Let's offroad / mountain bike / mtb / ride dirt

Looks great, you've done well there. That Dr Dew with rigid fork and disc brakes would've been good too!

Throw away two rings + front derailleur and get eBay narrow-wide ring? You could also get a modern wide range cassette and bodge it in with a £1 eBay Roadlink

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/forks/48-26-thorn-531-raven-tour-twin-plate-steel-fork-black/

al la

Thanks!

Yup, but I know that the price for the Kona would have been higher, and it needed disc pads, cassette, wheels trued, recabling. Kinda fancied a “mountain bike” rather than the hybrid-cx option for now. Ideally a pure CX would replace the kickabout road bike in time.

As for the Marin, that plan definitely is on the books. First gotta decide which ring, cassette, etc. 1x would be ideal if the ratios suit my knees. Gonna ride it over local trails and stuff, and see where the chain spends most of its time.

That looks waaaay too functional.

I had great fun on the way home bouncing over the potholes too. Front sus is so weird after years of road.

Unrelated, is 710mm -> 760mm bars a worthwhile upgrade (new bars are £10)? I feel like mine are a little narrow but I think that's more to do with lever position than anything else. With my tape measure it doesn't look like it's a big difference.

You'll be able to tell the difference for sure. Worth a punt.

Cracking. That's all the encouragement I needed, thanks

Looks like a fun project, if you're gonna use it on trails i'd suggest wide bar/short stem combo with ESI grips and the best flat pedals you can afford (stuff you can fit to your next newer MTB once you get hooked).

That and the biggest tyres you can fit but it sounds like you have that sorted.

Thanks. Yea it’s a bit small for me so I’m loathe to reduce the stem length, it was more or less comfortable without being cramped, but I could do with the seat being a bit higher to really get full extension seated.

Definitely gonna need some upgrades. I think I have a set of commuter-esque spd’s I can use, and the old pair of shoes to swap out the spd-sl. May do that to really hone the position when out and about.

Might leave flats on it for now until I know what it feels like to fall off an mtb. It’s been over a decade since I last owned one.

This frame is still for sale btw

They're virtually the same forks that I've got on my Marin team ti up the page a bit... thorn Mt Turo (sp).

I log in for this

Might be selling my super cool alpkit bikepack-ey bars and matching alpkit bar bag soon, as soon as i order the same handlebars without the loop, as there is literally zero bikepacking time in my near future sadly..

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Dat knee tho

Cheers fella.

Dibs pls

Didn't want to flood the thread with pictures, but here's some from Tasmania if it works?

https://imgur.com/a/Lx9FrZ0

More fun at Penshurst today. Definitely recommend this place.

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Way fun cutting over grass, over knolls, along rubble. Minus points for raynauds in the sunshine, though.

Oh also seems to be a full more or less matching Deore XT 3x8 speed groupset, down to the nicer looking brakes and pads.

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^ weird

Sweaty hands instead today, put on the motorcycle gloves. Way more comfortable.

Hit a couple of the undulating gravel trails in the forest/park round the corner from home. Oh man, SO much fun. Gonna have a look at the trails through the bigger park round the corner the other way.

Is this stuff addictive?

https://www.superstarcomponents.com/en/electro-supra35-wheelset.htm

Are these gonna be fine to begin with?
There’s a code to get them considerably cheaper too

Yep - those are pretty wide though. Might be better suited to plus tyres.

I’ve got the tyres already, 2.25” Ardents. They gonna be too wide for those rubbers?
The price is mighty attractive. The code gets them down to £135!

Does it say if they're 35mm internal or external? I've used 2.25"Ardents on 30mm internal with no bother, but 35 might be pushing it.