Alright alright alright, here’s the proper post on my latest bike project: a 1990 Diamond Back Apex resto-mod that I like to call Rattle Can. I got this bike earlier in the year for $25 on Marketplace. The listing was for “3 kids bikes $25 each”, and this bike was in the back of the single photo behind the other two bikes. I could tell it wasn’t a kids bike, but I think that error in the description kept this thing unsold for a while. But this thing was closer to the upper end of Diamond Back’s line at the time and was made with some nice Tange MTB double butted tubing all over, and looked like a great platform for my idea.
My vision for this thing was a fun little street-ripper - something with agility for getting rowdy around town, but comfortable enough for the multi-hour rides that are my daily bread. There is ultimately nothing original on this bike except for the front derailleur, but the rest is a mixture of parts bin, eBay, and some new items that fit what I was going for. The outside of this bike is beat to hell, but the inside of the frame and fork looked clean and rust free after I stripped it all down. So I used rust converter on a few exterior spots, rust prevention spray inside the frame, and some hard core 2K clear coat to protect what’s left of the outside. The result is a stable if battered paint job that I don’t feel bad about sticker-ing up a little bit.
Before I get to the build specs, here’s a few of the known sins:
- at some point the cable end popped off the front-D cable. Need to dig through my bins and find another.
- the rear brake cable looks a little jacked between the v-brake arms; I originally tried setting this up with ratio converters so I could use these totally sick NOS Suntour XC Pro brake levers (SO. SICK.), but it was wonky. I had plenty of cable length left after switching to XTR levers, and didn’t want to waste the existing one so I kept it. It looks weird but works fine.
- Yeah…black rims wth non-machined sidewalls and rim brakes. You can see the paint wearing. Not ideal, but they’re the rims I had.
- Poo-brown sidewalls on the tires. Sorry Garry—I have bad luck with flats and I need the endurance casing.
- Non-matching wheel set and skewers. I built these, but I’ll get to why they don’t match down below.
- The red pedals…Valerie likes them but I think it’s the wrong red. But they were cheap and they’re at least Race Face.
This is probably the…3rd…resto-mod I’ve wrapped up at this point? But I’m super stoked at how this turned out. Pretty much exactly the feel I was going for with some unexpected surprises along the way. Number one? I have a tool that I use to help see what size tires will fit in a frame, and it looked like this frame could fit some fat meats. The 26" wheels that came with the bike were 1.95", but my gauge made it look like I could fit some 650b tires up to 48mm. Whoa! A 650b conversion? This thing already had a higher BB since it’s a mountain bike, but raising it more with larger wheels? And what about the brakes?
So I built a custom set of 650b, rim brake, quick release wheels. I already had a new-old-stock SunTour XC 9000 front hub (sealed bearings!) and really wanted to use it here. But not only would it have been difficult to find an appropriate SunTour rear hub, my options for one with a wide gear range—let alone a cassette—would be limited since they’re out of business. So I used a Rivendell Silver hub and went 9-speed Shimano. The rims are Velocity Cliffhangers, 32-spoke, and the tires are Rene Herse Switchback Hill. I already had one of these as a spare for the Space Horse for the past couple of years, but I found a match at Outpost in their clearance tire bin for TWENTY-FIVE BUCKS a few months ago.
And stopping? I had a set of XTR BR-M952 v-brakes, and there is juuuuuuust enough vertical travel in the pad adjustment to make these work on 650b rims. And they’re not angled up, either! I was shocked, and had a pair of some cheaper v-brakes with a ton of vertical adjustment on standby. No need.
The last pleasant surprise before the rest of the specs: this bike’s fork has mid-blade mounts, which as far as I can tell is pretty uncommon for MTBs of this era. But it made it possible to use this rack from Hyacinth that I previously used on my Space Horse.
Now for the rest - mostly a list, but with a little commentary here and there.
- first headset I ever pressed in! This bike has a 1-1/8" threaded steerer, so got the Tange Falcon with sealed cartridge bearings. It’s simple, but it’s really smooth and adjusted fine.
- stem adapter from Origin8 for 1-1/8" threaded steerers to 1-1/8" threadless stems, with a black Nitto stem spacer I picked up from Crust.
- Thomson cockpit; 70mm stem (angled up) and a 26.8 straight seatpost. I actually reamed out the seat tube a tiny bit to make this work since it came with a 26.6 post. I figured I should be safe with only 0.2 removed and more than enough post in the seat tube.
- the stem is holding on to the Crust Shrike Bar in black. This is the 800mm wide-boi with 31.8 clamp diameter. This is my third handlebar from Crust (Nullabar on the Bombora and Ron’s Ortho Bar on my old Trek cruiser), and I feel like they have some great ideas for bars that balance comfort, utility, and aesthetics. These are the craziest, widest bars I’ve ever used, but my shoulders are already about 52cm wide. Coupled with a short stem, these end up being just right. Perfect amount of sweep, total control, and enough rise to work with this old frame.
- the saddle is a nice, simple Brooks C17. In this riding configuration, it’s more comfortable than the one on my Space Horse which makes me want to rethink my saddle position on that bike.
- grips are my third attempt at finding the right comfort level, but I keep a lot of grips around. These are Wolf Tooth Fat Paw lock-on grips. Simple, but just right for my meat hooks.
- brake levers are the XTR levers to match the v-brakes. I was lucky to find the stand-alone levers without integrated shifters because…
- …I have my beloved SunTour Power Thumb ratcheting shifters to pull cable. If you like friction shifting (and I really do), these have well earned their reputation.
- shifting up front is the original Deore DX derailleur. It’s in kinda crummy cosmetic shape, but it works great and suits the character of the bike.
- rear derailleur is every alt-bike-kid’s favorite XTR M952. I got this one on the cheaper end because of a split jockey wheel and got some low-price sealed bearing replacement wheels that still made this cheaper than the usual asking price. The rest of it is in great shape and it works perfectly.
- I’m running 3x9 here with a cheaper 9-speed 11-36 Shimano cassette in the rear and a lower-end-but-still-pretty-nice SunTour XCE triple in the front (48/38/28). The drivetrain is clear because you know I’m waxin' and relaxin'.
- miscellaneous: cheap Lezyne bottle cage, Ultradynamico bottle, Wolf Tooth bar ends, Topo Designs stem bag, Fab’s Mini Chest on the front, Ass-Savers Win Wing 2 fender, and a Crane bell (that I wish was black, but at least it sounds fantastic).
And you know what? This thing rides GREAT. I’ve put 125 miles on it so far and it’s as fun as I’d hoped. It’s nimble, and I don’t notice the high seating position after I’m rolling.
That’s the long and…long! of it. Peep the gallery for more detailed glamor shots. I’d like to some day make a simple bike-check video for this bike (and all my others), but video editing is a whole other thing.
