I’m thinking of building up a 9sp inbred for the daily commute which is all road or cycle path.

Few questions though –
Should I go 9sp or 10?
Bearing in mind the main use for it, should I go for old-skool V brakes or slap on a set of discs?
I’m thinking of the carbon fork – good idea?
Is it worth getting some decent wheels if i ever decide to take it off road?

Cheers

I commuted on mine for ages, and still do occasionally. The main thing I found is that with v brakes the rims get gummed up from road slime and the brakes don’t work very well unless you clean them all the time; I found discs a large improvement.

cheers phiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiil (sorry – couldn’t be bothered to count the number of i’s so guessed 😉 )

what set up did you have re-gearing, suspension and wheels?

I believe and I may be wrong on this but you can fit a set of 700cc wheels on an inbred. Stick some cx tyres on it and Roberts ya fathers brother. Not too sure about the front fork though, standard or a 29er.?

I am sure someone off here has done it and posted a few pics up.

Just a thought.

how far is your commute? many climbs or all flat? any off-roady bits, or bits covered in crap, or all smooth? can you go fast for long bits, or stop-start, go slow for bits? Neil onwheels is right, bigger wheels n slicker, smaller tyres for starters if u can. V’s will be fine.

There’s only one hill on the 5 miile jaunt and even that’s easily doable on the big-ring. As I said, its all cycle-path or road but the other thing I was worried about is my weight – I’m not the smallest of blokes!

currently mine is

inbred
disc
revelations
gears

would happily put carbon forks and single speed if I could be arsed

commuting is great 🙂

Definitely disks for commuting, especially if you plan to in winter. I’ve found the less gears the better for commuting due to maintenance and exercise. If your not going to use it off-road I’d go for a rigid fork.

Im fairly certain a 26″ fork will accept a 700c wheel, dont know how limited on tyre size you become though as ive never tried it.

I use an inbred for the commute, 9 speed block (although a do use a road block occasionaly) dropped the granny ring though, never used. Carbon forks, disc brakes, 26 inch wheels with fatboy tyres. 6 years old and about 30,000 miles

I use my Tinbred with 1.5 inch slicks on a spare set of wheels – 10 miles each way road. It’s currently 1×9 running Reba’s, but also have RC31’s.
Would go with Disks for the wet weather action and lack of maintenance.

I tried using a road block, but could not get the gears changing crisply enough for some reason. If I did want to try that again I would get a road rear mech as running single up front.

There has been a photo floating around on here of an Inbred with 700c slicks (somewhere)

cheers all – thanks for advice!

If its mostly for roads and paths, what about a 29er inbred with cx/road slicks on?

Been using a ss 29er version for the last year and prefer it to commuting on my old 26 inbred 😉

inbred, p2 forks, rear disc, front rim brakes (cos it’s what I had handy) 44×11-28 gears (8sp I think), 26″ wheels, 1.25slicks, full mudguards, 100mm stem, 23″ flat bars, brilliant as a commute bike. Not as fast/easy as a proper road bike but handling was superb, carving through stationary traffic very well. Since moved onto a pompino for commuting.

would I really benefit from running it as a 29er?

I understand that acceleration will suffer but top speed will increase (I hope…) any other advantages / disadvantages?

Found the pic, not the best camera phone in the world ;-), but you get the idea:

@ski, are these 26 or 29 inch wheels?

26″ wheels with skinny tyres can be a bit bumpy on shite roads (think cracked tarmac and small potholes). Bigger wheels with even skinnier tyres are better. Bigger gearing ultimatley so faster speed possible and easier to maintain speed.

@ski, are these 26 or 29 inch wheels?

29 inch wheels on a 29er frame, was running Conti 35mm CX speed kings for the summer

I used to have an Inbred set-up for commuting:

It was 26″ wheels, V-brakes and rigid forks and worked well.

Not tried 700c wheels on an Inbred yet, but I’ve got a slot dropout frame, a set of RC31’s and a Shimano 700c Alfine wheelset I’m thinking about combining.

Also running a Tinbred 1×9 with 700c wheels (28mm tyres) on my 5 mile commute(plenty of room up to 35mm tyres) with an On One Carbon 445mm A-C fork. Shimano XT with 38t TA stainless chainring.

Easier to keep momentum on 700c wheels and if you’re only going on cycle paths rather than proper off road they should be fine

Important things for a commuter:
* mudguards
* lights
* carrying stuff

Unimportant things:
* wheel size
* make
* model
* anything else

Once you’ve dealt with not getting a wet arse, everything else is garnish and/or personal preference.

^^^True, possible exception of carrying stuff, I prefer not to carry anything except toolkit, but accept not all workplaces have decent cycling facilities, lockers etc.

I find being able to buy beer on the way home is an essential 🙂

Unless you’ve got an MTB to convert, I’d get one of these: http://road.cc/content/review/37756-vitus-vee-1