1992 Roberts White Spider dirt drop build (Finished - Page 3)

[Tsundere]

Now most of the parts are either in or on the way it's time to get a thread going.



This is a build I've wanted to do for a long time, or at least it's the coming together of several ideas that will culminate in a bike that'll tick multiple boxes at once.
Fillet brazed British steel
Black and white Roberts
Dirt drop handlebars

Very excited about this one, plenty still to do and there are some decisions I am struggling with, but I hope to get this bike at least riding by the end of next week, even if it's not quite in its final form.

Right now it's going to have a 2x7 speed drivetrain with a DX/XT based group, however I aim to upgrade it to a 2x8 speed XT/XTR build before the summer and some of the bits for that uograde are already here, it's only the wheelset that I'm waiting on.
The bars are WTB's, the crankset is Middleburn and the other bits are a mix of Mavic, Campagnolo, Suntour and Wolber.

 

[narcotitlan]

Bloody hell that's nice, making me feel a little gutted about selling my Salsa dirt drop stem!

 

[Prodigal Son]

Raise that stem. Significantly. By one or more inches if it´s going to b a trail bike. hth. ymmv. etc. etc. etc.

 

[mk one]

Nice, might motivate me to do something with mine.

Looking forward to seeing more

 

[retrobikeguy]

Looking good, liking the white and black, always works so well on a Roberts doesnt it.

I've toyed with trying the dirt drop thing but having had road and touring bikes the hand position is always very uncomfortable for me.... looks cool though.

RBG

 

[doctor-bond]

Some v. tasty ingredients coming together here! I’ve found stuff like stem height, reach to brakes, shifter position can take quite a bit of fanangling so getting it rideable and testing before doing all the finishing touches is a good plan.

 

[Tsundere]

Some v. tasty ingredients coming together here! I’ve found stuff like stem height, reach to brakes, shifter position can take quite a bit of fanangling so getting it rideable and testing before doing all the finishing touches is a good plan.

Yeah, I deliberately played around with some of these elements on my last project and used it as a kind of educational exercise, so I have fresh memories (trauma) of how tricky it is to get everything just right, but as a result of that experience I'm much better prepared this time.

The only complete unknown will be setting up the shifters on the DKG mounts, I used barcons last time and I have no idea how they are going to work, but that's all part of the fun right? The battle to get it set up just right.

 

[Tsundere]

Hit the first of probably several brick walls.

I bought some suntour thumbies in order to use the towers to mount XT shifters on the DKG's, I already have some custom made band clamps on the way from a kind Spanish RBer, however today I discovered that the holes in the DKG's through which the screws need to attach to the tower clamps are too small, or the tower clamp nut holes are too large, either way I can't use any of it.

It looks like I bought the wrong kind of suntour shifters with the wrong kind of towers, so if someone could tell me which exact model of shifters I need to get that would be great, the towers are fine, it's the damn nut that fixes the clamp to the tower that is the problem.

It's not the end of the world, I'll still get the bike riding by next weekend even if I have to use barcons or the suntours with their new drop bar compatible band clamps, however before I take the bike up a notch to full XTR I'll need the right tower nuts.

 

[manuelschafer]

Hi and heads up for the nice build idea!

The Dkg are made for the first two Generations of XT Trigger shifters,

If you really want to use the Xt-ThumbShifters keep searching for wtb multimount perches.
Otherwise Multimounts can be also made to work with early generation Suntour shifters.. but there is a baseplate modification needed unless you use the LD-2800.

WTBs even earlier sausage links (adapter plates) for suntour towers in use with their friction shifters can be easily reproduced.

More info here:
https://fotos.mtb-news.de/s/92009

 

[retrobikeguy]

I have some suntour command shifters?