So, would you believe I got this from our local dump for the princely sum of £2.50? It's all there apart from the wheels and seat/seatpost. No biggie on the latter, have tons of those lying around, and a few 700c wheels I can throw on it. Component wise it's not bad, shimano throughout, tiagra derailleur, it's a triple which is kind of meh I guess but point is, it's not crap, component wise..
So all it needs is a damn good clean, plus a quick shop online for new cables and a cassette and a seat and off we go.. ok maybe a new BB and headset.
Unless..
I'm not really an MTB'er, I'm more of a roadie, and I'm really not a fan of flat bars. I want drops. I like drops. I'm used to drops. I enjoy drops. I do have a full 8 speed claris groupset all boxed up hidden away somewhere, it's not the best but.. I could throw some drop bars on the ridgeback and convert it to one of those knobbly tyred gravel-bike-themed mashups that seem popular at the moment? There's a lot of trails and roads around where I live that I don't want to take my carbon road bike down for obvious reasons, I've been eyeing up gravel bikes but with their cost the juice ain't worth the squeeze so a MTB to gravel bike conversion *does* appeal but.. maybe I should just do it with something less nice. Seems a shame to strip all the original components off this.
So all it needs is a damn good clean, plus a quick shop online for new cables and a cassette and a seat and off we go.. ok maybe a new BB and headset.
Unless..
I'm not really an MTB'er, I'm more of a roadie, and I'm really not a fan of flat bars. I want drops. I like drops. I'm used to drops. I enjoy drops. I do have a full 8 speed claris groupset all boxed up hidden away somewhere, it's not the best but.. I could throw some drop bars on the ridgeback and convert it to one of those knobbly tyred gravel-bike-themed mashups that seem popular at the moment? There's a lot of trails and roads around where I live that I don't want to take my carbon road bike down for obvious reasons, I've been eyeing up gravel bikes but with their cost the juice ain't worth the squeeze so a MTB to gravel bike conversion *does* appeal but.. maybe I should just do it with something less nice. Seems a shame to strip all the original components off this.
