Sunn Tonic Dirt Monster

[Private_Repress]

Second retro bike to add to the list, this one is intended for some of the more off road routes I’ll be riding over the winter months. I particularly wanted a ride capable of wet muddy climes at pace.

Loving riding rigid bikes at the moment, but the high volume Michelin’s on this offer a nice compromise between power delivery, ride comfort and of course grip.

I thought the 110mm hope stem may have been too much reach but it actually feels quite comfortable paired with a basic riser bar (which I’ll be changing for a set of BLB smoke risers at some point).

It will also be 1x, once I get the middleburns sorted for the Alpinestars (from which I’ll take the crankset) along with some more substantial platform pedals.

These pics were taken before I made some final tweaks (cutting cables down etc). I do love the look of this bike though! A nice, underrated alternative to Kona in my humble opinion - I’m a sucker for shiny silver!

 

[mk one]

Looks fun

 

[Private_Repress]

Looks fun

It certainly feels like it will be, not ridden it in anger yet but looking forward to it - I’ll report back

 

[Nimrod]

Nice!

 

[Private_Repress]

Parts swap update: mud with high volume tyres and v brakes is a nightmare. So this is now the gravel path / street ripper.

- Wheels: Mavic rims on hope to glides and some billy bonker shoes
- brakes: avid arch rivals front and rear
- Bars: some tioga ones from the parts bin
- Stem: BLB (80mm)
- burgtec grips




I’m in the process of freeing up bits from other builds, so this will I think become a 1x set up. Pedals will be changed asap, these are simply horrible. I may also run some 70mm rise bars.

 

[Private_Repress]

More progress:



So I made use of a 9spd set up that came on my Cannondale f700. XT rear mech and deore shifter up front. Got rid of the front mech in place of wide range 1x9 set up. Cheap cassette and chainring.

Originally I had a set of these SRAM cranks with lots of shoe rub, so decided I was going to strip them back to silver completely with caustic soda. Long story short, I left them in too long and the cranks were a right off. A bit annoying when if purchased a new nuke proof GX bb. Thankfully I found a replacement second hand set for a good price locally. They can stay black

I really like a higher front end and was curious about trying some MX style bars on a bmx stem. So with a blank stem and some fairdale bars this is the result. It rides really nicely, but I can’t help but not like the look of it.

So I've given the old Titech Bars a fresh lick of black paint, followed by a few coats of gloss lacquer so they match the old blb stem better (as opposed to having them matt black). I’ll refit them and see how it feels.

Just waiting on the clear coat to cure before given them a bit of a polish

 

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Black bar and stem refitted:

Not sure which I prefer!

 

[jonthefish]

I kind of like the MX bars, but not the stem. Could you shim the bars and use a MTB stem?

 

[Private_Repress]

I kind of like the MX bars, but not the stem. Could you shim the bars and use a MTB stem?

Yes that’s what I was thinking, maybe the black stem in other pictures with a shim. The bmx stem is to chunky for the bike