Seeing as the weather is getting even dodgier and they’ve started gritting the roads up here my road bike is getting put away for the winter, well at least for commuting anyway.

I really fancied a cyclocross bike for a bit of winter multi surface commuting but seeing as funds are tight I’ve decided to adapt my genesis io singlespeed to be slightly more road friendly.

So I’ve got a few cheapo ebay bits and pieces on their way including:

PZ racing road bars
Cane Creek SCR 5 brake levers
Avid BB7 Mechanical disc brakes with 160mm rotors.
Schwalbe Silento 1.75 tires

Could be a disaster but it’ll be fun finding out. Anyone else done something similar?

yes. Old Stumpjumper M2. singlespeed / fixed rear wheel built up – drop bars, Tektro V brake levers. Kona Project 2s forks, old front wheel and slick or semi slick tyres lying about. Works well IMO. Have found it great fun. Will try and dig out a pic.

Sounds great. I’m also tempted to try a 29 inch wheel on the front seeing as the forks are corrected for 100mm travel. I’m assuming this would work but someone may know different?

Currently in the process of doing the same with my IO.

Fitting Salsa rigid forks, BB7 and slicks for winter road use. But not drop bars

But also looking at going fixed.

fritzvonrundle (rarely posts on here, often lurks) rides to work on a drop-bar 26″ singlespeed that we built up as cheap as we could:
-carerra somethingorother mtb frame, re-‘finished’ in rattle-can black.
-p2 fork
-raceface cadence drop bar.
-tektro v-brake drop levers.
-rear shimano cable disc and front v-brakes as dicated by mounts/lack of mounts on frame and fork.
-1″ rear slick and 1.75″ front slick to raise the front end a touch.
-mech-hanger mounted tensioner for ss.

It looks and absolute state, is hilarious fun to ride and rather fast too.

right, excuse the various bits of electrical tape – was trying to get bar position right, so not wanting to tape everything up too securely..

Also saddle has been lowered since then, and an adjustable stem used – to allow for height variations. Brake lever position raised since that was taken too. Did get Cane Creek levers only to realise they weren’t V compatible. Tektros are cheaper by some margin anyway!

Nice. That’s pretty much what I’m going for. What gear ratio is best for mixed use. I found that 32:16 that the io came with is a bit too easy on the road so changed to 36:16 but haven’t done any serious off road yet. Am I going to suffer?

Well, round here (Elgin, so not *so* far from Thurso..) it’s varied terrain – flatter towards the coast, hillier up country. It’s 42t on the front, 14t on the rear, and that allows me to thug my way up most of the typical climbs on road. Couple I struggle on or just walk.

Yes, the SS Kona Kilaeua has currently 32:16, and that would spin way too much on the road. Depends on how easy you want to take it I guess. No point in going for the highest ratio when it’ll be a winter bike ridden in wind, rain, sleet & snow 🙂

Have only received my brake levers and tyres so far. Brake callipers are coming from Hong Kong (hopefully).

Anyway this the starting point.

Might even give it a clean first before I change anything.

The Yak likes these frankenbike things. Someone should give The Yak one of these bikes.

the pink drop bar singlespeed half fat thing is ace and it gets hooned around ‘machno, marin, clywds and the peak as well.

Yep, I converted an old Scott Yecora to SS, and with the weather being so rubbish, it’s getting more and more use. So to give me a few more hand positions, I stuck an On One midge bar on, some Dia Compe levers off Ebay that work with my old cantis and a pair of Vittoria Randonneurs that are really cheap out of Decathlon.
It works a treat! It’ll zip along quite happily on roads, cycle paths and light trails.

Bad news. Unless three million people like a post on facebook, tazzymtb is going to have to give his bike to The Yak. The only real alternative is for tazzymtb and The Yak to meet in person and The Yak to eat a nice meal prepared by tazzymtb. Then The Yak will show his appreciation of tazzymtb by playing a very short piece on a bamboo didgeridoo. Punches to the face and a fight to the death are also optional.

Well I’ve finished the conversion and rode it in to work today and am pretty pleased with it. It’ll happily get me through the winter anyway.

You mean like this?

These are some bikes that I’ve built from ground for commuting and training in the last few years. The one in the middle was just an fun experiment but I liked it more than any “proper” road bikes that I’ve had before (carbon and steel). That’s how it started.

With a pair of 2″ Kojaks (better than skinny slicks) run tubeless (45-50 REAR and 25-30 PSI) they roll practically as fast as regular road bikes but offer a completely different level of comfort, confidence, grip and versatility. 8)

I think people fixate too much on a wheel size and existing standards and just like in a Frankenstein movie they seem to be afraid of anything different from the norm 😉

P.S. TIP: Based on my experience skinny 26″ road tyres may feel and look fast but comparing to some high volume slicks like 2″ Kojaks they aren’t faster, they reduce ground clearance and gear ratio, make handling twitchier and don’t offer much comfort. At high pressure they also cannot be run tubeless.

With a pair of 2″ Kojaks (better than skinny slicks) run tubeless (45-50 REAR and 25-30 PSI) they roll practically as fast as regular road bikes but offer a completely different level of comfort, confidence, grip and versatility.

I think people fixate too much on a wheel size and existing standards and just like in a Frankenstein movie they seem to be afraid of anything different from the norm“Applause and hear-hears”

DSC00069 by rOcKeTdOgUk, on Flickr

As usual …. 🙄 I’m late to the party ….

Genesis iO built as a short distance commuter.