frank zappa once sang:
"Just because the sun
Want a place in the sky
No reason to assume
I wouldn't give her a try"
with that kinda spirit in mind, we decided recently to go with the rage and jam a 29er wheel into the fork on gretchen's 26er on-one . . . . . just because.
well, not exactly. i originally designed my strong as a 69er, but that was on purpose. i need to know - what does doing it ghetto-style like pictured here, and how you see guys doing today actually do ??
for a given fork offset, and/or a given fork what it does is this: adds around 8.1 mm to the trail figure of the bike's front end. this is not a small change. it is about the difference in trail between a standard road bike and a touring bike ( 1.5 degrees of head angle, say, if you were to leave everything else the same ). speaking of which, it also relaxes the bike's head angle by a half degree actual. it does a few other things as well, regarding bb height, position, and weight distribution but those are minor or easily correctable to insignificant for a dirt-going bike, i think. some of them might even be improvements, depending on yer preferences. we need to correct the position from the photo, and get the rider contact points back where they belong. . . . bars back down, saddle back where it needs to be, etc.
anywayz - two ways of looking at the numbers game with regard to bike as converted - 1. a more stable platform on which to hammer and rail . . . or 2. a formerly nimble bike now handling like a dog.
personanly, i believe stability is VASTLY underrated. a stable bike is a fast bike. all bikes handle quick, or quick enuf - how can they not?? they weigh 20 pounds and are only a few feet long. just as with sporting motorcycles, very few people can actually use all the parking lot quickness in handling that most modern bikes possess. i've had that converstion with many a veteran builder. they Know, but usually build what the market tells people they want, instead.
so - i think we'll keep it like this. it rails.
3 comments:
What about a brake? Done this on the Surly (w/disc). Ok, but I'm about matching wheels now.
As I say, I prefer to race a comfortable bike than be uncomfortable on a "racy" bike.
LDC ( little dude components ) makes a vee with a super-long adjusting slot - enuf to make up the diff on the vee-only fork. so does paul, but "little dudes components" is just fun to say. :)
Stability is the name of the game - the Hipster crowd would be shocked to find out that a track bike has about the same trail as a touring bike. Geometry of a bike is actually so complex that even 150+ years later there's only a general range of angles and such.
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