A new year nearly upon us and I thought I’d share some pictures of my 1992 Carbon composite Kestrel that I took for a spin out after building and sourcing parts from the frame up.
The pictures show a couple of slight tweaks to the build , originally when new would have come with a rigid fork , maybe a spinner or tange , which sadly was missing when I purchased the frame , so not having a spare one of those to hand , I decided to start off with a Ritchey Logic fork , but as you can see in the pictures I’ve also run a 63mm tuned Rockshox Judy SL., I think the Judy looks fantastic and the colour matches perfectly with the ‘Kestrel’ decal’s but adds a little more weigh over the Ritchey. the Judy does however feel much better suited to the frames ride characteristics.
smooth lines on this one .. hope you enjoy ..
Non period correct Crank Brothers egg beater triple titanium pedals which hopefully don’t upset the purists too much mated to Shimano’s FC-M900 Chainset, and gold SRP bolts to shave those extra grams,
Saddle choice was a road I don’t want to travel too often as these things are getting ludicrously expensive, however after much waiting and searching I managed to source a lovely almost colour matched to the decals again San Marco and a beautiful yellow Selle Italia SLT Turbo , decided to use the turbo for now, and reserve the San Marco for something else in the works
box fresh,,
Box fresh turbo is the choice for now..
To hold the saddle in place I’m using a Shimano alloy Easton made XTR seatpost until I can source a Kingsbury or American classic in titanium.
These spare control tech stems in yellow that were in my parts bin called out to me , luckily I have a couple of length‘s to try out
The yellow highlights on the bikes decal’s continue with the addition of period correct Elite ciussi bottle cage’s.
1992 was the release date for Shimano’s top end XTR M900 group set, so I had to raid the parts bins and I found a front and rear derailleur, chainset and matching bottom bracket, the brakes are currently Shimano’s XT’s which will be swapped out for either XTR’s when I can source some at a reasonable cost and in the condition I want, or something a little more trick
rebuilt and tuned Judy SL’s nicely match the stem and Jagwire sl outer cables
, sometimes builds just come together
The shifting duties over the 8 cogs on the rear Shimano XTR cassette are down to SRAM super-light X Ray grip shifters ,a lot of people don’t like them as they complain of mid-shifts and the overall operation of them, personally I’ve never had any issue‘s with them, I think they look super neat and stealth , brake levers are Ritchey logic units , selected for there low weight and feel and shape , however I’m thinking these will get swapped out for something to match the brake callipers
The straight aluminium bars have now been replaced with some nice carbon riser’s
Onza “chill’ pill cantilever hangers were a bonus with the extra yellow detailing
Ritchey Logic straight fork option.. weighing in at a shade under 21lb
and as she stands for now.. to be continued…
Si
, just a little update,, I’m currently in the process of cleaning and doing a few little tweaks to the build so I thought in the meantime I’d add a few pictures of this beautiful machine I took this last year, hope you enjoy. 
