Humour Me … Cascade build using a MK1 Solaris

I appreciate that drop bar MTBs often don’t “work” due to their longer (TT/Reach) design and lower front ends when fitted with a rigid fork.

But … **waves finger** … but with the more recent gravel/MTB crossovers the line becomes blurrier and more starts to look like less of a bodge😁

Case in point the humble Solaris mk1. When compared with the same sized Cascade there isn’t an crazy extreme difference:

The wonderful Geometry Geeks website bringing the hope ☺️

Yes the HT on the Cascade is taller and so is the stack but these figure are based on a rigid for for the Solaris that looks a bit short (~10mm) which ought to counter some of the stack difference and the HT length could be countered with a spacer and stack further running a 110mm fork.

Could this work? What am I obviously missing?

I have the basis so it would just be some tinkering time and if it looked like it might work some brifters and possibly a fork with a longer steerer:

Basis:

Well it certainly looks like it could work, why not slap on a drop bar and see how the riding position feels?

You’re not keeping the suspension fork on then? 😉

I would keep the suspension fork for that full 2022 gravel feeling 🙂

Funny that the “gravel” bike is 2 degrees slacker – is that 71 on the Solaris with a really short fork fitted?

The Cotic geometry chart shows that the 71 comes from an 80mm suspension fork or 470mm rigid fork so a 110mm fork ought to slacken the HA by 1.5 degrees

Source

The 69 degree HA comes from a 483mm Rigid fork so again that should/could work … ?

I would keep the suspension fork for that full 2022 gravel feeling

Fab, is your intended riding likely to be mostly off-road?

Yes.

I’m only musing this as some of the “gravel” routes around here vary hugely from “lovely” to “I wish I had my fatbike”

I’m happy to compromise speed for some more comfort on these routes.

There is still a place for the actual gravel bike though!

Isn’t that pretty much how the guys at Cotic started developing the Cascade?

Yup : making of the Cascade

Do it, the Cascade is basically the mutant child of the old Solaris – you’ll be grand!

There is still a place for the actual gravel bike though!

Well if you also have an actual gravel bike, then go balls to the wall with this badboy.

Envious as I was of my wife’s new Cascade, I’ve just built up my mk1 Singular Swift as a gnarly gravel bike (I hereby trademark the “gnarvel” subcategory) It works beautifully. I suspect your Solaris will be fantastic 🙂

@barney 🙂 Are you running a suspension fork? Do you have a photo of said gnarvel beast?

@letmetalktomark – running fully rigid (the Swift was my old singlespeed a decade ago). Will consider a fork if my wrists complain, but so far I like the light front end. I’ll dig out a photo when I get a sec (and can figure out how to post them) 😁

I quite enjoyed trying out building mine with woodchippers a couple of years back. 2.2ish ikon/aspen combination.

I’d say it was very ‘jack of all trades’ with all the positive and negatives that entailed. I didn’t think it was/felt fast enough on the road to be what i want a gravel bike to be (which is basically a road bike for a very wide definition of ‘road’) but the tyres were already too slick to really let you go and play. BUT it was a still a nicer place to tap out road miles than a mountain bike and it was a lot more comfortable than 40mm tyres on really cobbly horrible tracks.

I think it boiled down to the fact that I already had a newer Solaris and a 40mm tyre bike and this was a needless split the difference. If i had a road bike and a FS i think it would have been a great split the difference! I’d still like to build it that way again one day.

Looks like the stem you have on there is 70mm+, so you’d be absolutely fine with drop bars and a short stem (say 30mm shorter than whatever you have)

If you got drops with a very shallow drop that would sort out most of your stack difference. These Ritchey’s have 40mm less drop than a lot of offroad drops.If that’s not enough, you could splash out on a weird stem from some Americans, like these

https://tanglefootcycles.com/discord/peeper-aluminum/

SST Stem

These Ritchey’s have 40mm less drop than a lot of offroad drops.

Good luck finding a set of those Ritcheys though – I’m semi-curious about trying them on my Cascade in place of the Beacon XLs currently fitted that have a smidge more reach/drop and less flare out (but more drop flare). I’m using a 7mm longer fork than the standard Cascade rigid (483mm) and would live to try a higher front end than I currently have. I’m at the off-road end of the gravel spectrum and spend almost all my time in the drops/hooks.

I’ve got corralitos on my Fustle causeway, great bars.

Got wide venturemax on my cascade

and redshift top shelf on my Swift

Thanks All.

The plan would be that this (if it makes it to trial build) would retain a suspension fork.

Oh, couple of things i missed. Stem length I think was 60. I’m right between med and large. This is a medium, I suspect i would have found it harder to accomodate the extra reach of the bars on a large.

Fork length is I think 483mm. I did have a -2 slackset in there from when it had flat bars.

With Drop bars a lot depends on your own dimensions and “Ape index”  IME.

