Vintage Mountain Bike Drop Bar Conversion

A bad idea converting an old mountain bike into a modern touring bike.

Vintage mountain bike drop bar conversion. Most old mountain bike frames include braze ons this allows you to easily mount racks and panniers as well as fenders. I understand the appeal of a drop bar i have a cx bike for road gravel use but a narrow ish flat bar with some comfy bar ends and togs might do the same thing. Michigan based bearclaw bicycle co claims its beaux jaxon is the first drop bar bicycle in the history of drop bar bikes to accept 27 5 x 3 0 and 29 x 2 6 tires while maintaining true all road geometry they don t think of it as a mountain bike with drop bars. Y know i think i have seen that but didn t think to try it here.

This size was also used for older british steel drop bars. They are durable these old mountain bikes are built to take a beating. Mountain bikes don t have downtube shifter bosses so you can t use downtube shifters. Submitted by mike on wed 09 03 2008 05.

A little tape to wrap the bars no problem. But i stiil feel like the bigger problem is the stem s clamp in terms of lateral size not so much the diameter. Mainly bmx older mountain bike bars. I think i ll give it a go today.

The frames and wheels are particularly strong. Size used on the vast majority of newer bicycles with upright. Instead it s an all road bike with mountain bike tires. An alt bar from jones or surly could be nice as well.

So as you can see the main change is to replace the mountain handle bars with drop bars and the shifters with modern lever shifters the brake lever also shifts gears. 25 4 mm 1 22 2 mm 7 8 standard i s o. 23 8 mm 15 16 22 2 mm 7 8 obsolete british size for steel handlebars common on older 3 speeds. Vintage mountain bike frames are surprisingly similar to modern day touring frames.

Could be worth a try. There are several forums for vintage mountain bikes with drop bar conversions. There are modern mountain bikes designed around drop bars salsa s fargo is one example. Classic vintage show your vintage mtb drop bar conversions originally posted by frantik because they are the easiest period correct shifter to mount to a drop bar.

As previously discussed the reach of the bike is key vintage mountain bikes had much less reach. May 2 2017 classic vintage show your vintage mtb drop bar conversions scott. In the early 90 s the mtb bikes started getting more reach.