Touring - MTB to Touring conversion

I have an old Univega Alpina 600 from the 1990's. It has canti brakes and is a 21 speed cassette drive system. I am thinking of adding drop bars and just mounting the integrated canti levers/shifters that it came with. Has anyone tried this before? Or is this just a bad idea.

Or is this just a bad idea.

You said it.

Firstly, your mountain shifter/lever assembly will not mount on road bars due to the larger bar diameter. Besides, even if they did, they'll be very awkward. If you must use road drops, bar end shifters and road levers are the way to go. You will also need to use a short reach stem with a fairly long quill to be comfortable on such conversion.
Here's an early 90's mtb with drop bars.

Why the drop bar? I ride MTB on trails for fun and road bike for endurance trainning. On the road, I used the drop position when going down hill, or going fast. I think that a mtb bar with bar ends give you more control (leverage?) with a loaded heavy bike, I did see bunch of guys on loaded touring bikes and have never seen them in drop position except to use the brakes.

No flame please just my 2 cents.

/td

I ordered parts to give my MTB drop bars and a new rigid fork.
My plan is to mount bar ends out the sides, to simulate a straight bar.
If I feel it will help, I have the option to mount my old straight bar at the same time.
Would look weird, but might be useful.

A stem with the appropiate rise and reach enables you to use the drops not only for going downhill. And a wide (46 or so) drop bars provide enough leverage for touring with a loaded bike even off-road (unless this is hard core). Here's another example of a converted MTB for touring:

I ordered parts to give my MTB drop bars and a new rigid fork.
My plan is to mount bar ends out the sides, to simulate a straight bar.
If I feel it will help, I have the option to mount my old straight bar at the same time.
Would look weird, but might be useful.

Are you also going to change your wheel size or crank setup? The hardest thing I find about using a mountain bike on long trips is the gear ratio. Has anyone ever switched to a larger front cog?

nah, but i would change the rear cassette to something like a 12-21 for closer gears and not the big jumps. I think a 44-12 is more than large enough gearing for touring.

I've switched my gearing out on my Rockhopper commuter/tourer. I have drop bars, barend's, and I upgraded the front cog to a 48. That's the largest $himano makes for a 4-bolt spider. The downside is that there isn't enough "throw" on the front derailleur to really get down to granny's gear, but I live in Ohio so I use it like a double. The back's something like 11-32. If I were somewhere REALLY hilly, I could adjust the derailleur down to get the bottom 2 rings and not the 48. Or swap it back. (And replace the chain. And the cassette. damn $himano.) Anyway, I much prefer it to the 44, but I'm a flatland-living masher. :)

Are you also going to change your wheel size or crank setup? The hardest thing I find about using a mountain bike on long trips is the gear ratio. Has anyone ever switched to a larger front cog?

My top gear is 42-11, which is pretty good. In gear inches, that's 99.
Lowest is 22-30 - 19 gear inches.

I've calculated that I have 13 effective gears. From lowest to highest:

Combo, gear inches
22-30, 19
22-26, 22
22-23, 25
22-20, 28.5
32-26, 32
32-23, 36
32-20, 41.5
32-17, 49
32-15, 55.5
32-13, 64
42-15, 73
42-13, 84
42-11, 99

That averages a 15% change between gears.

I did just that with an older Trek 7000 ATB. Threw on some drop bars and sti levers, front and rear racks, conti tires and did 2500+ miles of fully loaded touring in northern europe. The bike worked out great and I had absolutely no problems. The aluminum frame didn't have any trouble with the weight. I say go for it. You could spend a load of cash building up a sweet touring bike but if you haven't done much touring I'd say modify what you've got, get out on the road, and see how you like it before making substantial investments in higher end touring gear. Good luck.

I've been doing alot of riding already and I think that I'm going to just get a new bike. I'm looking at a Bianchi Eros that is on closeout at the shop near my house.

PS: To the man from Ohio, I'm trying really hard not to bring politics into this forum...sorry, it's a Mass thing.