I’d compare that Cascade to an Equivalent  ‘modern’ Gravel bike: i.e. Size XL Camino is 14mm shorter on Reach.  I know I couldn’t deal with that much reach, but then I’m a relative short arse (5’10”).

But I can see that cascade being a real stretch for most people if you just bung drop bars straight on (you don’t give any personal sizing info OP, but seeing as it’s an XL I assume you’re on the taller side). Stack probably isn’t such a worry TBH, you could just use a positive rise stem as it’s only an experiment, but your only real tools to do anything about reach will be shorter stems and/or a straight, in-line seat post.

I’d also say keep the fork as a swap is more time/cost/faff, I’d Just go short and positive on the stem, like shorter than you think under ~50mm and +10deg or something to start with, it’s a relatively easy/cheap thing to play with, think about how much reach hoods add, and even compact drops are a good 80mm further forward of the bar clamp, even if your hands are closer together reach is generally lots more for drop bars.

If you have access to a suitably sized curly barred bike or two just to try and see how they feel with more/less reach and then go over them with a tape measure to figure out real world measurements (Saddle to hoods, tops and drops).

The tape measure is being dusted off as I type.

I will report back with photos when I have some spare time!

Proportion **cough** wise I am on the ape’ier end of the spectrum. This is my XL Fearless with an 80mm stem:

Thanks again all.

Good to see it wasn’t just a flat no 🙂

Interested to see how this turns out! I’ve got a 2015 Genesis High Latitude in my parents loft that I’ve been thinking of turning into something similar, see my incredible MS Paint skills for inspiration 😂

https://ep1.pinkbike.org/p6pb26788992/p6pb26788992.jpg

edit: FFS I don’t know how to insert an image anymore.

Okay … quick and rough initial measure.

Tip of saddle to centreline of bars (think stem plate  gap) in a straight line:

Fearless 56cm

Cotic 62cm with a 90mm stem.

6cm (I can Math)

Sooo 60mm stem and inline post may give me somewhere close to similarly 🤨😂

As to whether I could run a stem with positive rise 🤢🤢🤮😂

To anyone that I haven’t already lost with the above rambling mess I managed to get some tinkering time earlier …

I don’t have a 60mm stem but do have a 50mm (zero rise) that I quickly cobbled together with a 440mm drop bar.

This creates an almost identical “reach” to my Fearless and Genesis drop bar builds.

The height of the flat of the bar is about 25mm higher on the Solaris. This might be a goer!

What’s the reach on the drops you have on the Fearless? Is it in the 80-100mm range?

That’s the other key parameter here. If it is 80-100mm, then you can get a short reach dropbar like the Ritchey Beacon (65mm) or Corralito (52mm), then it won’t matter if your stem plate on the Cotic is a couple of cm or more further from the saddle than on the Fearless.

Look at the side profile relative to yours for example:

https://media.theradavist.com/uploads/2024/01/Ritchey-Beacon-Corralitos-Gravel-handlebar-review-3.jpg?w=1400&quality=75

letmetalktomark

This creates an almost identical “reach” to my Fearless and Genesis drop bar builds.

I like a gravel bike as much as the next man, but if you already own two, why the need for a third? Wouldn’t a flat bar Solaris be more suited/capable for the rougher stuff?

Reach on the Fearless (Zipp bars) is 70mm, drop 115mm but only a minimal (5 degrees)  flare.

I’m not sure my wrists would cope with those Ritchey bars – I spend most of my time on the hoods even offroad.

That looks awesome Steezysix, please do it.
BTW you do “copy image link”, then just paste the URL in here, like so:

@honourablegeorge – Fair point. Idle hands.

The Solaris just doesn’t get used.

I like the multiple hand positions of drops.

I also like the idea behind the Cascade … if you are going to put a suspension fork on a gravel bike have it be a “proper” one – May not be how Cy put it word for word 🙂

The Solaris is actually running bar ends inboard of the brakes to help mimic hoods but these are only really useful for sections where cover the brakes isn’t essential.

But mainly a combination of idles hand and why not.

I’m running an old Cannondale MTB frame this way and really like how it rides. To be honest, the only thing that’d entice me to throw more money at the concept would be a V2 Warlock that’d let me use the 29″ boost wheels from my Scandal, reducing two bikes into one. In your particular case I have the same reservations as George. I was out on mine today; I’m a bit gangly myself so an XL Warlock is of interest.

The Solaris just doesn’t get used.

I like the multiple hand positions of drops.

I went the opposite way and “Jones’d” a Cascade using all the parts off a SolarisMax. I love it.

@chakaping – Thanks!

letmetalktomark

But mainly a combination of idles hand and why not.

I totally get that… have built more than one bike on that basis

I went similar to @slackboy as I didn’t like the drops on the Cascade. Sonder scope bars, 100mm fox 32’s and 4 pot trp brakes!!

I actually bought the cascade because I always fancied doing the same as the op with a Solaris but the sold it to pay for a full suss…