How to build a MonsterCross Bike 101

[RobynE 🚵‍♀️]

1 hour ago, The Ouzo said:

that still has timing chips attached to it from the previous owner. Were they that fedup with cycling ?

I dunno - they seem to have been big dudes and maybe got tired of looking at each other’s 🍑! 

My kiddo already told me yesterday that she’s tired of looking at mine 😂 

 

 

 

[Mongoose!]

6 hours ago, karma said:

before it was cool: @Eldron - ‎16 ‎December ‎2012

I built my first monster cross on  the thread Eldron started.  That was before the Hub "crashed". Also a Giant XTC frame (aluminum) and Sora 8 speed STI shifters. Can be 11 to 12 years back. Here in Bloemfontein I was definitely the first guy with drop bars on gravel 🤣

[Dexter-morgan]

7 hours ago, NotSoBigBen said:

This is in fact one of those frames 👌 

How effective are those Cable Disc brakes?

[Wannabe]

35 minutes ago, Dexter-morgan said:

How effective are those Cable Disc brakes?

I have the Tektro "single piston" versions on my bike. It's a faf to set up and dial in properly, but once set up, they are quite effective in stopping me as good, if not better, than the Ultegra rim brakes on my road bike. Done a fair bit of single track riding, and I've never felt that I'm gonna run out of brakes. Not sure they'll be efficient on long and steep downhills though.

[cadenceblur]

1 hour ago, Dexter-morgan said:

How effective are those Cable Disc brakes?

Try and get the tektro hydro brakes. Not cheap but awesome

[NotSoBigBen]

4 hours ago, Dexter-morgan said:

How effective are those Cable Disc brakes?

 

3 hours ago, Wannabe said:

I have the Tektro "single piston" versions on my bike. It's a faf to set up and dial in properly, but once set up, they are quite effective in stopping me as good, if not better, than the Ultegra rim brakes on my road bike. Done a fair bit of single track riding, and I've never felt that I'm gonna run out of brakes. Not sure they'll be efficient on long and steep downhills though.

I have a similar experience to @Wannabe .... I have a road and monstercross bike with Tektro's, a set of Avid BB5's on another monstercross and then some very cheap ones on yet another monstercross 

I have done Suikerbosrand a few times with the road bike with no issues, done Race 2 the sun, Gravel Travel 100 with the MonsterX with the Tektro's also all good

I do however find all of them a bit fiddly and I do adjust them every so often just to keep the feel I like

I find the Avid's have the best feel and stopping but need more attention than the others

Just to mention I do ride them as proper gravel bikes and don't go looking for 'gnarly' single track or rocky sections ... I do come across short sections like that and I just 'ease' through them!

[Mongoose!]

On one of my builds (Caad X)  I had "Pro" hydro to cable calipers. No modulation and did not impress me.

The Avid BB7 I have is fantastic and outperform the above by far. The choice of lever also very important (In my experience even more important than the cable housing choice).

I started using the Avid BB7 first with Sora shifters. A lot of flex. Appears the flex was in the shifters (plastic construction). Changed to Sram Red with a solid carbon construction. Difference was day and night.

I even did one Swartberg Gran Fondo on them. Swartberg pas down.... excellent braking.

 

[Bro Derek]

Juin Tec cable/hydro brake calipers are absolute money.

I'd say better modulation than low end hydro brakes and a whole lot easier to set up.

Reach/pull adjustable too. 

Set up with some Jagwire compressionless housing and they will perform. 

As a closed system they also run forever without needing to be bled etc

I have tried some cheaper ones which are less effective and not at all adjustable, which are not great, but he Juin Tec calipers impressed me.

@RobynE 🚵‍♀️ if that frame is steel, Dave Mercer can braze on some disc brake tabs and bracing which would then mean you could run 650b MTB wheels with pretty chunky tires

 

[NGM]

36 minutes ago, Bro Derek said:

Juin Tec cable/hydro brake calipers are absolute money.

I'd say better modulation than low end hydro brakes and a whole lot easier to set up.

Reach/pull adjustable too. 

Set up with some Jagwire compressionless housing and they will perform. 

As a closed system they also run forever without needing to be bled etc

I have tried some cheaper ones which are less effective and not at all adjustable, which are not great, but he Juin Tec calipers impressed me.

@RobynE 🚵‍♀️ if that frame is steel, Dave Mercer can braze on some disc brake tabs and bracing which would then mean you could run 650b MTB wheels with pretty chunky tires

 

Can confirm. Although I technically use Yokozuna (which I think are the same thing, just rebranded) on my bike. For me, in terms of feel they are 80% as good as true hydraulic brakes, with more adjustability and no bleeding needed. You just need a small chainsaw to cut the compression-less housing.

[Toasted marshmallows]

Yokozuna with shimano pads compressionless housing for the win and shimano rotors for the win better than sram force 1 brakes

[NotSoBigBen]

On 4/29/2025 at 6:20 PM, NotSoBigBen said:

Finally getting down to sorting the Lefty stuff for my gravel bike. 

Thanks to advice from Grumpy I dropped the fork off at a local engineering guru to have the spacer made, provided the dimensions from @Mongoose!, thanks again mate. He says it'll probably be ready tomorrow 😎

Have to build a wheel .... That'll happen over the next few days. Bloody hell Grumpy has some cool cool stuff!

 

Demmit, fricken heck .... after all the excitement of collecting the necessary goodies from the engineer chap and ready to build a wheel and install turns out the hub I managed to get is for a 2.0 fork not my 1.0 😨 (ja ja Grumpy did warn me to check that first)

So now on to finding a 1.0 hub or wheel 😎

 

[Mongoose!]

https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/mountain-bike-hubs/813717/american-classic-hub-cannondale-lefty

[NotSoBigBen]

14 minutes ago, Mongoose! said:

https://bikehub.co.za/classifieds/item/mountain-bike-hubs/813717/american-classic-hub-cannondale-lefty

Thanks for the heads up! Just waiting to hear from a local who might have one ... if he doesn't let me know in the next few hours I'll certainly see if I can get this one PUDO'd to Howteng

[RobynE 🚵‍♀️]

On 6/4/2020 at 5:06 PM, NotSoBigBen said:

@Jewbacca better? The fork has gone to the man to have those V-brake tabs removed and a proper paint job as well as the seatposts... They just bugged me [emoji12] - all satin black.

 

Have decided to leave the cranks as they are, using a flat bar for the stoker

Hey Ben, do you remember what fork this was or what it came from? I am looking for the same type, for our Team RR tandem project.

[NotSoBigBen]

17 hours ago, RobynE 🚵‍♀️ said:

Hey Ben, do you remember what fork this was or what it came from? I am looking for the same type, for our Team RR tandem project.

No sorry, I have absolutely no idea .... It was a 26" fork from some old timer bike. In fact it has been modified (filed) to take a slightly bigger tyre 

I have it on a single speed steel bike now!

[Bub Marley]

Is there any website i can use wrt geometry calculations. I need to fit an inverted stem to my dropbar hardtail as i feel im too high at the moment. So need to know how much to adjust the stem length accordingly if I’m going lower down to make sure I’m not overreaching.