While we all love the Shark around here we still often ride other bikes. The Ralph Cycles 17-inch hardtail shown here is being refreshed with a good, thorough cleaning and some parts replacement to bring it back to serviceable condition.
This particular Ralph frame was one of 6 built by Tom Teesdale in about 1995 for the Ralph Cycles racing team. This frame is serial #3 and I raced it inthe WORS series as well as MTB races in Minnesota and Iowa. It is in pretty darn good shape considering it was my primary MTB for about 3 years but has been mostly siting around since. Built from Reynolds 853, it is a strong, light frame and incorporates Ralph’s T-Bone seat stay that we used to help keep the seatstay flex down with the then powerful V-Brakes.
For this refurb job we are going to leave the color original for a couple of reasons.
- I like it
- Paint is still pretty good
- Can’t get Ralph Cycles decals anymore
The RockShox Judy fork is a pretty stock unit but has Arlo Englund Air Cartridges in. Hopefully those still work but I am not opposed to going back to urethane or whatever the bumpers were. This will not be a competition bike any more and may even get a ridged fork.
More as the work progresses.
If you have an older but loved bike consider throwing some love at it! If you haven’t got the time, shoot us a note. We’ll treat the old girl like she was one of our own.