Retro British Eagle Pro Carbon - Advice
Discussion
Hi Folks. I'm a newbie on this forum and need a bit of advice.
I've been riding a British Eagle ZFX One since I bought it brand new early 1990's. I love it, it does exactly what I want goes where I want and nothing's ever gone wrong with it. I did fit a different saddle & handle bar as the OE one's weren't that comfy for me - but still have the oe items in the shed so apart from the odd mark it's a great bike.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I saw a British Eagle Pro Carbon come up on eBay. A very pretty little thing running Shimano XT groupset. Someone has clearly spent some time & money on it and from the condition it must have had an easy, sheltered life. So I bought it with the view that it would be my summer ride keeping the ZFX for winter.
I'm well chuffed and just love looking at it. It rides very sweet also.
However it has a Syncros cattle prod stem which although I believe is a nice bit of kit, correct era and seems to fetch strong money on eBay - I don't like it. To me it just looks wrong and it seems to pull my weight too far forward & down over the front wheel. So changing it is the order of the day but I have no idea what to change it to. I'm not knowledgable about retro bikes or components, apart from what I've read in the past couple of weeks. Can someone suggest what would be a high quality item, that is shorter & maybe steeper angled, so I can feel slightly more upright, but still correct for an early 1990's bike.
For info I ride on tarmac, bridle ways, tracks & footpaths. I'm not a serious offroad downhill speed freak - far too old for that!
Thx
Moto
I've been riding a British Eagle ZFX One since I bought it brand new early 1990's. I love it, it does exactly what I want goes where I want and nothing's ever gone wrong with it. I did fit a different saddle & handle bar as the OE one's weren't that comfy for me - but still have the oe items in the shed so apart from the odd mark it's a great bike.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I saw a British Eagle Pro Carbon come up on eBay. A very pretty little thing running Shimano XT groupset. Someone has clearly spent some time & money on it and from the condition it must have had an easy, sheltered life. So I bought it with the view that it would be my summer ride keeping the ZFX for winter.
I'm well chuffed and just love looking at it. It rides very sweet also.
However it has a Syncros cattle prod stem which although I believe is a nice bit of kit, correct era and seems to fetch strong money on eBay - I don't like it. To me it just looks wrong and it seems to pull my weight too far forward & down over the front wheel. So changing it is the order of the day but I have no idea what to change it to. I'm not knowledgable about retro bikes or components, apart from what I've read in the past couple of weeks. Can someone suggest what would be a high quality item, that is shorter & maybe steeper angled, so I can feel slightly more upright, but still correct for an early 1990's bike.
For info I ride on tarmac, bridle ways, tracks & footpaths. I'm not a serious offroad downhill speed freak - far too old for that!
Thx
Moto
I had the same problem when I picked up an old Santa Cruz Chameleon earlier in the year.
It came with a 135mm Race Face stem in the exact same blue as the frame which looked great but stretched me out and put too much weight over the front wheel, that's how they used to be back then but things have changed now.
I tried fiddling around with saddle position but couldn't get around the long stem problem so decided to forsake the looks. Really glad I did as moving to a 90mm stem has made a world of difference and as I bought the bike to ride rather than look at it makes sense. I chose another Race Face stem which looks pretty much the same apart from it being black and it hasn't really changed the look of the bike that much.
The only difference between stems now and then is likely to be the handlebar diameter, older bikes will be 25.4 against modern bikes 31.8. You may also have a 1" steerer tube as opposed to a 1 1/8" steerer but that's not too likely.
Wiggle have a good selection of stems in 25.4 diameter so I would take a look there, you can always return it if you need a 1" steerer stem in which case I'd get onto retrobikes and ebay as they're a bit harder to find.
Word of warning though, materials fatigue on these older bikes so worth getting it checked over. I learnt this lesson the hard way but luckily bones heal, chicks dig scars and I found a pair of immaculate & period correct Marzocchi Bombers for under a ton within two weeks of this happening on a downhill..
EDIT - Just googled to check on stem sizes and came across this build thread for a remarkably similar bike to yours, possibly even yours:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1...
It came with a 135mm Race Face stem in the exact same blue as the frame which looked great but stretched me out and put too much weight over the front wheel, that's how they used to be back then but things have changed now.
I tried fiddling around with saddle position but couldn't get around the long stem problem so decided to forsake the looks. Really glad I did as moving to a 90mm stem has made a world of difference and as I bought the bike to ride rather than look at it makes sense. I chose another Race Face stem which looks pretty much the same apart from it being black and it hasn't really changed the look of the bike that much.
The only difference between stems now and then is likely to be the handlebar diameter, older bikes will be 25.4 against modern bikes 31.8. You may also have a 1" steerer tube as opposed to a 1 1/8" steerer but that's not too likely.
