spectastic

I just found a vintage bike that I used to ride back in college. I'm trying to decide between turning it into a beater/commuter/touring bike, or sell it. I'm leaning towards converting it, but I'm a little worried about the weight of the bike (~28.6 lbs). If I convert it, my plan is to strip it bare, and replace the heavy wheels with alfine 8 built with 700c/29er cr18 rims. the shifting group will be replaced with a single alfine 8 shifter. the bottom bracket/crank will be replaced with a spare elita crankarm with a shimano bb (assuming it's all english threads). these are parts that I already have; I've just been waiting for the frameset. the new parts will be significant'y lighter, but I dont know how much

so before I embark on this work, I'd like to get an idea how much my steel frame weighs, so I can decide for sure before I start doing all this work.


PS. the alfine 8 has 135 spacing, and is the primary reason why I'm considering the conversion. steel can cold set without treatment. aluminum and carbon fiber cannot. and with steel, it's either go big (with an expensive custom built steel frame) or go home (with an average heavy vintage steel frame with quill stem), with very few options in between

PPS. I'm building the touring bike regardless. the pro of using the steel frame to build the touring bike is it's a cheap, unattractive frame, and not interesting to thieves, so it would be my go to for errand runs. The pro of using another frame (carbon cross frame with 135 rear spacing, and disc brakes) is that it's a lot lighter (around 1500-1600 g frame/fork), but it's a greater target for theft, and I generally don't like having expensive ****, although it's coming from dengfu, who sell very good quality frames straight out of the factory for minimal mark up ($460/frameset), and I would be a little hesitant about taking it out for night runs

oddjob2

Swag = 7.75 lbs

ramzilla

Panasonic will make a real good beater bike. Probably not a good touring bike. For me personally, I must have cantilever brakes on my touring rigs. You need cantis when you're all loaded up & start going down big hills.

spectastic

can you elaborate?

also, I try to stay minimalist for touring because I don't want to carry so much stuff up the mountains. I would like to make good progress on my tours. thats also the reason why I'm worried about the bike's weight

hell I may just build a separate cross/touring bike and use the panasonic as is as a beater. n+1 right?

ramzilla

I'm a big heavy rider. 6'-1", 210lbs. When going downhill I build up a lot of momentum. (That's usually when I start passing all the other riders) Wimpy little side pull brakes just don't cut it under those circumstances. Same deal applies when touring. You're probably going to be carrying at least 20 extra pounds of stuff. Probably going to be riding at least a 28 lb steel bike. Makes stopping in time to avoid slamming into the back of a truck very difficult. You got to have good brakes. I haven't stepped up to disc brakes yet. But, there's lots of old Treks out there with cantilever brakes available.

spectastic

the 135 rear spacing slims down my options quite a bit... I think I may just go with the dengfu build, and double the touring bike up as a cross bike..

spectastic

but seriously, is there a good ball park on the weight on the frame/fork?