Well that didn't last long. Ressurection: Marin IFT.

[misterfixit]

You don’t necessarily have to write that frame off.. I’ve had cracked ally frames re-welded in the past without any problems. Drop it off with a couple of bottles of beer/cider to your local fabricators and ask them to run a bead of fresh weld along the crack. Chances are they’ll do it in their lunch break for £10-20 and you’ll be away.
Good luck.

You can’t weld over the crack any where where there is going to be tension. You have to cut out the crack and rebuild with weld. It will need careful thermal control so you don’t get odd stresses, then it will need treating after. Old parts made of aircraft series alloys that have been highly stressed have to be treated very carefully. They exhibit stress corrosion cracking. this can originate from any imperfection under stress, and the failure mode is a crack that self propogates.

 

[FluffyChicken]

"Lop off"
I was meaning you have nice shifters there, look for some levers without shifters attached and cut off the shifter hanger part with a saw/dremel/forge hammer/..

The XT levers are near enough the same, different colour. 737/738, harder to cut off the shifter hanger part though from memory. M095 mad the DX should be easier and still have the Servowave part, just a different finish seem rarer than the XTR though.
Or of course any other canti brake.just not the V-brakes you have.

Up to you on the straddle setup, I just like Shimano set wires as they work perfectly and are easy to setup.

 

[Spankyfart]

Ah gotcha, these shifters and will go on my g/f's Koga ATB with V-Brakes.
I'm on the lookout for M900 brifters if the price is right.
Thanks for the insights.

 

[FluffyChicken]

The shifter you have are much better than M900, they're pretty shite in comparison.

 

[Spankyfart]

Well I'm not going to have the M900 brifters anytime soon.
I have my eyes on an ST-M738 set, vgc 35 euro.
Might just get that for the time being until I can figure out if I am happy with the size off the bike. Havn't ridden it alot but it felt small still.

 

[winst0nsmith]

V-brake levers have roughly half the pull of canti levers, they will function but it'll be death-grip riding all the time.
Some levers have 2 positions (usually marked V and C), you may be in luck. Otherwise there is a device to make things right, a rummage around on sheldonbrown.com will point you in the right direction. Also, ensuring your pads are as far from the pivot as possible will maximise your mech advantage.

 

[Tootyred]

What's wrong with lopping the ears of xtr m900 brifters?

 

[Tootyred]

Ps. No functional undamaged levers were hurt in the making of this picture......

 

[Spankyfart]

I'd love to have these mounted on the bike.
Will one sheep and a Sahara tent do?

 

[#GIANT BIKE TART]

There's a guy who posts lots of repair stuff on other forums called Dan Chambers who seems to really know his stuff and is considered to be a bit of a bike fixing guru...... You could try getting in contact with him by putting a wanted request and see if he replies....... gutted for you though about the crack....... sure you can get it repaired fairly reasonably and look good enough when done if it's done correctly and dress the area back correctly and polish it all back up.