It Gravel Jim........89 Marin build

[Tootyred]

We're done and its been out on a test run!

First impressions.....my butt no longer accepts old skool flight saddles! Wow, i haven't ridden any distance on an old early 90s one for a fair time. Wow, hard....

As for the bike. Well, the chain didn't drop off, i didn't run out of low gears and by the time i got to 11/36 on I hill, i was frankly going plenty fast enough with me spinning a bit!

As for the bars, well I've tilted the bars down a touch and moved the levers up and out a touch. Longer term comfort we will have to see.

Im not sure the tyres are helping in some ways. Speedy on the road (although marked as 47c they actually measure 41c) but the lack of volume and consequently higher pressure needed means they are a bit hard on the rough stuff.

I can see the appeal of 42c on a gravel bike for british roads and errrrr wellll errrr gravel, but on a tractor tyre rutted washboard bridalway, they really are not quite enough.

Probably going to pop on my 2.1 mezcals for a try.

 

[Tootyred]

Handy they leave mounting blocks all over the place round our way for those of us on xl frames.

 

[Rotorhead]

It couldn’t fail to look nice with that paint job and the super shiny bits. Have you wrapped the stem? Or is it the light? Could have sworn it was a silver shaft on the last pic. Interesting to hear the ratios are satisfactory. What have you got there - 36x11-32? The lack of chain drop is making me wonder whether I could try again with a retro mech and standard chainring. But I’m not going to!

 

[Tootyred]

11-28 cassette x 36.

Yes, stem was silver...so i just wrapped it in tape!

 

[Takingabreak]

Serious question here. Did you find it better over and above your normal steed ?

 

[Tootyred]

Over the marin team issue off road....no.....but thats mostly the tyres and tiny bit the ride of the stiffer heavier frame. Plus in not up to speed on drops.

Over my hybrid touring thingy off road, yes, better....but then thats 700 x 32c so its big cumbersome and too skinny shod.

On road, bit faster than my trusty marin...but that's tyres.

But then you can't pull things all ways..

But really im interested in the drops...i want to see if i can ride on them with any success for possible future road touring use. Mainly as most decent frames are designed around you having drops, with short top tubes. I know a long stem goes a way to fixing that, but it also creates other issues.

Plus...tbh..its all a bit of harmless fun. Something of a novelty helps get me out more and keeps interest up!

Hopefully it might inspire a few others to pop some old kit together and get out there.

Its certainly fun to ride! Which is the main aim!

 

[Takingabreak]

I hear you with the fun bit. I had to try building a gravel style bike for myself. My conclusions were that I prefer straight bars off road, I didn't find the hoods comfortable when they were angled but I do like modern drop bars with short reach and drop. I still wonder now if an actual real modern 700c gravel bike would be a great thing to ride but I'm not about to splurge a couple of £k to find out.

On a quiet day with the wind gently blowing through the trees, I'm sure I can hear "Sonder Camino... get a Sonder Camino, go on you know you want to......suits you Sir"

 

[Tootyred]

So. Bit of an update. Ive clocked about 500 miles on the bike now with a few local rides and taking it on holiday (along with a merida silex I borrowed for comparison).



Tbh, im not sold on concept gravel bikes or drops.

Why?

1st , im not finding either set of drops comfortable; not bad on road, but any bumpy stuff and the lack of your wrist / drips as a willing shock absorber is quite telling.

As for the pine mountain set up, at home the gearing is fine, but, i ran out of gears in both directions in the peaks. It could be fixed by a larger spread of say 11 gears, but then the jumps would be unacceptably wide for my aging legs. So I can completly see why 2x11/12 is now the go to.....1x being the downhill preserve.

The silex had 11-36 cassette with a 30/46 (28/46 would have been better for me tbh) , and was a nice set up. However, how much you gain over 3x setups is somewhat of a moot point especially given the cheapness of 3x parts now!

Drops aside, im still struggling to see the place for "gravel bike" in my life tbh. Dont get me wrong the Silex is an awesome bits of kit, a great size for me, with big stack and a good reach (borrowed from a 6'7" mate!). The same goes for the Pine Mountain, but in my world of bridleways, farm tracks and old roads, they just doesn't work. As a ruffty tuffty road bike yes...big thumbs up, but as soon as you take it off road on my normal routes the tyres are just too narrow at around 42mm. Yes, there's a whole new batch of gravel with 50mm plus clearance, but then they are too draggy on the road and again...i dont see dropbars being the correct tool at that point either. Yes, im sure you can argue they do a bit of both, but neither well imho. For me i would trade a bit road speed for off road use any day.

Im going to keep the pine mountain as it is, but really for rides to the pub and for the odd forest trail blast, where tyres and bars are both not an issue. I may still stick 2.1 on there from my ,arin, as it made the bike far more civilised off road...bar the bars!

So....an i going to buy a gavel bike after my experiment? Not sure but if i did it would be a something like genesis fugio, with 2.1" - 27.5" wheels, converted to flat riser bars......

Oh hang on, isn't that a 1990s mountain bike.

The world changes, but stays the same....

 

[Takingabreak]

A 90's mountain bike with a trusty triple really is difficult to beat when it comes to a multi purpose do it all bike