How did Tomac manage all this in the 80’s???
I have seen the bike.
When he said “it’s not one for the purists” he wasn’t lying!
RetroBike would chase him out of town with a pitchfork.
It’s an odd ensemble, but, you know what?
I prefer it to all the noobs on their “gravel” bikes that have never been anywhere dirtier than a mucky lane leading to a farmers field.
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Cable entry into front mech. A lot of older MTBs and CX bikes have top tube routed cabling.
Ah. I’ve not touched MTBs so that makes sense.
Well here it is. I know the ‘purists’ on either side will revile such a beast, but I’m pleased with it. I took it out on Saturday (weather was pants, but it was my only opportunity!) and it performed admirably. Some of the Bridleways were so water logged or muddy the tyres did struggle, and there were some foot down moments, and one ‘off’’ in particularly bad mud. But the Thunder Burts are not a mud tyre, they’re a fast ‘dry’ MTB tyre, man are they fast on the road, and more than capable in all but the worst mud.
The Fosse Way section - this was all rideable, and some pretty massive pools of water in places - over the axles. I was glad of the suspension forks when I flew through those. The weather was so bad, I only took my phone out briefly to take a couple of shots! Every time I stopped I could feel myself start shivering!
Took this one yesterday - check out the neat cabling 
This is the JTek ‘Shiftmate 7’ pulley, which allows me to use STI road shifters with an MTB front mech. Indexing at the front is bedding-in but really pleased with how this little bit of kit works!
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Love it! You’ve got me seriously thinking about doing the same to my hardtail. The only problem is if we go out as a family as we share the MTBs at the moment.
One thing to note with drop-bar conversions is reach. I had to put an old 90mm stem on it, and buy an inline seatpost to be able to reach the hoods position comfortably. Drops position is a bit of a stretch, but I could probably get a shallower gravel bar for that if I was that bothered. I did use the drops position on some very fast downhill sections; but I was out of the saddle crouching forward.
The TRP Spyres are a cinch to set-up as they are dual-action pads, unlike the Avid mechanical calipers. I am getting some major front fork judder after Saturday’s ride, that needs investigating.
Good build but you lose points for uneven ending of the bar tape. 
I watched this last night. He’s braver than me!
Ha yes, the tape is crammed in there - I was in a rush to finish it for Saturday! The bar tape is still wet from Saturday’s ride!
I plan to do the odd commute on this too, then I can #shred some brideway sections when I have time to take the scenic route.
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When was the last time they put a 44T chainring on an MTB? 
Nowadays, they seem to have glorified sprockets attached to the cranks.
I used the big ring most of the time tbh, that’s the kind of riding I will be doing around here. There was one steep track section where I used the 32x32 to muscle up it; that was fine. I’m still refining the front shifting, and I couldn’t get the 22T ring the one time I tried; but now it’s struggling to hit the big ring. Work in progress.
Yeah exactly. I have SRAM GX 1x12 on my Giant XC bike. Happy with the cassette bit the chainring is too small for my liking at 30t, I’d like a 32 at least but finding one is proving very hard.
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Surely that cannot be classed as a bike?!
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