Questions for building a Hybrid

will_85

So I'm thinking about building my own custom hybrid for commuting to work. I have quite a lot of parts already - fork, wheels, seat post, seat, bottom bracket, rear cassette and a few other bits.... All of which could be applied to the right frame, when it comes along.

Quite fancy it as a project, not really interested in buying a complete bike and will be looking to run it as a 1x10spd set up.

A few questions id like to clear up first before buying a frame / more parts....

1 - Will mountain bike gears work on a Road bike frame?
2 - Can you operate a Road rear derailleur with a MTB shifter? E.g. Tiagra derailleur / Deore shifter
3 - What other Road / MTB compatibility issues may be worth considering?

Any help would be appreciated.

supersonic

It's all maybe, maybe, maybe! It is a minefield, there are some rules : but let's start at the beginning. What parts do you have?

will_85

I Have:

Shimano R500 700c Wheels
Deore crank arms
Ridley Carbon road forks
Pedals
2x Seat post (27.2/31.8 I believe)
Seat
MTB Handlebars
Shimano UN55 BB
8Spd MTB Rear cassette

Eyeing up an older Spesh Allez frame at the moment for a good price. Im essentially looking for a more road orientated set up, with MTB bars and a 1x?? set up. 8/9/10 speed are all options to be honest. Im in central London, so not many hills at all. Looking online it seems alot of road parts are slightly cheaper than their MTB counterparts?

Could I for example run a set up of the following:

Sora RD (Medium arm as opposed to short, I believe is more suitable??)
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shim ... -prod84819
Tiagra 9 Speed cassette (11-30T)
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shim ... rp-prod387
Deore 9 Speed shifter
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/shim ... 40547Deore crank arms
Exsisting deore cranks with FSA 38T Chainring
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/fsa- ... -prod28192

So a mix of MTB / Road..... Head ache! :oops:

bikaholic

Your proposed 1x9 setup will work, albeit, there might be a slight chainline issue. It depends on how long the BB spindle is and in which position you mount the FSA 38T chainring onto the Shimano Deore crank spider (it will work mounted in the middle ring position, it may not work properly in the outer ring position).

You then need to think about brakes: caliper brakes (eg road dual pivot calipers) and canti brake levers or crosstops.

will_85

bikaholic wrote:

Your proposed 1x9 setup will work, albeit, there might be a slight chainline issue. It depends on how long the BB spindle is and in which position you mount the FSA 38T chainring onto the Shimano Deore crank spider (it will work mounted in the middle ring position, it may not work properly in the outer ring position).

You then need to think about brakes: caliper brakes (eg road dual pivot calipers) and canti brake levers or crosstops.

The chainring would be running on the middle ring position.... Its the same set-up I currently have on my MTB, which works great for me with a Superstar chain guide. So to be clear, a MTB shifter will operate the Road orientated derallieur just fine?

In terms of brakes, I would be looking at running road Calipers, operated by MTB levers. I presume this would work just fine as its just a case of pulling the cable?

bikaholic

will_85 wrote:

... So to be clear, a MTB shifter will operate the Road orientated derallieur just fine?

All 9-speed Shimano MTB shifters are compatible with all 7, 8, 9, 10-speed Shimano Road rear derailleurs. There were one or two anomalies pre 1997 with the Dura Ace RDs (or more precisely, the STI shift levers) that don't fit this rule but there were easy workarounds to make them compatible.

The converse is also true: All 7, 8, 9, 10-speed Shimano Road shifters are compatible with all Shimano 7, 8, 9-speed MTB RDs.

will_85 wrote:

In terms of brakes, I would be looking at running road Calipers, operated by MTB levers. I presume this would work just fine as its just a case of pulling the cable?

Linear pull v-brake levers will operate short pull road caliper brakes but you will find that the leverage is underpowered - meaning a greater effort is required at the levers in order to stop the bike. Lever travel will also be quite short before the brake blocks bite.

The best levers to get are the ones with modulator adjusters as found on the Shimano LX, XT, XTR and the Avid SD5, SD7, SD Ti, SD SL etc as they are compatible with short pull and linear pull rim brakes.

Canti brake levers and crosstops are short pull and high leverage and so would work well with road calipers.

will_85

Thanks for the advice

The Rookie

Unless you get an MTB frame with an old fashioned single hole rear brake mount you won't get brakes to the back wheel.

Drop bar frames are shorter as the gripping point is much further in front of the steerer, so if you use an Allez frame with flat bars you will likely find it much to short.

will_85

The Rookie wrote:

Unless you get an MTB frame with an old fashioned single hole rear brake mount you won't get brakes to the back wheel.

Drop bar frames are shorter as the gripping point is much further in front of the steerer, so if you use an Allez frame with flat bars you will likely find it much to short.

Good points, worth considering. Im guessing a longer stem would help in this instance and could well rectify the issue? Definitely seems there's a lot to be considered building a bike this way... Buying a hybrid would just be too easy... And no fun.

The Rookie

The stem would need to be about 150mm!

Why not just a frame meant for flat bars, I'm using a Carrera Gryphon frame in my home built hybrid, discs both ends and mostly MTB parts including 26" wheels in the 700c sized frame.

bikaholic

The Specialized Allez frame geometry will be fine in roughly your size OP, I've built many of them using Specialized road, CX and hybrid frames.

It has a semi compact feel and you may experience some toe overlap (dependent on fork A2C, rake, crank length, tyre thickness and feet size). A standard 100mm or less stem will suit most people who like the semi-upright riding postion - exactly fitting the original definition of a hybrid: the speed of a road bike coupled with the comfort of flat (or riserbar) handlebars and controls.

The Rookie

But it won't be the speed of a road bike as the aero frag will be much higher from the semi upright riding position.

Toe overlap should be the same as on an Allez unless you change the fork!