I’d day it’s a good plan provided you can get 50mm tyres in. Then maybe some loop bars or Mary bars for a few hand options

Loving my Rutland teravail as a fast road tyre

On that Friday ride, after the outward leg over gravel/forestry tracks and mountain single-track, I returned on tarmac over the Devil’s Elbow. Did it all fine (can’t link the DE hill climb for some reason, but you’ll find it easy enough).

I did something similar to a 26″ yeti arc frame, put 27.5″ wheels on there and geo corrected 100mm travel (26″) rigid fork…. thing bloody flies I tell thi

Yes it feels correct… yes I really want to ride it… and do, regularly.. not tried drop bars on it mind

I’m 6’4″, all 26″ frames are too small for me. Doesn’t bother me, takes the guesswork out of frame size ordering. I just alter the controls to fit. With that Lava Dome frame, the front end tended to lift badly on climbs in MTB guise (Mary bars, 100mm stem). Less badly with subsequent loop bars, but now much better with weight forward on Redshift gravel bars. Is it better than a stock gravel bike? Dunno, never ridden one, but I like fettling and adapting existing kit.

point of a gravel bike (apart from marketing BS) is to get you going faster on erm smooth gravel, basically on a road bike

That’s what a road bike is for, the gravel bike is for making MTB trails that have gotten boring on super efficient MTBs entertaining again. There’s hardly any “smooth gravel” in the UK. The marketing BS you’re believing is coming out of the USA & just like MTBing here is different to the US then so is Gravel biking

Ive done this twice once with an old kinesis decade and I’m just finished off building up an old Scandal with 650b wheels and 2 inch tyres yesterday. I’m into flat barred gravel bikes and I’ve just built a fancy carbon one but I wanted something for really crappy days and for bikepacking that I could strap loads of bags to without worrying about trashing it. I wasn’t going to put 650b on it but I needed to steal the rear 26 inch wheel off the scandal for my daughters bike so I thought I’d give it a go and I was surprised it’s fitted in the rear with 2 inch tyres on. It’s not really a gravel bike it’s a rigid mtb what matters is it does job I want it too.

Here’s the kinesis before I crashed it

The bar ends replicate the hood position on my dropped barred bike.

I have a short 26er frame I keep musing on doing up like this but the sticking point is always brakes.

Ideally I think it wants drop bars as the reach is a bit titchy. But if I do that I need to buy new brakes which takes it from “interesting hack” to “this is expensive enough that it Has To Work”.

Fork – one that’s corrected for 26 makes sense to me as if it’s the 650B + correction won’t it lift the front end. Probably not the end of the world tho’.

How small is this small frame you talk of?

I’ve done this (sort of..) with our 26″ MTB tandem frame.
Kept the rigid 26″ fork and it now runs 650b wheels with 42mm gravel tyres, although slightly bigger would probably still fit if I wanted to try them. Definitely rolls along better now than it did when it had some 26×2.0 slicks on it. It gets used for some touring and the occasional bit of mild off-road. The only real disadvantage is not being able to squeeze in a proper front mudguard.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B_fFklrnV7r/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

I did this a few years back with my 26″ Soda. Rigid Exotic carbon forks, 650bx47 wheels & tyres, flat bars and barends inboard of the grips like Stainypants.

It was a lot of fun. Gave away very little on road to “proper” gravel bikes and could be chucked around offroad reasonably well. Being a light, top notch, frame to start with, it climbed like a freshly ravished goat and the acceleration was phenominal.

I’ve now got a “proper” gravel bike in the form of a Genesis Fugio. This corners better thanks to a much lower BB and however it works – its MUCH more forgiving on my wrists than the combination of flat bars and the Exotic fork were. Its not as good a climber as the Soda (higher front end), but deals with luggage much better. Whilst it descends nicely, overall its a much more staid ride than the Soda and a year on I still miss the sheer zip that had and I’m seriously considering spunking a load of cash on a Ti gravel frame…

That’s what a road bike is for, the gravel bike is for making MTB trails that have gotten boring on super efficient MTBs entertaining again. There’s hardly any “smooth gravel” in the UK. The marketing BS you’re believing is coming out of the USA & just like MTBing here is different to the US then so is Gravel biking

Maybe where you live, but not where I live (Scotland).

Yes, have done this with an old Cove frame. 650b Stans rims, 40mm WTB tyres and Easton drop bars. Put a 20mm shorter stem on to allow for running drops. The costly part was shifters, brakes. Running 1 x 11 so managed to set the L/H side up to activate the fork (100mm Rebas) lockout.

There are some in that Evans sale atm for £80, 450mm AC, which would be about right for a frame of that age.

I’ll stick some photos of my new bike in a new thread and get shot down for building a hybrid.

I wouldn’t worry, that’s not a hybrid, it’s a rigid 650b mountain bike with misplaced bar-ends 🙂

Folks,

If anyone wants to go rigid on the front, drop me a message.

I have some newly powder coated Singular steel qr rigid 29’er forks plus full carbon rigid 26″ fork lying gathering dust in the shed… Both are straight 1.1/8″ steerer.

Don’t bother.

If you want to go on long or fast rides on road / gravel then get a gravel specific frame or bike.

Otherwise you will pay £££ for:

Drop bars
Stem
Shifters & callipers
Bar tape
Rigid fork
Tyres / potentially wheels & tyres
New cables and other parts bodging a group set together

You will then get stuck with a bike that is too long with janky geo, too heavy, small wheels and not that fast in comparison to a decent carbon gravel bike.

Fine for a pootle but not good for a 3-4hr ride.

Can tell you from bitter experience trying to gravel up my Zaskar frame. It did look very nice though… Now rolling on carbon bike I picked sh for just over £400 that is miles better.

You can if you are using older 10 speed Shimano drop bar shifters but not current Tiara or grx.

This has me thinking about a 26″ wheel 4-5-6 that would potentially see more use as a gravel bike……………..