Update: Sold(!) Again! I am now on a quest to thin the herd and sold the frame and am now parting out the rest of the build…I wanted to sell it as a complete, but got a very persuasive offer at $1200(!), so I couldn’t pass it up. I need to get rid of these parts before…before…something else pops up!
…
Never say never. After selling my pristine ‘97 Xizang a few months ago, I came across another one on ebay and decided to toss in a winning bid. These frames are always in high demand, so I see it as an investment (my wife would flatly disagree with me of course).
It was a bare frame, and while in good shape, it had lost much of its shine. I read several tips online about polishing it back up, and after a few hours with 2000 grit wet sandpaper, ultra-fine steel wool, numerous metal polishes and finally an orbital polisher, this Xizang got its mojo back.
Most of the cockpit was swapped from my Bontrager for now. I also swapped out the black lowers of the ‘09 32mm SID Race with a NOS White set. ‘09 lowers with the v-brake bosses are not easy to find these days!
Speaking of v-brakes, one issue I hadn’t anticipated for was the cable routing for the rear brake. Since this is a ‘93 model, it was never designed for v-brakes, and thus does not have the cable stop in the normal v-brake place (the ‘97 model has a stop just before the seat stay tubes vs. in the middle of the triple-triangle of this ‘93 model).
Because of this, I couldn’t get the routing to work very well. Some other owners say to just use full length housing and zip-tie it to the frame, or get a bolt-on cable stop, neither of which I wanted to do.
The solution? Using a normal cable end doesn’t fit into the existing stop, so to get around this, you have to slightly squish the stop (I used a bench vise) to be more ovalized just in the front portion of the cable end, then use a small drill bit to make the now-squished cable hole larger and round again to allow the cable to pass through freely without any binding. This allows the cable housing to seat in the end normally, while the front of the cable end can fit into the frame stop. I should probably take a picture of this to illustrate, huh?…
Now, along with a slightly steeper 110-degree (135?) brake noodle (vs. normal 90-degree one), the routing is perfect and without any friction whatsoever.
Next up, the XTR crankset was set up for 1×9 duty using a Paul Chainkeeper and e13 32t Guide Ring (super nice quality ring!). It looks trick.
The decals were custom-made…by me. I was never a fan of the elongated “GT” logo, so I decided to try and make my own design in the same spirit of the original Xizang decals. They’re just vinyl decals layered on top of each other to achieve the dual color effect.
Future planned upgrades include a matching Red Chris King headset, lighter tires, and perhaps a matching WCS White stem.
21.50lbs including pedals.