lighthorse@eart

I am rebuilding my Trek 7500 frame with mostly road components. It now has flat bars, a quill stem, and aluminum fork. I want to replace these with a carbon fork, road bars, and some kind of stem/headset combo. What are my options for headsets and stems if I no longer want to use a quill stem? Thanks for any advice.

AfterThisNap

pretty much infinite as long as it's the same size steerer. Even more if you want to use adapeters.

juicemouse

Well, there's the quill-type and the threadless-type, so you'll need a threadless headset and a threadless stem. There are tons of them out there, so you have plenty to choose from. They come in either 1" or 1 1/8" sizes, so be sure you get the right one.

lighthorse@eart

Thanks for the responses. I have never disassembled this bike's headset so I wasn't sure if I was stuck with the quill stem. Guess I just need to tear it apart and go for it.

mactheknife68

Im curious as to what other components yer gonna switch out. If you want to keep the v-brake up front you need a fork with canti bosses. Don't believe that frame will accept a road brake in back. You'll need a Travel Agent in place of the regular noodle to use road brake levers with v-brakes.

juicemouse

More than simply tearing it apart, you'll need to remove the old headset from the frame and press the new one in. You'll also likely need to remove your old fork crown race and press the new one on. If you don't feel like messing with it, this would be a good project for your local bike shop to tackle.

juicemouse

Or he could "upgrade" to standard cantilever brakes.

Another issue might be the front derailleur's incompatibility with Shimano STI road levers.

genericbikedude

Carbon forks are vaguely lighter than aluminum, but both are lots of fun, because of CATASTROPHIC FAILURE. Yippee! And when you pluck it, it goes "clunk" instead of "pink." But I suppose that this makes sense, given that you'll be surely racing criteriums on this bike.

juicemouse

Quit hatin' on carbon! It doesn't fatigue like aluminum does, so catastrophic failure is only going to happen in a crash (where you've probably got bigger things to worry about) or if you have really crappy components. Non-issue for a fork.

lighthorse@eart

Jeez,
Noodles, Cantis, Travel Agents, Crown Race, Pink and Clunk. Now I am confused.

For more background:
The crank on this bike is trashed and is the wrong length for me. The cables, shifters, brake levers, bottom bracket, and rear hub have also seen better days. I appreciate the thoughts on the brakes, I am fine with the existing brakes but want to install STI. As near as I can figure, I am going to have to use an MTB crank and bottom bracket to fit this frame. I want to get rid of the adjustable quill stem and flat bars. The existing derailers are okay but I plan on using a road cassette. I already have a new Mavic wheelset with 105 hubs.

I happen to like the feel of the carbon fork on my Lemond so will install one on this bike as well.
Thanks again for your thoughts.

juicemouse

This is not going to be a straightforward or inexpensive project, if that's what you were thinking. Take it from someone who converted their Trek 730 hybrid to a road-style bike a few years ago.



They can all be replaced with whatever you think is appropriate.



Ahh, if only it were that simple. I believe your bike currently has linear-pull brakes (commonly referred to by Shimano's name as a "V-brake"). As mactheknife68 hinted at earlier, road levers (except for the Dia-Compe 287-V) are only compatible with sidepull road brakes or old-style cantilever brakes. A Travel Agent can be used to make any standard road lever (including Shimano STI) compatible with linear-pull brakes. Linear-pull brakes and standard cantilevers both mount on the same studs, so you could switch from one to the other if you want. All the details you'll probably need to know can be found here: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/canti-direct.html



You could use a road crank if you wanted to. Bottom brackets have four things you have to figure out; Width (either 68mm or 73mm, determined by the width of the bottom bracket shell of the bike frame), Spindle Length (specified by the crank if you go with the typical mountain bike variety, but you might have to do some fiddling if you choose a road crank), Thread Type (you want the I.S.O./British type, not Italian), and Attachment Type (either square taper, or splined; square taper can be either Shimano-type or Campagnolo-type, and splined can be either Shimano Octalink, Shimano Octalink II, or I.S.I.S.). Quite a mess, eh?



