Help me with the rationale for building up a MTB for this application (other than the fun of building something different, for its own sake ). Are you going to be carrying a heavy load?
That's a good question. Heavy loads - groceries from the city, carried 40 miles to my cottage, along lovely quiet smooth highways, for the first 18 miles. Then another 21 miles of hills and horribly narrow shoulders, that do little to prevent me from being forced onto the gravel, beside the shoulder, from time to time. Finally, the final mile to my cottage is loose gravel and I hate the feel of riding my road bicycles on loose gravel.
I was going to build up the Richey as a mountain bicycle until I found a really nice Rocky Mountain at the Dump one day. That will become my cottage ride but not my to and from cottage ride.
And, in response to some of the good concerns presented. My steering stem is 22.2mm and integral with the handlebars. This should make it easy for me to find a decent stem and fit it to the steering tube. The top tube of the Richey is only 55cm, c-c, darn near perfect for me since most of my road bicycles have 56cm top tubes.
I think this might be a fun project even if I don't go with the STI system.