Well, after about a month of piling over Ebay and Craigslist ads, and finding a whole bunch of old parts hoping they'll come in as good as condition as they look in the pictures. Gathering my collection of parts from Virginia, Texas, Idaho, Colorado, Wisconsin and a whole lot of other places that I'm probably forgetting. The "Time Machine" went down to Cycle Masters in Turlock a few days ago. And I must say that Gary did not disappoint. It looks and functions better than my last one did... at least better than I remember.
I'm totally happy with the way it turned out. Everything is pretty much period correct to the mid 90's, except the wheels are a newer style Mavic with Specialized hubs... nothing super special, but they definitely look like they belong on the bike.
Now just give me a few weeks and people will be seeing this view of the bike.... LOL.... ok, ok.... give me a couple months. =)
Looks great!! Let me warn you though, you'll probably want to change that fork to carbon pretty soon. I had (still have) a M2 with the aluminum Direct Drive fork and it was soft and a little unstable in corners. I put on a Wound Up (badass back in the day) carbon fork and the difference was amazing. Ride on!!
ReplyDeleteYa... I've seen where people have complained about the Aluminum forks on this bike. But I had one of these back in the day. I raced the heck out of it and never had a problem with them "beating me up" on rides. And as far as the handling is concerned, I did some pretty gnarly decending on an Allez Epic and never had a problem. In fact... I don't even remember ever crashing my Allez. I dumped my Masi Grand Crit a few times, but I don't think I ever bailed on my Allez.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do have my eyes on a set of Carbon forks... we'll see if I decide to change em out before getting another bike.
ReplyDeleteThat's funny, I couldn't stand it. Maybe I just really wanted a carbon fork! It's getting harder now to find a good carbon fork for a 1" steer tube. However, it's also a good excuse to go threadless! Speaking of the Masi Grand Crit... They have it available as a frameset. Classic black with yellow decals. I saw one at Sea Otter this year and drooled on it a bit. Love that frame.
ReplyDeleteI've seen 1" steerer carbon forks from Kenesis and from Ritchey. And 1" steerer Headsets from Ritchey and from FSA. So I know they are out there.
ReplyDeleteAnd ya... I've seen some pictures of the new Masi Gran Crit. The paint scheme (emblems) looks just like it did on mine, back in the day. I just wish they offer a Pearl White like mine was back then.