Been thinking of doing a cut & shut on my old Prince Albert Frame & set of rigid 29er forks, with all the other bits of junk I can’t be arsed to flog was thinking I could eek out a Rat Fat Bike with just a set of wheels & tyres needed for the shopping list. Anyone done similar / can think of pitfalls or reasons not to?

cynic-al cut and shut a fat Marin bouncer.

Some one did it with an on one, I did it with a Marin FS and am planning a 2nd.

Will your forks have clearance? Std 29er ones won’t.

How will you get the chainline sorted? (I used a 88mm chainset and messed with the spacing – its marginal)

cynic-al cut and shut a fat Marin bouncer

Ah, yes so he did – will have to search that one out, although looking to stay rigid here

Some one did it with an on one

29er frame with 26″ fat wheels?

clubber – Member
29er frame with 26″ fat wheels?

Nope, 26er I think.

Will your forks have clearance? Std 29er ones won’t.

I’m working on the basis of cutting near the crown & installing inserts to increase axle width to 135mm & build the front wheel onto a rear hub, so this should give me clearance.

On the bottom bracket, again I was thinking of cutting away from frame & increasing to 100mm width again with insert, could then either get 100mm BB or even more make shift get a HT2 crankset & cut & shut that to suit the BB width – or is that stretching the bounds of metalurgic possibilities ? Could manage 1x but would prefer 2x if I can.

Chainline/BB/Cranks are the place to start unless you are only going half-fat (front only) or 29+.

The other option would be the 26×3″ Dirt Wizards

doner frame is 26er, forks are 29er

The home made 100mm crankset has been tried – check MTBR. It was unsuccessful.

I’d just buy fat forks.

Converting std HT2 cranks to 100mm would be a feat of engineering IMO. In fact widening the BB seems fraught with problems IMO.

Should be lots of steel on one fatty forks getting sold pretty soon as people fit the carbon ones.

Converting std HT2 cranks to 100mm would be a feat of engineering IMO

was my thoughts too & if it has already been tried ^^ 🙁

A mate has a Pugsley, so will have a good look at that before I get the hacksaw out, hopefull plan to have a go with widening the BB & forks though, not like I have much to lose

Can you not get square taper BBs to fit given how much simpler that would make the whole process?

Bike 24 do a truvativ bb for about thirty quid then just pick up cheap cranks.

Can you not get square taper BBs to fit

💡 thats just the kind of blindingly obvious idea I need to hear 🙂

I have a kona unit 29er that I converted 3 years ago,rides great,in fact it worked so well,I did one for a mate too…
Both are ss only,bb width for chain/chain stay/tyre clearance is the main issue,loads of measuring,thinking etc,cutting and welding is the easy part 😉