Hi, thinking of building up an old xc frame into something light and whippety with perhaps only a light smattering of gears and suspension. I need the 15mm dropout (I’d be using the set of wheels from the PA – they’re pretty decent and I’ll only be riding one bike at a time) and I’d like to get close to the original geometry, based around a Bomber Z2s – 432mm a2c

If I got SIDs, I’d have to spacer them down to something like 60- 70mm, so I figure I may as well go the whole hog and go rigid. There are some ragleys on crc that would work but my tarty side says the fat crown and general voluptuousness won’t look right with the skinny steel frame, plus they’d not save any money over a 2nd hand pair of SIDs.

There are guys like Vicious out there who’d probably take a slice of my hard earned for something custom but again, we’d be well into sus fork prices, I’d guess.

So something like a Kona P2 in 435-440mm flavour would be perfect. Anything out there I might have overlooked?

X-lite Forks

bit longer than you want but best i’ve seen.

Thanks for that, they’re the same as the Ragleys, which are spot on apart from price and looks. The crown’s the right diameter to match a 1.5″ bottom headset cup, apparently, so it’ll look a bit daft with 1.125″

Given the apparent lack of alternatives, I might have to suck it up and deal with it. Or just hang about a bit with my fingers crossed and see what else comes up in the next year.

Unless there’s something out there I’ve missed?

Could you run adaptors on your hub and a nice steel fork?

You could probably get a P2/Cromoto and a set of wheels for the price of a 15mm rigid.

I looked at the cromoto grande maxle for my salsa till i realised it was twice the price of a standard one.

The crown’s the right diameter to match a 1.5″ bottom headset cup, apparently, so it’ll look a bit daft with 1.125″

Have a look at Somafunk’s Hummer on the following thread…

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/show-me-your-ti-hts/page/3

…doesn’t look too bad IMO. Barely noticeable, infact. Maybe he’d be good enough to post-up a closer pic for your perusal…

Edit : I’m assuming it’s not a 1.5 of course.

Cheers teasel, the crown bit doesn’t look too bad. The tubes on mine are a good deal skinner than the ovalised Hummer’s, though, so it’d probably look even more like one of these:

You could probably get a P2/Cromoto and a set of wheels for the price of a 15mm rigid.

I think this might be the answer, though. And it could be the answer to another problem: new back wheel for wifey’s bike. Pair of A2Z on crest or something.

Then we’re only a back wheel away from completing two prety much new bikes when I only meant to temporarily relace the frame on one. The circle is complete. The Ciirrrcle, the ciirrrcle of life…

“mew, mew, mew, stealing bandwidth!”

As animal town aren’t helping, I’ve taken a little longer to let you know what I had in mind:

Pelican graphics next time round, brant? Looks pretty good, I reckon!