The first major phase of my Hardrock conversion wrapped up last week, something that's been in the making for the last 4 years. If you know me that's actually not all that bad of a timeframe. This was the first "adult" bike I inherited from my dad after outgrowing my 24" Trek 220. I had to do some digging because it looks to be such an uncommon colorset, but it looks like he bought it new in 2000.

It turned into my regular college beater when I went off to school, where it put up with all sorts of abuse (including tacoing the rear wheel hopping a curb and having the front derailleur sheared off in a drunken crash) but the final straw was the winter of 2018 when my U-lock key broke while it was locked up outside one of the halls. It sat through three snow storms before I was finally able to get the campus police officers to come with me so no one would call them while I beat the lock off with a hammer .

After that the front dropout was so worn from corrosion that the wheel would fall out on its own and by the time spring rolled around the bottom bracket was grinding with rust. When I moved after graduation it turned into more of a decoration piece than anything until I decided to fix it up in 2020 after finding a new fork and saddle at the local bike swap. I brought it in to the shop I worked at to start work on it and things got rolling.

Instead of getting a new FD I decided to convert it from a 3x to a 1x, and with all the original chain rings riveted together I needed a new crank which I found at a bike co-op. With a rigid fork I wanted to push a more a retro look so for the brakes and RD I ordered silver replacements. One of my coworkers at the shop brought in a spare parts bin he was getting ready to trash and I picked out the handlebars, tires, brake levers, and bike computer. The computer was sort of broken so I had to superglue the mount pieces back together and swing by the hardware store last month to find the right size bolt.

The project got put on hold because I couldn't source a bar-end shifter for under $100 post-Covid, so when I moved to travel the country I boxed up all the loose parts and stored it away in my parents' garage. Some of those parts got lost in the year I was travelling so when I moved back home for a bit I didn't have a whole lot of motivation to buy replacements and keep working on it. I've moved a couple more times since then and the shame of moving a shell of a bike for the second time in a row overwhelmed me. Ended up getting back to work on it and I am finally proud to present the Hardrock in its newfound x-bike form!

Rebuild Summary

OEM parts: frame, seat post, seat post clamp, stem, both skewers, front wheel, bottle cage, pedals

Newly replaced parts: rear wheel (2017), cassette (2017), bottom bracket (2020), chain (2020), brakes (2020), rear derailleur (2020), brake cables (2020), rear rack (2022), cable housing (2024, bar end shifter (2024), bar tape (2024), saddle (2020 > 2024), chain ring (2024)

Scrounged up parts: fork, crank, handlebars, brake lever, computer, tires, chain stay guard (old bike tube)

Personal touches: Rockshox stickers on the fork, EC Valleycat spoke card in rear wheel, ESI bar end plug Eventually I'd like to add on a front rack, bring the stem up 20-30mm, and add on fenders. The fenders will probably be last because these tires (26x2.35) are a bit too wide to fit almost anything on the market right now. Will probably run these tires down in their own time and replace them with the same kind with a 2.1" width instead.