francophile 

Curious to hear from anyone that's ridden the 90s-era C'dale F-series MTB, I've never ridden one, just the SR-series road bikes, nor any experience with the Indy C flavor of Rock Shox.

Picked this up from the regional Goodwill today, pretty sure it's a '97 F500i, it just so happens to be my size which is a miracle considering the last couple of bikes I picked up off them were Medium/Small sizes which I can't properly get into.

Looks pretty darn clean from about 15' away, but when you get up on it you realize there's quite a bit of rust remediation to carefully deal with, someone must've left it outside for a while. Some stuff will get tossed in the "rusty parts recycle bin" to never be used again (chain, freewheel). I suspect the rack and bottle cage hardware will be frozen. Grip shifts are cosmetically hosed.

I didn't need another project, but I do need a MTB/gravel bike that fits because the Fisher Marlin (M size) I picked up a few months back and restored isn't really working out well.