Varun's Bikes, Stayer, Cotic, that singlespeed Rockhopper....

I bought this Cascade frame to replace my old hardtail; I just wasn’t using a ‘serious’ MTB enough (especially not in the muddy fields of Warwickshire). Now, I tried it in a ‘standard’ drop bar rigid build on my tame AF local bridleways and trails and it was fine, but on some serious rocky off-road (Dales Divide - the Pennine Bridleway in peak winter mode) it was incredibly hard on my hands and shoulders. Now I’m contemplating keeping it in drop bar rigid more for 80% of my regular riding but having flat bars with foam grips and my sus fork from the hardtail for serious off-road adventures. I’ve tried it with the drops and sus fork and tbh, I don’t hate it but there’s a reason why flat bars are standard on hard tails IMO.

I’ve been looking at ways to do this quickly (like a 20-minute swap-out) and wanted to see what people have in mind! Here’s where I’ve got to so far:

• Gearing: probably easiest as I would just take the GRX mech off with the drop bars, and replace with a deore mech and shifters on the flat bars. The 11-46 cassette I have will work for both! Fully external cabling with full outers is my friend here.
  
• Brakes: I’ve currently got GRX hydro levers on MTB callipers, so I was thinking of adding an inline coupling to each brake hose and simply unscrewing and attaching the flat and drop bar hoses as needed. Any suggestions on how to do this without losing fluid are welcome!
  
• Dropper - probably most annoying as it’s currently cabled to my left shifter. This means I’d have to recable every time, a pain as the ST is quite tall too. Anyone have any experience with couplings for gear cables?
  
  

I think that’s it, apart from needing to change the saddle angle slightly every time as the rigid fork is only sus corrected to 100mm, whereas my sus fork is 130mm.

Thoughts on my totally unnecessary and painstaking attempts to make one aspect of my life easier are welcome.

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Have you thought about buying another bike? The geometry looks all kinds of insane with that fork - assume it’s a lot longer?

If the riding isn’t that wild, ditch the dropper, or get a bar mounted lever that hinges or one with a seat lever?

That looks ridiculous with the bouncy forks (no offence).
Why don't you get a 100mm travel fork instead? It will be enough travel for the kind of riding that you do and you can stop swapping and just leave it in place.
Changing from flat bars to drop bars every time sounds like a pita

https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/handlebars/origin8-propulsion-road-ends-drop-bar-bar-ends-black/
;)

The change from flat to drop bars isn’t ideal, true. At most I’d probably run the drops with the sus fork! Tbh in terms of travel, I’m being cheap as it’s the fork I had to hand and the person selling the frame did have a 100mm SID, but it was like £250 more 🥵

Aye, yeah, it’s 130 vs the 100 mm that this rigid fork is sus corrected to. In reality though the stack works out to be around 45mm more, because the sus fork has a longer offset I think.
I might put the sus fork back on but tbh it felt totally overkill on my local trails and for the Dales Divide, I wanted space to carry extra water, hence the rigid fork.

This is the second bike already, no space for more - I think I might play with tire pressures a bit before I start thinking about front suspension

None taken, btw, you’re right in that it’s totally not designed to have that much suspension travel

Okay, this makes me feel a bit better about my bar choices 😂

I don't know which model Rockshox fork this is but with some models you can change the travel relatively easy by changing the air shaft

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Interesting, thanks, this is the only definitive solution I’ve seen to the change-travel question. I’ll keep it in mind as a maybe.
Looking around it seems that this is available for my Rockshox model (Judy Silver TK) too.

It looks at least vaguely MTBish with flat bars and the sus fork tbh!

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Even if the stack is only 45 mm more you seatpost angle is super laid back which will be weird to ride unless you move your saddle waaay forward.

Admittedly, I’m not as sensitive to changes in geometry like that but yes it’s a visible difference for sure

Judy Silver TK

Seems like thats even easier to change the travel, just by adding some spacers

Aye, that changes the travel but not the A-C of the fork as I understand it. So the bike geometry would stay the same, but the fork might be a touch less ‘floppy’ under load.

Nope, 30mm less travel = 30mm less a-c.
There are a lot of videos about this mod on YouTube

Heard - I’ll give it a look, thank you for educating!

I think you could do with visiting a few respectable shops that aren't out to aggressively sell you something. Just to see what's out there in complete packages. You have so many different ideas going on just within the three photos you've showed us.

Thanks for the advice - politely declining, as it’s not a case that I don’t know what’s out there. For me bike ownership and building is as much about the process as the result! (See the last line of my original comment with your tongue firmly in cheek 😊) I only landed on the Cotic because it suited my very specific needs ☺️

Out of curiosity what is your other bike?

I’ll do another post about it sometime 👀 it’s a Stayer Groadinger UG, ostensibly a ‘gravel’ bike but the stack and geometry don’t work for me off-road. It’s built as a 650B randonneur and it’s the bike I tour, commute and travel with the most 😊 no car (out of choice) so it gets out a bit!

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Nice to see you on here V! A travel change for the sus fork seems like a cheap and easy way to keep the geometry closer to spec and I guess it's probably not too much heavier than the steel rigid fork? Love the silver rims on it and I'll always enjoy a Cotic.

Okay then I misunderstood. The oddities of the first bike's build had me thinking you were a novice

Apologies no offense meant and agree that kicking parts around is fun.

I’m possibly more confused. Why not go with a rigid mountain bike that will clear a bigger tyre to save your hands or something like the Holt with a 110 fork? One drop bike; one flat. Less faff?

Hiya mate, it’s been a while! Good to see you on here as ever. I need to bring the cotic up to long Mynd and throw it downhill sometime, probably once I’ve sorted the build out though!

I think Cotic spec a SID sus fork, which is supposedly like scary light and lighter than the steelie, but the steel fork actually undercuts the Judy fork I had by quite some margin 😅