Converting mountain to touring bike

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In article <[email hidden]>,

Toddorado said:

After much searching for recent, relevant posts on this topic, I seem
to've come up empty.

While not a big fan of road bikes, and not wanting to spend $800-$1,200
on a cyclocross bike, I'm looking for some good pointers on what I
would need to do in order to make my Giant Rainier cyclocross-worthy.
It is for a 750 mile tour. From what I can tell, I might need some
rigid forks with disc-compatability, slicker tires and a news stem/drop
bars. I am not at all concerned with weight, but prefer durability.

My questions are: Has anyone done this? Have I considered all that I
must? Am I better off with a new bike?

_ The biggest problem you will run into is indexed
shifting. Shimano rear deraillers all use the same indexing, but
the front ones are different between road and mtb deraillers. If
you can live without that and use barcon shifters in friction
mode then it's a fairly straightforward conversion. However, you
can easily spend $400 - $500 on it or more. There's also the
issue of brake levers. With V-brakes you have a very limited
choice of road style levers. I'm not sure what the situation is
with Disk brakes, but if they use the same cable pull as V-brakes
you have the same problem.

_ A far cheaper solution might be to switch to trekking bars
and a rigid fork.

http://tinyurl.com/yq6eq

That way you can use all the original shifters and levers from the bike
and you get most of the advantages of drop bars.

You might also look at REI's touring bikes. Here's what you're
conversion might look like

http://tinyurl.com/bg2zh

The other thing to think about is how to mount a rack if you are
using panniers. While you can bodge things with p-clamps, life
is a lot easier if the bike has all the eyelets needed already.

_ Booker C. Bense

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In article <[email hidden]>,

Toddorado said:

After much searching for recent, relevant posts on this topic, I seem
to've come up empty.

While not a big fan of road bikes, and not wanting to spend $800-$1,200
on a cyclocross bike, I'm looking for some good pointers on what I
would need to do in order to make my Giant Rainier cyclocross-worthy.
It is for a 750 mile tour. From what I can tell, I might need some
rigid forks with disc-compatability, slicker tires and a news stem/drop
bars. I am not at all concerned with weight, but prefer durability.

My questions are: Has anyone done this?

Brian DeSousa converted a mountain bike to a tourer;
here's his description of his project:
http://briandesousa.com/bicycling/tech/convert.htm

Quoted message said:

Have I considered all that I
must? Am I better off with a new bike?

And here's a website about mountain bike touring:
http://www.mtbtour.org/

cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

Toddorado said:

While not a big fan of road bikes, and not wanting to spend $800-$1,200
on a cyclocross bike, I'm looking for some good pointers on what I
would need to do in order to make my Giant Rainier cyclocross-worthy.
It is for a 750 mile tour. From what I can tell, I might need some
rigid forks with disc-compatability, slicker tires and a news stem/drop
bars. I am not at all concerned with weight, but prefer durability.

all you need is some racks for your panniers and some cross
tires. i liked ritchie crossbites, but they're difficult to
find, so i now have continental cross tires. i've put several
thousand tour miles on an old diamondback hardtail that was also
my commuting bike for years.

there are front low-rider pannier racks that can be attached to
shock forks, and if you're carrying much gear you will want both
front and rear panniers for better weight distribution. there's
no reason why you would need disk brakes for touring.

"Toddorado" <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

After much searching for recent, relevant posts on this topic,

I seem

Quoted message said:

to've come up empty.

While not a big fan of road bikes, and not wanting to spend
$800-$1,200 on a cyclocross bike, I'm looking for some good
pointers on what I would need to do in order to make my Giant
Rainier cyclocross-worthy. It is for a 750 mile tour. From what
I can tell, I might need some rigid forks with disc-compata-
bility, slicker tires and a news stem/drop bars. I am not at
allconcerned with weight, but prefer durability.

My questions are: Has anyone done this? Have I considered all
that I must? Am I better off with a new bike?

Please reply here or my e-mail, either one is fine.

