Let me preface my post by saying that I don't know if this the right forum but as an old fart I feel more comfortable here. I smiled the other day when I read a post asking "are those shifters on the downtube?" I imagine a lot of the riders on carbon fiber frames must look at our steel mounts as sophisticated as tractors. That gave me the idea to start a "John Deere" tractor project.

My hybrid project started with a 1991 Raleigh Tangent frame (double butted Tange MTB cro-mo) which I stripped and primed over the weekend. The frame will be painted John Deere green and the fork John Deere yellow. My goal is to get it under 23 pounds so the components will be a combination of Dura Ace and XTR. The bars will be an old Brahma bar wrapped in yellow tape with a yellow Selle Italia SLR saddle. I found a perfect John Deere logo decal for the head tube and I have two "John Deere" die cut decals for the downtube coming from a guy in Iowa that specializes in decals for vintage tractor restorations. I'm building a set of lightweight wheels that will be wrapped in Ritchie Tom Slicks for road use. I doubt I'll ever take it off the road, you know, like they do with tractors, but who knows.

I'll post pictures as completion gets closer, but the frame is going to have to hang in the heat of my attic for a couple of weeks to cure so it will be awhile before it's ready to ride.