XC 2009 Gary Fisher X-Cal restored restomod

[cammas]

So I brought this bike back in 2010 and over the years it’s gone through many changes and has been ridden, raced, lent out to other people and everything in between. Other bikes have come and gone but I it’s just one of those bikes I couldn’t bring myself to sell, it’s been sitting in the garage in pieces collecting dust lately and I thought I would give some love, using bits and pieces from the garage, while I was doing it, I thought I would update some things to bring it up to modern standards, sort of. The idea was to use as many parts from the garage as possible to keep prices down and use the crap I had kicking around, I thought I had a crankset but then realised I’d sold it, there was a couple other things like that.

I’ve made some updates from 2009 to bring it up to date where I could, like an angleset to update the geo a little, the brakes went to 4 pistons, 15mm front axle, 1X11 drivetrain and a few other changes. I stripped it back and given it a fresh lick of paint with some new decals and updated colour scheme.

There’s a couple of things that didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted, the colour is perfect and the Rustoleum Matte black paint worked well and the satin clear coat is okay but I should’ve used 2K for a stronger finish, the decals are okay but I originally wanted them darker, which I got from Poland but were crinkled, so used some from Queensland which are lighter. Anyway here’s the specs and some before, during and after photos, first quick ride felt good but that was around town so need to get out on singletrack soon.

Frame - 2009 Gary Fisher X-Cal (from the garage)
Fork - Trek Bowie Carbon rigid 15mm axle (from the garage)
Handlebars - Controltech Lynx 740mm riser bars (from the garage)
Stem - generic 90mm (from the garage)
Headset - Works Components angleset 1* (thanks to @Wake Jake)
Grips - Giant (from the garage)
Saddle - RYET 3D Printed 150mm (again thanks to @Wake Jake)
Seatpost - Syntace P6 hi flex (thanks to @Tubbsy about 3 years ago)
Front & Rear brakes - Shimano MT 420 4 piston - free from Facebook
Rotors - XT Ice tech 180mm front & rear (thanks to @iconic )
Cranks - SRAM X0 carbon 175mm marketplace
Chain - SRAM X1 new
Pedals - Shimano XT trail
Front derailleur - no longer required
Rear derailleur - GX 11 speed (from the garage)
Front shifter - no longer required
Rear shifter - GX 11 speed (from the garage)
Cassette - Microshift 11 speed 11-46 new
Front hub - Hope Pro 4 15mm x 100mm (thanks to @johnny )
Rear hub - Novatec (from the garage)
Front rim - WTB E35 - $50 from Pushys
Rear rim - Alex 27mm (from the garage)
Spokes - rear factory, front DT Swiss comp
Nipples - rear factory, Front Sapim
Tyres - Rekons- front 2.8 (from the garage) rear 2.6 new
Tubes - no longer required
Total weight - not weighed yet.

 

[Ultra Lord]

So I brought this bike back in 2010 and over the years it’s gone through many changes and has been ridden, raced, lent out to other people and everything in between. Other bikes have come and gone but I it’s just one of those bikes I couldn’t bring myself to sell, it’s been sitting in the garage in pieces collecting dust lately and I thought I would give some love, using bits and pieces from the garage, while I was doing it, I thought I would update some things to bring it up to modern standards, sort of. The idea was to use as many parts from the garage as possible to keep prices down and use the crap I had kicking around, I thought I had a crankset but then realised I’d sold it, there was a couple other things like that.

I’ve made some updates from 2009 to bring it up to date where I could, like an angleset to update the geo a little, the brakes went to 4 pistons, 15mm front axle, 1X11 drivetrain and a few other changes. I stripped it back and given it a fresh lick of paint with some new decals and updated colour scheme.

There’s a couple of things that didn’t turn out exactly how I wanted, the colour is perfect and the Rustoleum Matte black paint worked well and the satin clear coat is okay but I should’ve used 2K for a stronger finish, the decals are okay but I originally wanted them darker, which I got from Poland but were crinkled, so used some from Queensland which are lighter. Anyway here’s the specs and some before, during and after photos, first quick ride felt good but that was around town so need to get out on singletrack soon.

