Phase I of Project Zero is complete. Stock, the Zip wasn't a bike that i was going to be able to ride. First of all, I'm too tall for the 270mm Ritchey seatpost, and the stem was too short. Also, while I love the approach Bridgestone took to designing their bikes, I have to say that suspension of some kind is appreciated by my joints if not my mind. Also, this bike is hitting my Nostalgia Button, and for that, I have to take it back to the way we were riding bikes in 1991.
My family had more bikes than sense, and we ran the gamut on technologies available at the time. We had a full-suspension Cannondale “Boinger” – equipped with the short-lived Campy Euclid group – my Schwinn loaded up with Rock Shox, various Cannondales, and a couple Bridgestones. We rode the Bridgestones stock for a while until we got turned onto the Softride suspension stem. We loved the clever design; the stem doesn't change the geometry of the bike the way suspension forks did (before they were part of the design like they are now), were very light, didn't suffer from sticktion, and were self-damping. Similarly, we loved the design of the Thudbuster seatpost; they worked great – as long as you didn't mind using rear suspension that effected the height of your saddle.
The great benefit of both the the Softride stem and the Thudbuster seatpost is that neither changes the geometry of the bike. When climbing out of the saddle, the Thudbuster doesn't effect the bike at all – it's still a hardtail. But, when seated, it's three inches of travel noticeably softens bumps. The stem has a slight bouncy feeling when climbing out of the saddle like any other front suspension mechanism without a modern lockout, but with some careful adjustment of the stem's spring tension, you can find a good balance between suspension when you want it, and lack of bounciness when you're climbing.
Once I got the Zip, I went about collecting the parts I needed to get back to my mountain biking comfort zone. To my surprise, the Thudbuster is still in production and several improvements have been made to the design. It seems lighter than the old model, and the motion of the parallelogram seems to eliminate any noticeable change in saddle height. Most importantly, they provide different elastomers (remember elastomers?) that let you tailor the stiffness of the suspension. Since all I want is to take the edge off the worst of the bumps, I installed the stiffest ones. The seatpost is also surprisingly light; the Thudbuster/Arione combo is lighter than the stock Ritchey/Turbo setup.
Softride is no longer in the bike parts building business, but I snapped up a NOS stem on eBay for next to nothing and installed it. It's amazing how light the system is; including the Profile quill adapter, the Softride setup weighs about the same as the original steel stem.
With that, the Zip appeared ready to embark on it's maiden voyage. Prepping for the ride, however, we discovered the tires were hopelessly old and cracked, so I picked up some new ones. To my surprise, when taking the old tires off the rim, I realized they had steel beads (were the Specialized Crossmax stock?); the new ones are way lighter and a bit wider than the old ones. Finally, the maiden voyage proved too rough for the original headset, so it was replaced with a Chris King and the old brake pads were replaced with some fresh ones.
All said, the bike weighs about the same as it originally did. But don't worry, all the stock parts are safely stowed in a box.
[dmalbum path=”/velominati.com/content/Photo%20Galleries/frank@velominati.com/MB-Zip%20Rebuild/”/]
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@G'rilla come to AZ and do the Wiskey off road. 50 miles in northern AZ. I just posted a video on FB.
I just picked up an old 7 speed MTB for my 14 year old brother. Apart from doing a ghetto tubeless conversion, he will be rolling rigid. I figure he can handle it. We are gonna do some brotherly bonding over rodeo weekend. The catch is he haa to clean my apartment to pay off some of the debt.
@G'rilla
Hey man, there's no such thing as the dark side, just the other side.
Ive got a road bike, CX bike and an XC bike and I race them all. And I'm about a month away from getting a track bike (it doesnt hurt that I live a 5 minute ride away from an indoor wooden velodrome).
Who'da thought that divorce would be so much fun?
@RedRanger
Rigid: when I got my first MTB it was a aluminum Cannonwhale with a pepperoni fork. What that rig taught me, through trial and a lot of error, was; the faster you go, the safer you are. Wise words from Missy "the missile" Giove.
I'm convinced that MTB is the most exhausting thing one can do on a bike.
Today's race was one hour long and I'm more tired than I was after 250km of hilly road riding. I think they are making each course twice as tough as the last. Although the race started and ended in the same spot, my V-meter shows that my vertical ascent was at least 3x the number of meters downward. The course must have been designed by Escher.
At least I caught someone at the line, just before I toppled over onto the ground unable to move for a full 5 minutes.
Nicely done mate. How's the bike holding up? I had to adjust A loose hub on mine the other day.
The day after a hard road ride I feel fatigue in my quads. The day after a hard MTB ride I feel like somebody beat me with a hickory cane.
Came with inches of running into a saguaro today. That woulda been a disaster.
@PeakInTwoYears
Speaking of which, BuDu racing's next MTB event is on Whidbey Island (two weeks from today). Team Velominati needs you there!
You know how to contact me.
@RedRanger
Ugh, dude. Infection city.
@RedRanger
It's doing pretty well. Loose saddle after last week's race with a DH section. The odd loose bolt here and there. I need to take off the bottom bracket and clean it, but otherwise OK.
I have two weeks to the next race so I think I'll take it to the LBS to check all the suspension bits.
I tool Brett's advice and ran the whole race in the middle mode on my shock ("trail"). It was much simpler and worked well. Now I have to learn to trust the bike and lean into the bermed turns for more speed. I think I try to make up for lack of skill by muscling it up the hills. Friends finished before me and looked like they barely had to give any effort!