Just got hold of a c1993 Scott frame and toying with idea of building it into a rig for touring on towpaths, very light trails and lanes. Got some old Cinelli bars, nice Mafac drilled levers and some Mafac cantis I’d like to use up. Are there any fundamental handling/steering probs in putting drops on a mtb?

Your top tube is about 3cm too long and probably too low by more.

Cheers cynic-al. But couldn’t those differences be taken care of by height and length of stem? (I’ll need a quill stem)

none at all, go and experiment.

Aye it can work fine, go for it.

butt you’ll forever be a freeak

butt you’ll forever be a freeak

Freeaky? moi? Yeah too right 🙂

Your top tube is about 3cm too long and probably too low by more.

How can the top tube being too low affect anything?

It was good enough for John Tomac, someone will prob post a pic in a while.

How can the top tube being too low affect anything?

If the top tube is too low it’ll intersect the bottom bracket thus creating a vertical top tubed uni cycle – that’s quite an effect.

works great for me… i dealt with the geometry issue by running a 29er fork (which i needed to anyway to compensate for the headshock-orientated cannondale frame), a decent stack of spacers below the stem, a short and steep stem (on one is your friend here!) and some on one midge bars which have a low drop and decent flare.

It was good enough for John Tomac, someone will prob post a pic in a while.

He did it for a year and later admitted it was crap, no one else bothered at that level.

He did it for a year and later admitted it was crap, no one else bothered at that level.

A year?

How can the top tube being too low affect anything?

Can’t get the bars high enough for decent handling in the drops.

He did it for a year and later admitted it was crap, no one else bothered at that level.

Except Jacquie Phelan, who would have won the worlds with them had such a thing existed in those days. Admittedly Tomac was on standard road bars and Jaquie used/s proper dirt drops.

For towpath and mixed riding it’ll be fine.

If your frame has a 1″ threaded steerer you should look in to getting one of these.

fourbanger – Member
A year?

I think so – a season anyway.

Once again I am glad cynic-al has addressed the Tomac thing, I do wish people would remember/learn that, using Tomac as a reason for drops off road is silly. More of an anti advert!

I have a vague idea that he didn’t even do a complete season, and that he swapped after the first few races on the advice of his road coach to keep the position the same as on his road bike (the only reason he did it, again adding weight to Tomac being an anti advert for drop bar MTB’s unless your doing it for this reason), then swapped back after the worlds. There are certainly images of him from that year with flats and bar ends. Maybe only after the world when he quit the road.

But the above is not too poo poo drops on MTB’s, not my cup of tea at all but run what you like 😀

Interesting comments guys – thanks very much. They’ve given me some encouragement. My £20 frame and some old roadie bits (plus some inevitable new spend) should produce a quirky/fun steed for thousands of happy miles.