Poguemahone

All stories must start somewhere. In honor of this immutable fact, we’ll start this one by the scrap pile of a local used bike dealer. It was there, in the midst of a pile of sad and broken bikes, that I spied a solitary flash of chrome. My interest piqued, I dug through to find the frame of a Ross Mount Hood, one of the early Mountain bikes from Ross. It was pretty nice—some rust spotting on the chrome and, alas, a nasty bend on the drive side stay.



I though the bend could possibly be fixed. There was no cracking of the chrome at the spot of the bend, and even though the bend was deep, I thought it could be pulled back to at least close to in line. Add to this the fact that the bike was my size, and the temptation was impossible to resist. Helpless in the clutches of my dementia, I talked the dealer out of the bike (for gratis). Feeling pity, he even gave me the fork, headset and cool bullhorn stem/bars as well.

I had talked to Syke about coming out and visiting his shop recently, partly to see the stray kittens who have moved in under the shop, partially to check out the Roger Riviere he picked up in Maine, and partly to see the recent additions to his shop. I threw the Mount Hood in the car, along with the Park frame gauge, frame and fork straightener , and dropout candlesticks, and drove over. After the formalities, we got down to business, first placing the frame in Syke’s bench vise.

Alas, all we moved was the bench. I had done some minor frame adjustments—pulling stays back into line, that sort of thing, and Syke had borrowed the frame tool to pull a UO8 back into line. Apparently UO8 steel bends a lot easier than 4130 Cro-moly. But Syke had the bright idea to tie the frame to a tree outside his shed, so we did, using some ties used to secure motorcycles for shipping.



Then both of us pulled the stay back into line—not precisely, but close enough you don’t notice it unless you know it’s there (as you do).





We also had to pull the stays over—they were off by about an inch to the drive side, but that was relatively easy to do. BTW, Syke—I later adjusted the dropouts using the candlesticks. Perhaps not surprisingly, they were out of line as well. A rear wheel now sits perfectly in the frame.




I also installed the headset and polished up the chrome a bit. It’s a pretty nice looking bike, and although I was in no ways looking for another project, this one I could not resist, as it involved trying something I hadn’t done before. I’ll set it up, and it can join the other two Rosses in the stable.

jacksbike

Ingenuity, indeed. Stabilize the frame, and use the Park frame straigthtener, voila.

YoKev

Oh man what a nice looking frame! Nice save.

sykerocker 

The Park frame straightening tool is a wonderful piece of equipment, the only catch for its use is to get the frame hooked up with some kind of immovable object. What Poguemahone forgot to mention is that, even strapped to the tree, it took the TWO of us pulling simultaneously to get it to bend.

I've never understood why Ross bikes get so little respect or desire. They're obviously very well made pieces of kit.

EDIT: Upon rereading, he did mention it was a forced joint effort. Trust me, this is no Peugeot, made of day old spaghetti. I was stunned after my easy time realigning that UO-8 frame.

roccobike

Get ready for a REALLY bad pun:

Did you use a "Park" tree?

Yeah, Yeah, I know, don't quit my day job.

mickey85

What did you use to clean up the chrome? It looks nice enough that a quick go-over with Nevr Dull would get out the rust...

Chris_in_Miami

Nice save on a cool bike. I nearly bought a chrome Ross Mt. Something-or-other at the flea market a while ago, and have regretted it ever since.

More importantly, did you get photos of the kitties?

sykerocker 

Check the thread "Finally, a real workshop"

sykerocker 

Assuming Poguemahone followed my advice, Turtle Wax Chrome Polish. I did a couple of spots at the workshop before he left, and it was cleaning up nicely.

noglider 

Your pictures made me laugh out loud.

Tom

Poguemahone

+1. Some of the worst spots needed a shot of the old brass wool, though.

And yeah, it took both of us, full force, to take out the bend. A lot of force involved. When we had it on the vise in Syke's shop I was half worried we'd knock down the building (i'm only half serious). I'm glad I took it over there, I don't think I would have made any progress on my lonesome.

Perhaps Park can send Syke a big blue sticker to put on the tree...

custermustache

I love Ross bikes, and would jump on a chrome framed MTB in a heartbeat.

Bullhorns are the bomb.

auchencrow

Very resourceful - and it kept another good old frame out of the land fill. (You might even say that you and Syke are a couple of "Tree Huggers"!)

roccobike

I know some of us are aware that for a brief period in the 80's, Ross MTBs were champion bikes. At one time Ross had one of the top MTB racing teams. I believe that chrome frame was from that era or close to it.

CV-6 

Has to be one of the "classic" thread titles of all time. We need a "best of" section.

treebound 

I was waiting to see where you had to hook a boat winch or hi-lift jack to another tree to pull from. Did you get any pics of the straightening too in use?
From Park Tool's site:


It would make for a nice tutorial on how to use the "candlesticks" too.

I've got an old Ross MTB out in the garage that will replace a GT MTB once I get the Ross overhauled and cleaned up. It was a thrift shop find, looked like it had too much potential to pass up.

Nice job on the frame.

Chris Chicago

cool story and pictures. also curious about that frame tool. nice work nonetheless.

Poguemahone

Sorry guys, no photos of the tool in use. Since we had to use it together (one of us alone couldn't have budged this sucker) there was no one to take photos. Next time I find a bike like this, I'll invite one of ya'll along to shoot pictures. I didn't realize it would take as much force as it did to rebend the stay. In comparison, moving the stays over for alignment was a simple job; I think I largely did that myself. Less force involved. Dropouts were easy to align/bend back.

You really need to use this tool in combination with alignment tools, in this case the Park frame gauge and the park candlestick tools.

I was unaware Ross were champion MTBs, but interested to hear more. I've got two of their road bikes, a 294s Signature and a Ross Aristocrat, which I believe was top of the line prior to the Signature bikes. In a way, it's nice that Rosses are so undervalued-- the Aristocrat was 15$ at a thrift store; I traded a beat up celeste Bianchi frame for the 294s frame, and this one was free. I don't have a lot of money in them, but they're each very nice.

I was lucky enough to have the two Ross roadies-- if I didn't have them, I might have passed on this one. Heck, if I hadn't realized the Aritocrat was such a nice riding bike (and decided to keep it instead of tearing it down for parts as I intended when I bought it) I probably wouldn't have traded for the 294s, either. The best accidents are the happy ones.

Poguemahone

Brief web search turns up info on Cindy Whitehead, one of the top MTBers of the eighties. Interesting stuff, from here:

https://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/whitehead.htm

home page on MTBs, worth a perusal:

https://sonic.net/~ckelly/Seekay/mtbwelcome.htm

Allvit54

...wow...I never realized that Ross made better-quality bikes. I remember the name from the 70s 'bike boom' as, well, a 'department store' bike that you'd find in the local K-Mart or something like that...
...nice job fixing that very nasty bend!...

treebound 

What was the name of the company that Trek spun off from? Was it Ross? Seems to ring a bell.

noglider 

From Wikipedia:

treebound 

Roth vs Ross, no wonder the bell was ringing.

Andrew F

Nice save! Cool frame! But I'm disappointed.....When I saw the the frame strapped to the tree, I was sure the story would have included a pickup truck and a six pack.

sykerocker 

Actually, the job has given me the idea for a shop tool to do the same job only a little more subtly and with a lot less muscle involved. Something made out of a couple of pieces of angle iron, some threaded bar stock and a couple of what I can only describe as 'very large wing nuts'. Instead of pulling and jerking, one can screw down the pressure, pulling the bend into a straight line against the angle steel.

I'm working on some sketches.