Be sure to match the clamp diameter of the stem and handlebar you choose. You can find drop-style road bars in a few different diameters. 26.4mm is an outdated Cinelli standard that I'd avoid, 25.4mm is the traditional mountain bike standard that a few cyclocross-style drop bars also use (this would allow you to use a mountain bike stem instead of a road bike stem), 26.0mm is the traditional road bike standard, and 31.8mm is the relatively new oversize standard for both road and mountain (meaning that you'd have access to a large variety of stem sizes and shapes).



Should have no issue in the rear. Just make sure you match the shifter speed up with the number of cogs on the cassette. The front derailleur is going to be a pain because Shimano decided to index their front shifting, and they gave their mountain bike shifters/FDs different cable pull ratios than their road units. Campagnolo doesn't use indexed front shifting in their integrated brake/shift levers (they call them Ergopower, Shimano calls them STI). You could use Campy levers instead if you wanted to, but then you'd have to deal with the rear incompatibility between companies. This can be worked out rather easily with a device called a Jtek ShiftMate if you're so inclined (may not even need one, depending on your specific component choices). Campy's levers tend to be less expensive than Shimano's, and they're also repairable. I elected to use Campy levers, but either system is going to have it's pros/cons so it's up to you. All the info you need can be found here: https://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=%204068
and here: https://www.ctc.org.uk/DesktopDefault.aspx?TabID=3946



Well, I don't know how to break this to you, but the 105 rear hub probably isn't going to fit in your frame very well. 105s are road bike hubs, and road bikes have a distance of 130mm between the rear dropouts. Hybrids (including your bike) and mountain bikes are 135mm. Steel frames can be permanently bent to change this dimension (called cold-setting) but this will weaken an aluminum frame (like yours). You might get away with just squeezing the stays together and slipping the wheel in, but you might not. Give it a go. If not, get a pair of wheels with the mountain bike hub dimension. The front wheel will work fine.



No reason you shouldn't. Your choices will be limited by the fact that you need one with cantilever brake bosses (as long as you're going with either linear-pull or cantilever brakes). Cyclocross forks have them, and they're sometimes made of carbon. You also need to make sure you get the right steerer diameter based on the head tube diameter of your frame. I'm guessing 1 1/8", but it might be 1".



No worries. This is what us bike geeks enjoy. Cry out if you have any other questions or need clarification on anything.

lighthorse@eart

Juicemouse,
I am on the receive mode now and will try to follow through on your suggestions. I did check out the spacing on the frame before I bought the wheels and they work fine (they have about 1000 miles on them).

Your first comment is appropriate. I also keep looking at new bikes rather than buying all of the stuff for this one.

I am sure that I will have a lot more questions as this progresses.

HillRider

I did part of the conversion you describe on an Al frame rigid early '90s Trek MTB.

I kept the stock threaded fork and headset and fitted drop bars, a new quill stem and an 8-speed STI rear shifter. I had to use a barcon for the front shifting to allow for the MTB derailleur /Road shifter incompatibility noted above.

I also converted the stock rear hub from 7-speed to 8-speed and respaced the wheel to compensate for the wider freehub body. I kept the original 26" wheels.

What made this practical was that I had a parts box full of unused items so the only purchases I had to make were a set of low cost 25.4 mm drop bars, a cheap 1-1/8" quill stem and 1.25" slick tires.

If I had to buy all of the replacement parts, I never would have considered the project.

juicemouse

Same here. These types of projects are probably not the most sensible way to get a set of wheels under your butt. I do stuff like this because I like building up something from scratch, something that is perfectly tailored to the way I use it, something like no one else's bike. I enjoy the process almost as much as I like riding it.

HillRider

I did it for two reasons. First I enjoy the process too and it was fun doing the conversion. Second, I never rode the bike in real off-road conditions and don't like flat bars for road riding so this was a way to convert it to something useful. I also fitted the bike with fenders and a rack and it became a rain/beater/errand bike so it gets some use.

juicemouse

Great way to learn about bikes, too.