Wiggle have a good selection of stems in 25.4 diameter so I would take a look there, you can always return it if you need a 1" steerer stem in which case I'd get onto retrobikes and ebay as they're a bit harder to find.
Word of warning though, materials fatigue on these older bikes so worth getting it checked over. I learnt this lesson the hard way but luckily bones heal, chicks dig scars and I found a pair of immaculate & period correct Marzocchi Bombers for under a ton within two weeks of this happening on a downhill..
EDIT - Just googled to check on stem sizes and came across this build thread for a remarkably similar bike to yours, possibly even yours:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1...
Edited by HerrSchnell on Wednesday 23 December 20:54
Very similar to my British Eagle, which now looks nothing like a British Eagle 
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...
HerrSchnell said:
I had the same problem when I picked up an old Santa Cruz Chameleon earlier in the year.
It came with a 135mm Race Face stem in the exact same blue as the frame which looked great but stretched me out and put too much weight over the front wheel, that's how they used to be back then but things have changed now.
I tried fiddling around with saddle position but couldn't get around the long stem problem so decided to forsake the looks. Really glad I did as moving to a 90mm stem has made a world of difference and as I bought the bike to ride rather than look at it makes sense. I chose another Race Face stem which looks pretty much the same apart from it being black and it hasn't really changed the look of the bike that much.
The only difference between stems now and then is likely to be the handlebar diameter, older bikes will be 25.4 against modern bikes 31.8. You may also have a 1" steerer tube as opposed to a 1 1/8" steerer but that's not too likely.
Wiggle have a good selection of stems in 25.4 diameter so I would take a look there, you can always return it if you need a 1" steerer stem in which case I'd get onto retrobikes and ebay as they're a bit harder to find.
Word of warning though, materials fatigue on these older bikes so worth getting it checked over. I learnt this lesson the hard way but luckily bones heal, chicks dig scars and I found a pair of immaculate & period correct Marzocchi Bombers for under a ton within two weeks of this happening on a downhill..
EDIT - Just googled to check on stem sizes and came across this build thread for a remarkably similar bike to yours, possibly even yours:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1...
Good to know you had the same issue and it was cured by changing the stem. It came with a 135mm Race Face stem in the exact same blue as the frame which looked great but stretched me out and put too much weight over the front wheel, that's how they used to be back then but things have changed now.
I tried fiddling around with saddle position but couldn't get around the long stem problem so decided to forsake the looks. Really glad I did as moving to a 90mm stem has made a world of difference and as I bought the bike to ride rather than look at it makes sense. I chose another Race Face stem which looks pretty much the same apart from it being black and it hasn't really changed the look of the bike that much.
The only difference between stems now and then is likely to be the handlebar diameter, older bikes will be 25.4 against modern bikes 31.8. You may also have a 1" steerer tube as opposed to a 1 1/8" steerer but that's not too likely.
Wiggle have a good selection of stems in 25.4 diameter so I would take a look there, you can always return it if you need a 1" steerer stem in which case I'd get onto retrobikes and ebay as they're a bit harder to find.
Word of warning though, materials fatigue on these older bikes so worth getting it checked over. I learnt this lesson the hard way but luckily bones heal, chicks dig scars and I found a pair of immaculate & period correct Marzocchi Bombers for under a ton within two weeks of this happening on a downhill..
EDIT - Just googled to check on stem sizes and came across this build thread for a remarkably similar bike to yours, possibly even yours:
http://www.retrobike.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1...
Edited by HerrSchnell on Wednesday 23 December 20:54
You are correct, that is my bike. I did see the post prior to buying, so it helped to know some of the background before handing over the cash.
I have found a few new 1 1/8 quill stems which look OK but they seem relatively cheap and I don't recognise the brand. So a bit cautious as I don't fancy following your catastrophic failure - ouch !
This is a link to one such example which also allows adjustment of the angle :
http://www.tredz.co.uk/.System-EX-Adjustable-Quill...
Ah, a quill stem. That kind of limits your options a bit, I'd head over to retrobikes and see what comes up there.
Looks a nice bike you've landed there though and that build thread shows the guy knew what he was doing.
The forks which snapped on mine were the original fit Pace RC36 which were an expensive trick piece of kit in the day, it's just that the magnesium alloy stanchion tubes haven't stood the test of time well hence the one leg shearing like that.
Looks a nice bike you've landed there though and that build thread shows the guy knew what he was doing.
The forks which snapped on mine were the original fit Pace RC36 which were an expensive trick piece of kit in the day, it's just that the magnesium alloy stanchion tubes haven't stood the test of time well hence the one leg shearing like that.
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