I've converted a few MTBs to street use. They're OK but I find I
prefer a frame with road geometries for long distances. There
are people here who can tell you why a road frame is more
efficient. All I know is I feel better riding my road bike over
the long haul, as opposed to my utility MTB. I can find my
economy spin easier on the road bike. So I'm not saying "Don't
do it.", just that MTBs and road bikes are two different animals.

I would recommend a real touring bike,the characteristics of
which include a longer wheelbase and slacker angles than a racing
frame.

If you're like me, however, then you'll want to find out for
yourself. You're pretty much right about what you need.

I think you'll find the gearing a little short. Unless you're
willing to convert from a 94 bcd to 110, you're not going to be
able to increase your chainrings much. You could get more gear
inches on the cassette. This may affect your chainlength.

I think I'd try to live with the existing forks but adjust them
for, minimal or no dampening. Hutchenson and Ritchey both make a
nice 26x1.0 slick. Check your rim width to make sure it can
accomodate tires that thin.

See here for more:
http://www.sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html
Look under the heading "Width Considerations".
Go by the ISO number when choosing a tire.

I think I might mess around with the stem and bars to get more
hand positions. This is probably bad news for the existing brake
levers and shifters. I personally like track bars with separate
MTB brake levers and Suntour Commander friction shifters with a
slight positive rise on the stem.

Of course any changes you make should be road tested for safety
and ergomonics. Panic stops in particular come to mind.

HTH
Mike

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garmonboezia said:

I think I'd try to live with the existing forks but adjust them for,
minimal or no dampening.

I've seen Ritchey rigid cromo forks on the web for $50--they seem to be
designed to replace suspension forks and are a little longer because of
that. Surly also makes a rigid mtb fork. Locking out indeed works fine as
well, but a rigid fork knocks a real amount of weight off. I don't obsess
about grams, but if you can whack two pounds off--that's quite a good
value for $50.

Quoted message said:

Hutchenson and Ritchey both make a nice 26x1.0
slick. Check your rim width to make sure it can accomodate tires that
thin.

Good tires both of those. I got a set of the on-sale Performance slick
city tires that are 1.25" in width and am quite impressed. They're
incredibly fast and corner great. Light too (under 400g I think). I don't
know about the long term longevity, but judging from past experience with
Performance stuff--they should hold up well. Under a tenner (usd) each.

maxo <[email hidden]> wrote in
news:[email hidden]:

Quoted message said:

I've seen Ritchey rigid cromo forks on the web for $50--they
seem to be designed to replace suspension forks and are a
little longer because of that. Surly also makes a rigid mtb fork.
Locking out indeed works fine as well, but a rigid fork knocks a
real amount of weight off. I don't obsess about grams, but if you
can whack two pounds off--that's quite a good value for $50.

Rigid forks would be my choice too but I was thinking about least
hassle, least cost, get-on-the-road-soonest stuff. The disk brakes
are definitely not needed, but changing them out means different
rims, new v-brakes,cable routing, ect. Pretty soon we're talking
about stripping down to a bare frame and starting fresh....which I
love to do, but...it's spring, y'all.

Mike

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garmonboezia said:

Rigid forks would be my choice too but I was thinking about least hassle,
least cost, get-on-the-road-soonest stuff. The disk brakes are definitely
not needed, but changing them out means different rims, new v-brakes,cable
routing, ect.

Why get rid of the disk brakes? They're great. 🙂 I wouldn't build a
tourer with them probably, but if they come with the package--then fine by
me. Just get a fork with disc brake mounts. It shouldn't take you
more than an hour to switch it out.

A quick google turns up a few rigid forks w disc tabs:

http://www.spicercycles.com/index.cgi?cat=18&sub_cat=Forks&prod_id=226&cat_desc=Mountain
http://www.spicercycles.com/index.cgi?cat=18&sub_cat=Forks&prod_id=230&cat_desc=Mountain

I thought I saw a rigid ritchey fork for fifty bucks a while back, but it
was probably a figment of my imagination.

It's not just weight that makes a rigid fork nice, it's the utter
simplicity and reliability of it. You can mount a front rack or
real fenders on a rigid fork--things that are great for touring.