As much as I would like a dedicated road bike the reality is I have all of the “bits” bar a frame to build a road/tourer from 29er bits i.e. DT470 based wheels, Cromoto fork, BB7s, Midge bars etc.

I appreciate that from the off this would be a compromise but could/should it work?

If so any suggestions as to what frames to look at?

hijack, sorry
mark, do you want the wildcat frame bag?

700c tyres come up arround 26″, so as lo g as you get a frame with reasnoble clerance the geometry will be closer to the intended on a 26″ frame. I ran cx tyres on my 29er for a while and while i didnt die, it felt a bit odd (really low BB and long chainstays and too much fork offset compared against a CX/touring bike.

The other thing to consider is top tube length, road bikes are typically about 3″ shorter than xc bikes, so drop bars will feel odd.

@ton – I thought you said you had changed your mind and we’re keeping it?

@tinas – I hadn’t considered that running narrower tyres might cause an issue. Hmm.

How about a Niner EMD?

Doesn’t have mudguard or rack mounts though. I run a Niner with 700c wtb nano’s

mark, i emailed you later to say it was for sale again.
email me if you want it.

I got a 29er for extended road/off-road mixed rides. Works very nicely on road but it’s really not a road bike in any way!

Ive got a giant xtc 29er.
I built that up from a frame.
have 2 sets of wheels. 1 for road and one for off road.
works a treat on road. a bit slower than road bike but not bad at all.

Singular Gryphon?

gryphon is a good call …. Will keep an eye on the classifieds