Black, Squishy Rocket

My 1993 Trek Fuel 98. This is, I believe, the first year of the carbon Fuels. All prior year models were made of their proprietary aluminum alloy, now known as ZR9000. This came to me as a complete stock bike with no modifications whatsoever. Its claimed use was around the military base in England (where it was originally purchased) and around the block a few times in Texas (where the original owner now resides). When it arrived, it was in near new condition as described but with a few nicks and scratches on the frame. The braking surfaces on the rims were still shiny.

As I identified parts to swap, I rode the bike. Immediately there were some drivetrain finickiness that started to occur. Not cool, but not impossible to resolve. My trusty Bontrager came with the same symptoms when we first hit the trails. First off, I swapped out the stem and bar to get the right reach as well as bar width I was used to. I did the fitting dimensions right off my Bontrager. The dimension of the Fuel frame is just a touch longer than that of my Bontrager, so the stem I put on was 5mm shorter. The stock stem was a 110mm. The new stem is a Ritchey Pro; one step down from the top of the line WCS offerings. Next was a new straight bar. The stock bar was a Bontrager Race with a 7-10 degree bend. All I knew was that it was a little much and wanted a 3-5 degree version. Also the original bar was 620mm wide. I picked up an Easton EA70 bar, again not the top of the line but still a very nice part. I cut the bar down from 600mm to a 560mm. Nice and tight. Slap on some barends. Next up, I swapped out the cranks and bottom bracket. There really was nothing wrong with what was on there, Bontrager Race mated to an ISIS bottom bracket, but the weight weenie in me found a fair deal on a set of gun blue Ritchey WCS cranks mated to a RaceFace Signiture bottom bracket. Finicky shifting persisted so on went a new Shimano XTR titanium cogset and a SRAM PC-991 chain. Still finicky, but less so. After a lot of adjustment, I decided to refresh all of the cables and housing as well as installed my old Avid Rollamajig. Shifting became super light to the touch. To the point of not enough friction to get shifting feedback. But, no one ever complains about that. A few other changes includes innumerable seat changes to get the right feel on my butt, carbon headset spacers and alloy chainring bolts. Of course, a set of Crank Brothers Eggbeater Pedals to keep the fleet consistent. All the little changes brought the bike from 26.5 pounds to 25.2 pounds. Scary since my Bontrager tips the scale at 24.8 pounds.

The future of the bike includes disk brakes (many of my rides have been pretty messy ones and I get concerned as a tug of the brake lever always seems to produce a dreaded grinding), titanium seatpost and just for kicks a bottle cage. Just the thought of adding disc brakes is an expensive endeavor due to the need for a new wheelset, shifters and the actual brakes and levers. However, the contenders for the disk brake upgrade are the Magura Martha SL, Avid Juicy Carbon or the Hope Mono Mini. I will probably look into a set of Bontrager Race X Lite Disc UST wheels as an upgrade to the stock Race Lites currently on there. If I could just reuse the wheels, I would. But they are not disc compatible. I have already picked up the disc mounting attachment for the frame since they were not present on this particular model year. I also have to figure out the amount of weight added since discs are usually heavier than most rim brake options. I am also in search for a titanium seatpost. Not so easy since the post diameter required is a 31.6mm. Most are 27.2mm. There are shims that I could use but I'd rather not have the extra parts. I did get close to getting a Syncros ProPost of the right size, but it wasn't meant to be. Other than that, everything is good.