Kat has two types: people who like attention (me) and rigid steel mountain bikes from 1992. Her do-everything bike is a '92 Trek Multitrack 700. It’s rad and has served her well — 4600 miles in 1.5 years — but its tire clearance is maxed out at about 700x42. This 1992 Bridgestone BB-1 frameset from eBay will be optimized for dirt with the largest tires we can fit in it. She finished her rear wheel build and we mounted up some Ultradynamico 26x2.2" MARS tires to see if they’d fit.
The fattest knobs that daddy ronnie has to offer.
“How many sheets of paper do you consider safe? Let me know in the comments.”1 Tire clearance is a go! Not much room for mud but we’re dealing with loose sand and fine gravel here — nothing sticky. Kat is the bike shop’s wheelbuilder, so this thing will stay true.
The other task to tackle was the derailleur hanger. This bike has an integrated steel one and it was hella bent. Here’s the first gap with the alignment tool in.
Here’s an action montage courtesy of Ben Cochran2. Ben really gets those angles.
That’s me, pleading this wouldn’t be a trip to a framebuilder. Peep Jerry in the back with his crocs 🫡.
We’ll talk about those hot gold Motolites another time.
More to come on this build!
Who has better composition skills than you’ll normally see on this blog. ↩︎