had my MTB stolen, time to build a tourer!

SIMONFREESE

Hello all

I had a high spec mountain bike stolen recently, it was my daily ride for a 60 mile commute. I bought a lot of the components from the BR Forum, and it goes without saying that I was gutted. Anyway, moving on from this experience, I have been getting to work on a cheap old MTB, and the time has come to build something more fit for purpose. I would like to build a touring bike, with a single ring crank, and 8 or 9 speeds on the back. I was hoping that I may be able to extract some suggestions / advice from this section of the forum on how to proceed with this project. It will have to be a budget build as I have young mouths to feed, I would like to put cyclo cross style tyres on as I ride on some rough stuff during my commute. So any advice on what gear to buy would be greatly appreciated as I am approaching this subject with very little knowledge!

bobhitch

You commute 60 miles a day ??? respect due, 300miles a week on an old mountain bike .
I'm surprised you haven't gone off cycling :shock:

HebdenBiker

I'm not sure why you want a single chainring. Touring bikes tend to have triple chainrings to allow for the widest possible range of gears.

However, if you're absolutely dead set on a single ring then you'll be wanting a Shimano Alfine hub on the back. This hub has internal gears, and so will avoid the unacceptably wide range of lateral chain movement which would be caused by running 8/9 traditional derailleur gears and a single chainring.

If it were me, I would ditch the "single ring" idea and go with a double or triple up front. I built a "fast tourer" last year and use it for everything, including sportives, club runs and the commute. Build story and pics here if you're interested: http://averagecyclist.blogspot.com/

tim_wand

Get yourself a planet X kaffenbach frame either new or off Flea Bay I built mine up for £300 and it does everything including a bit of CX with a tyre change.

Pesonally I d go for a compact or a triple wiht the mix of riding your looking to do you will soon run out of gears with 1x9.

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pangolin

What groupset etc did you build it with Tim? Any larger pics?

niblue

Cotic Roadrat might also be worth a look (I have an Alfine one) however the front-runner if you do want to go single ring might be the Genesis Day One Alfine.

If you went with conventional gearing the the Jamis Bosanova would also be worth a look.

tim_wand

Its mainly 9 speed 105 brought offE bay. Long Cage rear mech with an 11 - 34 hg 50 cassette.

The outrageuous rear cassette let me get away with a Hollowtech 105 53/39 chainset which was new old stock for £39 from E bay

This has now been changed to a FSA Gossamer Compact (Cassette now 11/ 25 ) even with the long cage rear mech 11/34 was a bit of a stretch for the indexing.

Wheels are Prolite comos, Cost me £55 ( can be found new for £90)

Brakes Originall Avid Shorty 4'S changed to Shimano BRR 550's (Biggest problem with this style of frame is that you can only fit Cantis and some can be a bit underbraked for touring (loaded) and road work. (Not the case with Shimano Sti's and the 550's)

Frame was brought During PX sale at £100

I was lucky with what I found, had lying about and the fact that PX had a sale on (STI's would have been a big hit If I didnt already have some but down tube levers work just as well)

Pictures uploaded from my Image shack account can send some better ones to your e mail if you want some inspiration

andymiller

tim wand wrote:

Get yourself a planet X kaffenbach frame either new or off Flea Bay I built mine up for £300 and it does everything including a bit of CX with a tyre change.

The Kaffenback (the Kaffenbach is the Welsh version?) is out of stock at the moment, but planet-X say the new version is due in September.

SIMONFREESE

Thanks for the comments and advice, re reading my post, i should have put 60 miles a week :oops:

Will be looking at the suggested options, especially the planet x frame as budget is a big consideration.

Thanks again, any more suggestions welcome!