frankenbike's frankenbikes

Edit - obviously there is in terms of the cable pull. And the interrupter levers are different again. Don't know why I was confused about that. I'll just stick with SS levers.

Is there a difference between cyclocross/touring levers for the tops and MTB levers? It's hard to tell the difference between the two on eBay. But MTB levers are super cheap and if they're interchangeable I don't mind braking from the tops.

What cassette have you got?
What x7 have you got?
X7 shifters are usually 9 speed, won't have a clutch. You need x7 ten speed.
Or some kinda shimano shadow mech.
I've made this mistake.
A ten speed mech will work with any shifter or cassette. Just remember where your limit is, ie dont over shift on the shifter. Nowt'll happen, youll hear it when you go too far but it shouldn't break off or owt daft

If youre going drops I kind think bar shifters or DT might be easier to use that bar ends.

Those Tektros are essential if you want hoods and V/Canti. MTB and road brakes are diff. At least search 'v-brake road levers'.

For the wheel, Id gumtree a bike locally for like £20. Cheaper than the cost of a wheel. Sell everything but said wheel and get a DMR SS kit from that money
32/16 or around that will do you for most occassions.
26 inch wheels are becoming obsolete on new bikes.

I have a sram x?(5 or 7, its low end) shifter. It is 9 speed and 1:1 actuation £6 posted.

tl,dr:
Buy a donor bike, keep the cassette as an option. Take what you need, sell the remaining parts SEPERATE.

Run it, flat bars. Single speed, whatever MTB brakes are available. Fattest tyres you can get in.

You can get this bike on the road 'free'

Good luck with your stem, it'll come out.

What cassette have you got?
What x7 have you got?
X7 shifters are usually 9 speed, won't have a clutch. You need x7 ten speed.
Or some kinda shimano shadow mech.
I've made this mistake.
A ten speed mech will work with any shifter or cassette. Just remember where your limit is, ie dont over shift on the shifter. Nowt'll happen, youll hear it when you go too far but it shouldn't break off or owt daft

I have two 8-speed road cassettes, an 11-28 and a 12-25.

Derailleurs that I have are a 10-speed X7 (not 9-speed as previously assumed) missing jockey wheels, a 10-speed Rival which I think takes up to 28t, and an 8-speed Microshift derailleur that is currently running with the 11-28 cassette.

The only shifters that I have are the 8-speed brifter Microshift ones.

If youre going drops I kind think bar shifters or DT might be easier to use that bar ends.

Lots of people run bar-end shifters on touring bikes so I reckon I could work with it. I'll only need the rear one obviously. The Shimano shifters (e.g. Dura-Ace/Ultegra 9-speed) can be run as downtube shifters if I get a clamp so they look like a good option.

Those Tektros are essential if you want hoods and V/Canti. MTB and road brakes are diff. At least search 'v-brake road levers'.

I thought cantis worked fine with road brakes?

For the wheel, Id gumtree a bike locally for like £20. Cheaper than the cost of a wheel. Sell everything but said wheel and get a DMR SS kit from that money
32/16 or around that will do you for most occassions.
26 inch wheels are becoming obsolete on new bikes.

Yeah, I'm finding that to be the case. New rim-brake 26" wheels seem to be £100 which is a lot more than I thought. Will have to find a reasonable old MTB and cannibalise it as you say. Might stick with 1x for now and switch to SS later.

I have a sram x?(5 or 7, its low end) shifter. It is 9 speed and 1:1 actuation £6 posted.

All my spare SRAM derailleurs are Exact Actuation unfortunately, so I don't think it'll work. Pretty sure I can find something for a similar price though?

tl,dr:
Buy a donor bike, keep the cassette as an option. Take what you need, sell the remaining parts SEPERATE.
Run it, flat bars. Single speed, whatever MTB brakes are available. Fattest tyres you can get in.

The brakes I've been given are brand new Tektro CR510 cantis - should be perfectly fine I think.

You can get this bike on the road 'free'
Good luck with your stem, it'll come out.

Thanks for all the advice :)

afaik Microshift will only work with shimano.

Friction shifters DT will work with anything. Is really quick to learn where your gears are without indexing. If thats useful info lol.

Cantis can be bodged with 3rd party pulleys and shit, theres newer hydro disc stuff and TRP and other solutions but not worth it for a beater. Cantis are really MTB not road, that includes tourers with chunky tyres imo. Its what they were designed for anyway. The brakes you have are totally fine.

You can get a cheaper wheel on eBay, BUT it will come with a screw on freewheel which could give you chainline issues and more expense. Get one with a cassette and freehub and use spacers if you run it SS. https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2060353.m570.l1313.TR11.TRC1.A0.H0.X26%22+wheel+.TRS0&_nkw=26%22+wheel+&_sacat=0

Exact is 1:1, its SRAMS 'niche' if you will.

You may not even need a clutch, unless you're off roading or popping kerbs I wouldn't worry about chain slap.

What is definitely going on the bike? Gonna be a fun lil run about.

Edit; whack spelling. Still got a broken 'k' key.

