Gravel & Monster Cross Custom Bike Shootout!

[NotSoBigBen]

9 hours ago, Toasted marshmallows said:

You would be cutting travel going from a 26er to 29er lower. If it's 100 mm you would look at a 55-65mm travel. Did a swop on an old 26 sid to 27.5 lower and was down from 80mm to 60mm

Even upgrade the steerer with a NA tuned alu one to cut weight.... 

Suspension for the win on a gravel setup...

Interesting ... I'll measure and report back!

My 'eye' however doesn't seem to see that ... Difficult for me to explain but on the 26" fork the bottom bolts are visible whereas it would appear the bolts would be quite recessed on that 29" SID lower

If that makes sense?

Just makes this whole exercise more interesting, hoping to do a bit of work on it Monday

[Mongoose!]

Might change the oval  48 nw front ring at later stage to something smaller 🤔 

Edited November 25, 2023 by Mongoose!

[guidodg]

[Mountain Goat]

[NotSoBigBen]

On 11/25/2023 at 9:20 AM, DJuice said:

Of no help with the techical details, looking forward to the custom spray job!!!

PS some Klein retro style

According to my wife and grandsons that colour is too 'cool' to have any 'writing' on  .... and then the style guru my 4yr old granddaughter 'hang it on the wall grandad'

Off to Grumpy @GrahamW ASAP cause I need lots of stuff 

Frame

- those goodies they put in the frame with bottle cage bolts

- derailleur hanger

- brake calipers

Fork

Decide on the way forward to reduce the travel, apparently I'm told by that other tech guru @Pikey that 60mm of travel is still too much and that I should aim for 40 'just to take the edge off'

[NotSoBigBen]

Out of interest .... when I swopped those lowers, pretty easy to do, the travel increased by about 20mm 🤔

Busy 3D printing the travel spacers  .... Will see what happens when they are in place.

[NotSoBigBen]

Getting there .... loads still to do and I'm missing some mechanical brake calipers.

Fitted the rear 27.5x2.80 no problem, got a 29x2.35 in the front

Will focus on reducing the fork travel next ....

[Nix Walker]

I built my monster gravel in May. And I love it!

I had an old Scott Scale that I used for commuting. With a little help from a friend, I converted her and don’t regret it for a second!

SRAM GX MTB setup at the back with a conversion kit for the 11spd sram force shitfers. The fork is a rigid MTB fork, so has the clearance if I do want to put bigger tyres on. My American Classic wife Lightning’s fitted the gravel tyres.

I broke the hanger a month ago, which caused the derailleur to break the frame. So all fixed and resprayed making her proper one of a kind!

 

 

[NotSoBigBen]

That's as good as the 'stance' will get with that Frankenfork .... even then I'm not happy with it, the travel it has is only about half of what you see there then it gets to the bump stop

Next up I have a similar Fox option to test ... 26" stantions etc and 29" lowers

Man I love tinkering 😎

[RobynE]

Wouldn’t say mine is a monster, but it’s very capable, super comfy and I love riding it.
 

It’s a hybrid from Decathlon - Riverside RS700 bought in July 2022. Pretty light for what it is, good quality frame with a lifetime warranty, upgraded circa 2013 (I think) Fox F100 fork (stock is Suntour coil), Pirelli Cinturato Gravel M 40mm tyres, Tektro Draco hydraulic brakes off another bike. Thudbuster seatpost to offset those narrow tyres. The stock rear hub died so it has a Novatec rear hub. Selle Italia Novus Boost saddle. Apart from tyres and rear hub all upgrades have been second hand. 
 

When I bought it I hadn’t yet had my back surgery (disc replacements x 2) so I went for something upright and easy to ride, and it really is. 
 

Done Cradle Mountain Trophy and Lion Man on it and about 2000kms since I got it. 
 

I have an MTB now so it doesn’t do trails anymore but it’s the bike that goes on holiday, commutes, and will do Race To The Sun in 2024. It’s surprisingly fast. It wouldn’t have managed Magalies Monster though, so I’m glad I have my Giant MTB as well. 
 

Pictured in Kruger this weekend, at Skukuza, watching some hippos and crocs in the Sabie River. No punctures at all even though the camp is absolutely full to the brim with every conceivable type of thorn 💪 And it’s happy to jump kerbs and take a fair bit of abuse 😂 

[RobynE]

Before the green Draco bikes were fitted. 

[Hennie 15]

 Vintage Steel Hansom Gravel bike.  Fitted with 9 speed Sti shifters 38t narrow wide in front, and 11/42 microshift cassette at the back.  Fitted with 35c tyres.

[100Tours]

My 'bike of mixed parents' is this one. It's a Ragley 26" Titanium trail hardtail with 700c wheels, gravel fork and an Ultegra 11s drivetrain. 

Making the 700c wheels fit was the least of the challenges - I have a 45mm gravel tyre in front and a 2.0" 29er on the back (more volume to take extra weight).

Wheels are a new age thru axle up front with a flat mount Shimano caliper. The rear runs an old school 135mm QR axle with a Magura brake caliper on an IS mount. I had to carefully cut down the 142mm axle to fit the 135mm dropouts, but this now runs just fine.

The resultant chainline was a mess. I've eventually settled on a 119mm square-taper BB to push the crankset out a bit, and I drilled in a pair of rivnuts to mount the FD (plus a spacer to move the FD out ontot he new chainline). The drilling also fixed an issue where the band clamp FD's were interfering with the rear tyre. I used a brass pulley to reverse the FD cable from top pull to bottom pull (at the base of the seat tube).

And I put a few more holes in the frame for extra bottle cages. 

[betaboy]

7 hours ago, Hennie 15 said:

 Vintage Steel Hansom Gravel bike.  Fitted with 9 speed Sti shifters 38t narrow wide in front, and 11/42 microshift cassette at the back.  Fitted with 35c tyres.

Well Done, another steel roller repurposed! Reminds me of your blue one…

[TyronLab]

On 12/14/2023 at 9:01 AM, Hennie 15 said:

 Vintage Steel Hansom Gravel bike.  Fitted with 9 speed Sti shifters 38t narrow wide in front, and 11/42 microshift cassette at the back.  Fitted with 35c tyres.

Out of interest, what does this weigh in this configuration? Vintage bike conversions seem like a hoot.

[NotSoBigBen]

The rat/mullet bike all done and dusted, test ride this morning .... that fork has about 45mm of usable travel.  Enough to make for a comfortable ride on the general gravel routes I ride, not sure how much of that is the 'phat' tyres and how much the fork or a combination. Crap on tar though