Kona 'Short Wife', 90s mtb to gravel !!

[bif]

Just finished building budget gravel bike for my wife from a v.small 90s Kona steel mtb frame.

Probably a bit left field, but she is not very tall, so the 26" wheels are quite well scaled for her, and there is no toe overlap that I figured might be an issue with a v.small framed 700c CX bike. We shall see. All a bit of an experiment really.

Anyone else re-purposed an old mtb in this way?

This is v1 so any tips / ideas appreciated.

 

[bif]

Re:

 

[bif]

Re:

 

[Tad]

Anyone else re-purposed an old mtb in this way?

John Tomac had a go

 

[mk one]

Plenty on here.

Here is an interesting thread - viewtopic.php?f=1&t=94356&hilit=drop+bar+thread

 

[bif]

I can't see her going that fast Tad :|

 

[bif]

Re:

Thanks mk one, some reading for this evening I reckon.

I had looked to see if there were any forum threads before opening the tool box, but failed to find much, probably due to lack of computer skills.....

 

[TheAntsPants]

Nice. You can fettle the feel of the brakes by adjusting the height of the straddle cable.

https://sheldonbrown.com/canti-trad.html

What's keeping the chain from falling off? Narrow wide chainring?

 

[bif]

Re:

Thanks Antspants. That info will be useful as anticipating a bit of fiddling with brakes. I've not used cantis with drop bar brakes before. Seems to stop at the moment, more by accident than design.

It is a narrow wide chain ring. If it proves an issue then might look to fit some sort of chain guide. Will suck it and see.

 

[greencat]

Looks well proportioned that. Nice job.