Quick shit pic, most expensive part was the cranks with BB and cups (£75) a few things have changed since I first did it but after all calculations I'm only about £30 out of pocket and used 3 bikes.
Shameless boast maybe but hopefully helpful.

1 Attachment

Yeah the Microshift stuff is interchangeable with Shimano. So in theory I could run it with a 9-speed Shimano shifter and cassette, since the 7/8/9-speed Shimano derailleurs all have the same pull ratio.

With friction shifters - that's what I thought, but it's actually not the case. The derailleur shift ratio on SRAM 10-speed stuff is so low that you really need a lot of cable pull for it to work. A 9-speed Shimano friction shifter only pulls about 25mm of cable. A 10-speed SRAM shifter pulls >30mm of cable. So it would only shift through about 8 gears on the cassette. It might be possible to bodge something but I'm not sure it's worth it when the shifters are as cheap as they are.

According to this Exact is different from 1:1. Confusing that they're all named so similarly. I've visited that page a lot over the past few weeks...

What is definitely going on the bike? So far...

• an Octalink BB and some Shimano Claris triple cranks to which I'll fit one chainring (either a 39, 42 or 50). I picked up the 42t chainring today - it's for single-speed, not 1x, so it's not narrow-wide or anything. Might not work for 1x after all.
  
• the free Tektro CR510s which I also collected today - basically brand new, no reason not to chuck them on
  
• a new stem for sure, and most likely drop bars.
  
  

Aside from that anything that works.

Nice! Would be a whole lot easier if this thing could take discs I reckon...

It was running just a V on the front (better) but I wanted to be able to skid and gotta stay legal lol.
I hant rode out of the woods this summer.
Hate setting up discs, DBAD man ;)

Yes, I missed that about yer DTs. Sram only works with sram no matter if indexed or friction.

Fucking sram lol, now I don't know what to believe!
https://www.sram.com/sram/road/technologies/exact-actuation
I've probs got it wrong still.

That chainring will work with 1x, the clutched mech is so you might not need a narrow wide in my experience.

Cool, with those brakes and drops (Im guessing you wanna ride on hoods) get those tektro levers and you're laughing.

Once you know how many gears you need and if youre going for shim or sram (shim will be cheaper and more accessible) you'll be blendin.

Is it 'as cheap as poss' or 'as good for as little as poss'?

I think all the road shit is too much info really, yer building an mtb with drop bars so all you really need is them Tektro levers and a stem and an SP. The rest you have and can get to work.

Cantis and road brakes have the same cable pull, Vs differ.

kinda, deffo with the right lever tho.
Will work better (powaaaah), easier to set up etc etc, obvs can't speak for everyone tho.

You are right tho, DO NOT USE V LEVERS FOR CANTIS.

sos

Still not sure really. Probably "as cheap as possible" for now but would like to keep my options open for upgrading. Definitely will keep the 10speed SRAM bits as they're good for my road bike too. Having some redundancy in parts between the two would be great since I could sacrifice this bike for the greater good if necessary.

Microshift for now, 10speed SRAM one day seems to be the best plan.

shweeet, sounds like a solid plan.

Side note: a lot of the parts I'm putting on are on my road bike at the moment. I'm putting together a SRAM 10-speed MTB/road hybrid groupset for "touring" purposes. It'll be 50/34 and 11-36 on the back which should be perfect for big hills with camping gear.

However, I've got my first 100-mile ride (the Velo Birmingham sportive) on Sunday and didn't want to fit a bunch of second-hand components a few days beforehand...

Building will begin in earnest next week! Hopefully I can get the stem removed tonight and then I'll be set for the groupset stuff.

Also - what's the cheapest chain-catcher out there that'll do the job?

Your old front derailleur.

Aside from that? I think I'm going to sell the derailleur on.

None.
Ride a giant defy on 23mm wheels in the woods all the time. Roots and rocks. Chain has never come off

Still haven't removed this sodding stem. Going to go at it with boiling water and a hammer in a bit.

1 Attachment

Didn't move in the slightest. Back to the hacksaw blade then.

I think I've bent the stupid thing now. Tube doesn't look round any more. Believe it or not, the bastard still won't come out. It's steel on steel as well which makes no sense to me.

Tempted to just buy a new fork.

1 Attachment

Can you not get at it from below and hammer it out with some kind of makeshift drift?

.

I've tried that. The wedge part from the bottom of the quill is still in there and I've been smashing the bolt through from the bottom to try and dislodge it. Won't move.

I guess I could take that bolt out and try to find a more appropriate thing to whack though. Annoyingly the hole at the bottom is narrower than the top so it won't be a perfect fit.

Lidl have sledgehammers in at the moment...

Annoyingly the hole at the bottom is narrower than the top so it won't be a perfect fit.

You could make and use one of these: https://youtu.be/VkY879pMafE

and soak it in wd40 for a few days before you're tryig to hammer it out.

Good idea, I'll investigate.

Side note, I'm doing all this in a small flat with no shed/garden/etc. which makes power tools, vices, etc. and the like impractical.