Hi,

There's an old Trek 8000 frame in the shop right now that I'm thinking of building up as my first 'real' mountain bike. not sure what year, but it has a bonded alu frame. i'm wondering:

- how does it compare to a newer alu frame, like a recent kona cinder cone or an entry level rocky mtn frame? (the only thing i could think of is the lack of disc tabs on the trek)

- what would be the max travel fork i could install on it?

- is it worth building up?

thanks in advance.

If it is your first "real" mtb you probly souldn't build one up, unless you know what your doing. It would just be better if you got a whole bike.

Trek, Fisher make great entry, medium and high end bikes. You could ask your shop if they have some old models for you, they probly do.

thanks for the suggestions. i should add that it wouldn't be the first bike i build; just the first 'real' mtn bike... for the lack of options over the long weekend i went ahead and built it up. (already had the wheelset built, and i didn't really want to just buy a complete bike).

one thing i haven't managed to find, is the seatpost clamp for it. from what i can read, it appears to be a 33mm clamp, which isn't that common these days. and the seatpost is a 27.2 to the best of my knowledge. could anyone out there confirm this before i go ahead and order the clamp?

Hope you have fun with it. It sounds like a neat build.

I cant help with the seatpost clamp. But good luck

The last year for the bonded frames was 1997. They tended to ride like tanks. 63mm of fork travel would be ideal, but you could likely get away with 80mm.

One thing I just remembered, does the seat clamp lug say "TREK" on it? Top tube run cables and 1 1/8" head tube? If so, you've got a 1991 thru 1993 frame. These frames were not suspension corrected and used a proprietary seat post clamp. I'm not sure if any aftermarket clamp will work properly.