Technical & Reference Section > Tech and Restoration
Tales from the vault. The SGX.
Midschoolfool:
Parts have arrived. Wheels are beautiful. Only one logo is damaged, but there is a good side so I think I will leave it tbh.
Rebuilt the pedals also.
deeman:
Love the cat :daumenhoch:
Midschoolfool:
--- Quote from: deeman on July 21, 2024, 12:11 PM ---Love the cat :daumenhoch:
--- End quote ---
F1 bengal. My wedding present.
He was a real character.
Midschoolfool:
I bought all the parts. It will be another two weeks before I can buy the paints (expensive this one, over a ton I reckon). Any way, whilst I am away from the bikes it gives me more time to find the parts and get ready.
I wanted some tyres. I have a set of Vandoorm comp 3 but they look cheap due to the logo. You can get the logos off, but the cost of the acetone and sand paper would make it not worthwhile, besides all of the shitty hard work.
I started looking. I could go two ways here. Either cutting edge (Powerblock or FastrX) or mid school. Mid school are difficult to find in reasonable shape, and I want this show class. I then stumbled upon these.
I had never heard of them. There is a reason for that....
Now obviously we have all heard of Maxxis. They were huge players in the mid school. Mostly for things like the Maxx Daddy, Holy Roller, Grifter and etc. However those? I had never even heard of. What I did like was that the sides are like the Maxx Daddy, so clearly for dirt and race.
Yet they have diamond like flat parts. The big tell tale here though was what was missing. See, recently (well about two years ago) I bought some Hookworms. For my Morales, like. And those have a different logo (multi coloured in the mid school) and the lack of "Maxxis.com". That only came about (the dot com part) in around 2003. So the fact these were missing that made me want them. So I bought the pair, 30 quid. Which is less than one new repop Maxxis, and less than one Powerblock or FastrX.
Turns out they made them until 1996. So they are indeed bonafide NOS mid school rubber. Siiiick !
OK so moving on. The next thing I needed was a "basically 30mm" freewheel. IE, the small side of a flip flop. I found one, NOS, on a FB group (midschool one) for a tenner posted. Bought.
With that sorted I had two options. Use a new school stem that needs some work, or find a mid school one. Problem is actual race stems from the mid school are very hard to find. I did, however, find one !
And ironically it is identical (almost) to the stem on my GT Speed series. This one is older though, and the sides are not CNC out. The only issue? someone tried to remove the stem and rounded out two bolts. Two moved, two did not. The problem is that the stem being a USA made model uses UNC bolts. And people do not realise this and then insert a metric allen which doesn't fit and rounds out bolts. This initially put me off. However, I spotted that the bars were uncut mint examples of some very early Demolitions, and the grips are ODI Roughneck lock on.
I hesitated and the guy messaged me and said he would send me the whole lot for 30 quid posted. The stem is worth more than that !. At first I again refused, and then I remembered the poor Eastern Jane.
I hate those bars. I hate all 4pc and they should be burned in fire ! so I will put the Demos on there.
Last thing needed, a headset. In blue.
It is kinda a rip off of the Box Components logo.
Midschoolfool:
OK, down the rabbit hole we go.
For some reason (god knows) I *thought* that the stem was the same as the silver one I have on my GT. I don't know why I thought that, I suppose because they are slightly similar? however it was a case of me not seeing the silver one in about two weeks, and then seeing the black one.
However, when I had a look they are not alike at all.
This is the Crupi on the GT.
And basically? they are nothing alike. The silver one is somewhat recent (last decade or so). However, note what is amiss. "Crupi USA". The silver one? is obviously not U.S made. I suppose as a last hurrah they went overseas. However, the black one? well not only does it say "Crupi USA" meaning it *is* U.S made it also has those lines around it, and the side body is not machined out. I would suppose that is why the silver one is called an "I beam". However, yeah they are totally different.
This left me somewhat confused so I started to dig. And I found out that the black stem is not an I beam at all. It is called a Crupi Groove stem. More digging revealed it was made in 1998. So the halo era for Crupi.
Does that make it valuable?
Yes, yes it does. Not Crupi trap valuable but still, way above and beyond the 30 quid posted I paid for the black stem, those uncut Demolition bars (which are now looking like they are way older than I thought they were !) and a set of Roughnecks.
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