The first real mountain bike I bought. My old Barracuda.

Loaned this one to a friend of mine back in '98 and got her back recently. After a few years of wear and tear, it was still in good condition. I decided to make it a big more interesting and more my style (oddball).

Plenty of pictures below to show the transition, and words to describe whats going on in each.

After years of use, and storage.

Some minor frame damage before and after paint repair.

After cutting the shifter pods off of the brake levers and adding some groovy Kona grips that glow in the dark. Still has the cantilever brakes. No shifters were for a temperary single speed set-up to see if I liked riding "SS." For the record, I did, may have to build up a nice lightweight one someday.

And the "drive train" as used as a single speed. Todd gave me the tensioner so I could keep the old cassette on the wheel for simplicity.

Up close look at the tensioner.

And finally.... as the 1x9. BBG bashgaurd to help keep the chain on the ring. Also sporting a "jumpstop" to keep the chain on. I "nickeled and dimed" this bike together. Lots of ebay goodness.

New brakes, brake levers (original levers from my NRS), and Shimano LX rear shifter. Also decided to run full cable housing for brakes and shifter. No specific reason why, just wanted to be different.

Drive train in low gear. Using a Shimano 105 (road) rear derailer from ebay. Decided to use this type of rear derailer becuase of its short cage and potential to keep "chain slap" to a minimum. Pedals are "el cheapo" Shimano 505 clipless that I had in my parts bin.

And in high gear.