The best trails of 2013:

5 May Eco Marathon : 41 km > 2000 height meters

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I recently got back my freshly painted frame and I must say, this is a really good paint job. The frame is looking like new now.

To start with, my bike looked like this:

Before

This picture was taken in 2009 when the bike was only a year old and the black anodized frame was still looking great. However, not much was left of this three years later.

Now for the bike rebuilding pictures: Continue reading →

For some time now I have been thinking about repainting my frame because it is showing quite a lot of damage. It looks like the original black-anodized frame is a bit sensitive to damages. Because of a minor thumb injury I now have to stop mountainbiking for a number of weeks to make sure it recovers. So this is the ideal time for the paint job.

Of course, I am going to let a professional company do this for me and to save costs and for fun it is best to disassemble the bike myself and assemble it back later. This is what my disassembled frame looks like

Dissambled bike frame before paint job

The photo still shows the cups from the headset but I have removed those after this picture was taken.

Below is a picture of the rest of the parts. I managed to disassemble the fork and handlebars together so all the cabling is intact and it can be put back together relatively easily. This is quite an exciting project since I have never disassembled everything at the same time. Also, removing the fork and headset is a firsttimer for me. Luckily I have the correct tools and know what to do to reinstall everything.

The remaining parts

The frame is going to be painted blue with 4 layers of blank coating on top for extra durability. In a week or two/three I can start rebuilding the bike. Most of the work will be in reinstalling the bearings and basically assembling the frame again. In the mean time I can do some extra maintenance on all the individual disassembled parts so the bike will look almost new when it is done.

This is some sort of midlife update for the bike that should give it another 4 years at least. I will add a second post in a few weeks about the rebuild, showing before and after pictures.

A lot of events for 2012 have set dates and are opening up for subscription.
I have signed up for Les Cimes des Waimes, others will follow soon. Go to the Calender to find what my program will look like this year, and join me if you the have time.

Warning: you may want to turn the volume down, IMHO the soundtrack is awful.

Rudi van Houts op de route van Gulbergen24