A colleague of mine has this in his shed, the frame doesn’t look like anything brilliant to me but the kit on it seems pretty good so I’m curious as to what it is, plus he is thinking of selling it so wants to know what it is!

Loads more pics in the album, any ideas?

I’m thinking Merlin Malt1 build?

*Edit – nah, the rear control cable routing is on the top of the seatstay on OP frame, think that early non-disc Malts had it routed under the stay. I’m no Sherlock and that was my best try sorry!

STX RC (cranks) was the Deore/SLX of its day and I would guess but not that sure from the crank shape that they are late 1990s probably 98/99 as I have some xts in a box from that era that are very similar. In fact maybe those are a year or so newer (trickle down and all that)

Looks like a USE shockpost on there. Could be a Merlin or even a destickered handsome dog ? Cant see what Forks they are, but budget merlins had RST forks and then RS jetts maybe?

Forks are Ronds by the look of it. Tbh it looks like a buy to split and thus any buyer would be looking for a bargain. It won’t raise any particular interest from a retro point of view.

Agricultural looking dropouts and a mirror finish frame, pre-discs…

Looks like a CALOI, 1993 vintage as a guess.

They were a Brazilian bike manufacturer.

Looks like an old Scott…or maybe a carrera.

I have (in Oz) a Diamondback that looks just like that frame, including mirror finish. It was bought after the race from a team at the World Cup in Cairns in 1996. (They sold off a lot of the race gear, probably to save freight). Very light but not very comfy. The only identifier is stamped on the dropout.