I was just given a Rockhopper. The frame is decent, some of the rest of it is a little rough around the edges, a 19 inch seat tube C/C, kind of a flat, gunmetal blue color. How do I tell what year it might be? I am fairly certain most of the equipment has been swapped around over time, it has some weird twist grip shifters, did any Hoppers come that way?

Not sure what I might do with this bike, single speed it, turn it into a gravel grinder. The 19 inch frame as a ATM/MTB is a little large for me in that regard but as a gravel bike, maybe even with drop bars it might be perfect.

If the paint and decals are original those may be your best clues. The rear spacing may also help. I had a 1989 RockHopper, which came with 130mm spacing. I believe they changed pretty soon after that. Some years ('87 and '88 maybe?) had U-brakes. I believe they offered a couple of color combinations each year, plus different colors for Comp vs. standard and so on, but they changed the colors regularly.

Is it steel or aluminum? Does it have Suntour? Shimano? SRAM? Does it have canti or V or disks? Does it have a suspension fork? If any of the drivetrain or shifters are matching group set, what is it?

The frame is TIG welded steel. It has 135mm spacing. The brakes are canti I think. Solid front fork. It is so dirty I have not ID the components except that there are the weird twist grip shifters. It is 8 speed.

The first three digits of the SN are PP4 I think. I need to clean it enough to read it.

I will take a photo tomorrow.

Even though it is a 19 inch frame I could not get the seat high enough for me, turn out it was only a 300mm post. I do not think it original. It is 27.2mm type.

Here is my new Hopper:



It is a 19 inch C/C.

Looks similar to this photo, owner says it's a 1996 model. I'm no expert though, I just have the internet.

https://ridewithgps.com/photos/full/83872.jpg

The bike in that photo appears to have SRAM twist shifters.

With those shifters and quill stem and color (Steel Berry) it would probably be a '95. The 96's were metallic blue.

1995 Specialized Rockhopper - BikePedia

You wrote that the 3rd character of the serial number is a '4'.
By Specialized serial number conventions this may indicate that '4' is the last digit of the model year in which it was built.

If that number does signify a year it would be the year it was built, not the model year. A '95 model could have been built in late '94. That bike isn't a '94, they didn't have the grip shifters then.

Probably built & stamped in '94, then. Sold as a '95.

That's what I figure. My '94 Diamond Back was made in Oct '93.

The PP4 probably represents manufuacturer-fortnight-year. If so, the frame was manufacturred during weeks 31-32 of 1994. That would be August 1994 and late enough in the year to be the start of production of the 1995 models. It takes a lot longer to build a frame than assemble the components onto the frame, so manufacturers typically stockpile frames before building them up. Then there is the time involved in trans-oceanic shipping, customs clearance, warehousing and ditributing to the LBS. The first of new models are ususally in the LBS by early December, to take advantage of the lucrative Christmas season, so when you back things off from there, most manufacturers start building the new models around September and sometimes earlier.