I felt like there were a few fewer retro bikes rolling around this year’s Sea Otter Classic, but this one caught my eye so I stopped its owner for a quick chat. You can be pretty sure that anyone riding something like this around will be happy to stop and tell you all about it!
Logan Duffy’s FOES LTS 16
Have you built this up especially for Sea Otter or is this just your daily driver?
I built this up a couple years ago, actually found it more or less in a junk pile. I brought it home and stripped it down, cleaned it up and rebuilt it to how it is right now.
Okay and is this spec your goal spec or are there any components on here that you still want to find?
Um I would love to find the original mag-21 RockShox fork for it.
But you know, that’s not the most normal or typical fork that you’ve got on there.
No, it’s definitely not a typical fork that you see too often. It’s period correct at least, just a little shorter travel than what you’d normally see on this.
Have you got any parts on here that you’re particularly proud of finding? Or are they just all so special you can’t choose?
It’s really hard to pick one!
In that case, don’t pick one. Just tell me about all of them!
Well, it did actually come with the power post on it when I got it. It was completely frozen. I had to pull that apart as much as I could to rebuild it, get it back working again. Purple and blue were the colours of the bike and I kind of stuck with purple as you can see throughout the whole build. My Bullet Brothers tensioner back there that was red, I painted it black. But just trying to keep everything, you know, really original. It’s the original Ringle cage and seat collar.
Sorry, that’s an original Ringle cage down there? I thought that was a modern edition! And then you got the Vanilla Fox shock on there?
Yeah, it has the Vanilla rear shock on it. It has the titanium wishbone for the cantilevers, all still intact and perfectly functioning and everything like that, which I’m super stoked on. The Spinergy wheels, would be really sort of just a fun touch, just a little something to kind of add, you know, a little pizzazz to the bike. Period correct anodised pulley wheels on the rear derailleur there.
Some giant pedals there!
Some giant pedals, yeah, those were actually my go-to, the Odyssey Triple Traps. That was my go-to pedal for a lot of years back in the day. And so I just wanted something that was gonna be comfortable to pedal on when I take this bike out.
And do you take this out and race it ever?
Race? No! I just roll around around Sea Otter, roll around my hometown. I do take it out though, you know periodically.
Have you done anything to the tyres to keep them supple and stop them cracking?
Believe it or not, you can actually still buy these tyres. They are brand new. Well a couple of years old now, but yeah.
Well, thank you very much and enjoy riding it!
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