Friday 17 May 2019

M-TRAX 1000 ATACK!


My latest acquisition is this mid 90's Raleigh M-Trax 1000 with reynolds K2 tubing. I bought it online for €60 and it came as a shambles with wrecked wheels, poor brakes and in ned of some TLC! No problem to the 'Steel Bike Saver' then. First thing I did was dump the wheels with the awful knobbly tyres and I put on a good pait I had lying around. I then removed the cheap chainset, derailleurs and pedals replacing them with Shimano Deore XT derailleurs, a 7 speed cassette and a pair of Wellgo pedals. It ran pretty well then but I had to service the cantilever brakes and recable them. I changed the seat and post and popped on a nice yellow bottle cage. It ran pretty well even though it is not a light bicycle.
Next I ditched the tyres and put on a set of Schwalbe City Jet slicks. Now it rocks but there is some more work to do and that is, install yellow cable housing, yellow handlebar grips and yellow pedals, then get the M-Trax text for the down tube in yellow vinyl of course from a print shop. It's looking good now and I've ordered the parts online. I would say the silver rear triangle and front fort will need a respray as they are looking a bit scratched and shoddy. With it's 21" frame and 21 gears it's a hot favourite for Summer cruising!

As we all know M-Trax were originally bonded frames and even some forks but in the 1995 Raleigh MTB catalog it does not mention this in the spec for this particular model, but does for the more expensive ones. I have another 1995 M-Trax 1000 and a 1993 M-Trax 600 which are bonded.