u/trainedRex

So riding the high of enjoying my GT Palomar, I bought my girlfriend a Cannondale M300 as another project. I picked it up for $80. It was in much worse shape than my GT. The chain stays were fully chipped down to bare aluminum, and the handlebars and hardware were rusted out. So same idea, strip it down to the bare frame, paint it, and then fix what needs to be fixed to have a functional build. It was a rough time. I stripped out the aluminum crank threads trying to pull the original cranks off the bike…. Some penetrating oil and a big hammer later... It was off. I even tried using a ball joint puller and it just bent the crankset. It was a mess. Paint process was a 600 grit scuff all over, deep clean, then filler primer, silver paint x2 coats then a Duplicolor Metalcast paint in red probably 5 or 6 coats (very thin translucent paint). Turned out good enough. I then assembled the bike back with a combination of original parts, Amazon parts, and parts off my GT. I tried to get the cantilever brakes to work, but ended up doing a v brake conversion with koolstop pads. It stops amazing. It shifts amazing. Girlfriend and doggo like it. How do you guys balance the love of riding with the loving of building? Both are so much fun.

Trek Multitrack

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