Hi:
Until a few weeks ago I'd never heard of ParkPre. I've been a road rider
and Trek afficionado most of my life. I thought you might find the
following story interesting.
I found a box full of bike parts on a nearby street corner while out for
an
evening walk a couple of weeks ago, with a sign on it: "Free Bike Parts."
The box contained seven wheels and a bunch of other stuff including a
titanium-plated ParkPre Team 925 frame. It looked to me that there were
enough parts to build an entire bike. After looking at your site on my cell
phone, I got my car and drove back to pickup the box.
It appears to me that someone had stripped-down the bike almost completely,
intending to replace all the Shimano LX parts with XT parts; the box
contained almost all the LX and XT parts, with the exception of XT shifters
and brake levers. (Extra SRAM grip shifters were in the box, too).
So, I'm in the process of disassembling, cleaning, lubing and rebuilding
the bike into a truly ridable mountain bike, my first. The main part I've
had to buy new so far is a headset, which was incomplete and of undermined
brand. The steerer tube was the old wedge type which wouldn't work anyway
with the Answer Manitou suspension fork that was in the box, so I bought a
new stem. I'll probably replace the saddle, too, since the three saddles in
the box are kinda worn. I'll do new tires, tubes and cables, just to be on
the safe side.
Additionally, as it turns out, I don't live far from Moorpark, CA, where
the old ParkPre offices used to be, according to your site. Using the
address I obtained at another site (5245 Kazuko Ct., Moorpark, CA), I went
over and took a few pictures, which I can send you if you're interested.
The building itself is a non-descript warehouse-type building in a small
office park and not much to look at. Judging by the sign on the door and
the generators outside, it's been converted into an Internet data center.
Anyway, thanks for having a great site with information that has been
invaluable to me, coming to ParkPre bikes cold.
Regards,
*** Mark