Frame - 2009 Gary Fisher X-Cal (from the garage)
Fork - Trek Bowie Carbon rigid 15mm axle (from the garage)
Handlebars - Controltech Lynx 740mm riser bars (from the garage)
Stem - generic 90mm (from the garage)
Headset - Works Components angleset 1* (thanks to @Wake Jake)
Grips - Giant (from the garage)
Saddle - RYET 3D Printed 150mm (again thanks to @Wake Jake)
Seatpost - Syntace P6 hi flex (thanks to @Tubbsy about 3 years ago)
Front & Rear brakes - Shimano MT 420 4 piston - free from Facebook
Rotors - XT Ice tech 180mm front & rear (thanks to @iconic )
Cranks - SRAM X0 carbon 175mm marketplace
Chain - SRAM X1 new
Pedals - Shimano XT trail
Front derailleur - no longer required
Rear derailleur - GX 11 speed (from the garage)
Front shifter - no longer required
Rear shifter - GX 11 speed (from the garage)
Cassette - Microshift 11 speed 11-46 new
Front hub - Hope Pro 4 15mm x 100mm (thanks to @johnny )
Rear hub - Novatec (from the garage)
Front rim - WTB E35 - $50 from Pushys
Rear rim - Alex 27mm (from the garage)
Spokes - rear factory, front DT Swiss comp
Nipples - rear factory, Front Sapim
Tyres - Rekons- front 2.8 (from the garage) rear 2.6 new
Tubes - no longer required
Total weight - not weighed yet.

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That’s very cool. Nice build mate

 

[Dales Cannon]

Love that. A mate in Japan has that exact bike still in original spec. The paint is faded to a pinkish hue. I will send him pics of yours. Very nice work indeed.

 

[cammas]

So it finally saw dirt this weekend and actually rode well, I had to adjust the shifter cable to get gears moving the way I liked, I also had to tweak the angle of the bars and saddle to get it right otherwise it went well. We ended up doing about 30k’s the first 10k’s were the hardest after riding the ebike for so long and this was the first non e-bike ride in god knows, legs were a little shattered afterwards but it was a good session, may ride it to work this week depending on the weather.

 

[beeb]

So it finally saw dirt this weekend and actually rode well, I had to adjust the shifter cable to get gears moving the way I liked, I also had to tweak the angle of the bars and saddle to get it right otherwise it went well. We ended up doing about 30k’s the first 10k’s were the hardest after riding the ebike for so long and this was the first non e-bike ride in god knows, legs were a little shattered afterwards but it was a good session, may ride it to work this week depending on the weather.

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30kms is a pretty hearty session for a first ride back on a meat-powered bike. Cool looking little rig too, paint came up alright!

 

[johnny]

Fucking love it.

 

[fjohn860]

Sooo good That looks mint as

 

[cammas]

I was discussing with my mate how the forks clearance makes that 2.8 tyre look skinny, that was until he put 2.2 continental up against it, so far the clearance for the 2.6 on the rear is okay but will need to monitor. The other thing I appreciated was the weight, well the lack of it, at less than half the weight of the Trance bunny hops and loading on the back of the car was a breeze.

 

[cammas]

A few small updates to Gary, a tyre clearance issue sorted for now but I need to make a better solution and now a brake issue.
Firstly updates, so after a few rides the rear derailleur ended up shitting the bed, but hey it had done heaps of kilometres and years of abuse, so I can’t complain. At first I just put a Deore 11 speed derailleur and shifter on it which has been fine but then I decided to do some upgrades to my gravel bike, so I took the 11-46 cassette off it for the gravel bike and replaced it with a 11-51 Deore cassette with a XT chain, since I was putting on a larger cassette I put a 32 tooth chain ring with the correct offset from @jasevr4 on it while I was at.

Tyre clearance issues, so after a few rides I started to notice some tyre rub noise and then looking at the wheel it seemed offset to the seat tube, so I got my mate to check the trueing and offset, but it was perfectly fine. Fuck what is it then, then I noticed when the QR was loose I could actually rock the wheel in the driveside drop out but the brake side was fine. So the wheel would actually twist in the frame causing the rub under power, on further investigation I found that the drop out is slightly rounded on the front edge, now I don’t know if it’s wear, damage from a loose QR or over exuberant sanding when painting it. Current fix was to Loctite a piece of aluminium tube that I cut in half then mounted inside of the drop out then filed down to allow the wheel to fit, eventually I will make something a little more durable.

Now it’s riding and shifting perfectly, I need to sort out the rear brake, at first it was just some squealing but working okay, then on today’s ride it was just all noise with little to no stopping, so I will need to clean the pads and rotor plus give it a good bleed as the lever is a little soft, once I get them sorted it will be done, well for now at least.