brodie rocket

You are looking at a 2001 Brodie Rocket, and it is peak '00's hardtail...

I mentioned this bike in a previous post as an example of how decent old hardtails are nearly worthless these days. This was listed for $100, and once I got a look at the parts on it, I couldn't resist. It has XTR brake/shifter pods, RaceFace cranks in a special colour only available on the '94 Rocky Mountain Vertex, RaceFace headset - another Rocky exclusive, from the '94 Altitude - and Hugi Compact hubs, which have possibly the loudest freehub ever made.

It took me some time to recognize some of the unusual details on this frame, and to figure out what it even was. Internet searches proved that it was NOT one of the following;

Brute
Bruzza
Electro
Energy
Evolution
Fury
Holeshot
Kinetic
Lightning
Omega
Spark
Tempyst

My mind is blown that Brodie had 13 different aluminium hardtails in the early '00s.

Anyway, thanks to someone posting an image from the 2001 Brodie catalog, this has to be a Rocket. It has the super cool CNC chainstay yoke, but doesn't have the Easton RAD tubing of the Holeshot. The weird thing being the bolt-on cable housing stop for the front derailleur. I've never seen anything like that before, and I've only found one other Brodie with that setup. Of course, it wasn't a Rocket.

Also, this frame used to be yellow. It got repainted and got mismatched down tube decals, which took me months to even notice.

What's important here is that I had the parts to turn this in to a hot rod. SRAM 9 speed X0 shifters and derailleurs. RaceFace X-type cranks. Fox Float fork, custom painted Cane Creek WAM wheels. Chromag seatpost, Easton Monkey bar, Shimano XTR V-brakes - this thing is done up.

And it was a blast to ride. Light and snappy. 

However... Not long after I bought this, something else came up that I could not say no to. And that something else (which I'll post about soon) did everything this bike does, but way better. And it was just way cooler overall.

​So this needed to go. And that meant swapping out all the cool parts. But thankfully, a contest came along that this ended up being perfect for. Stay tuned for another Rocket post on that.