found. The few worthwhile bikes he's had in were too small for me, but I continued to look. Last week this shows up:
It's an absolutely worn out 2006 Trek 6500 in a frame size that fits me and all for a mere 10% of the HFC-approved price. The frame is in fine shape but the brakes, shifters, and more importantly, fork, are shot (the fork being shot was a surprise to the seller and the reason this USA-made bike was had so inexpensively).
The fork is a Manitou Axel Elite, 80mm of travel and no lockout. I began searching for a rebuild kit but ran into some really bad reviews of the fork. I'm now thinking it might be best to replace with an inexpensive 100mm fork with lockout, like an entry-level Rockshox.
Being a devout roadie, I know absolutely nothing about this, but I do need to keep it... frugal... as I don't want to cut into my Hamer / Shishkov fund too deeply. I'm running into air shocks, oil-filled shocks of various varieties... it all seems like a pretty steep learning curve. Experts, what do I do?
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velorush
First off, I've been a roadie since my knees went out on me in 1989 (cycling worked to restore my running, but the way). I went into the local shop (BikeWorld in Paducah) to buy a mountain bike, but they wisely steered me toward a road bike as I lived all the way down town and would have had nowhere to ride a mountain bike. I've always had it in the back of my mind to give mountain biking a try, but my darned guitar habit always had me low on funds...
Fast forward to last week. There's a second hand shop a block down from work that gets in all kinds of items, typically bought in lots. He keeps a number of cheap used bikes for sale but occasionally there's a diamond in the rough to be found. The few worthwhile bikes he's had in were too small for me, but I continued to look. Last week this shows up:
It's an absolutely worn out 2006 Trek 6500 in a frame size that fits me and all for a mere 10% of the HFC-approved price. The frame is in fine shape but the brakes, shifters, and more importantly, fork, are shot (the fork being shot was a surprise to the seller and the reason this USA-made bike was had so inexpensively).
The fork is a Manitou Axel Elite, 80mm of travel and no lockout. I began searching for a rebuild kit but ran into some really bad reviews of the fork. I'm now thinking it might be best to replace with an inexpensive 100mm fork with lockout, like an entry-level Rockshox.
Being a devout roadie, I know absolutely nothing about this, but I do need to keep it... frugal... as I don't want to cut into my Hamer / Shishkov fund too deeply. I'm running into air shocks, oil-filled shocks of various varieties... it all seems like a pretty steep learning curve. Experts, what do I do?
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