Originally Posted by FoldingSpace

For various reasons I can’t ride a road bike position/drop bars and actually always put a riser on my stem- but what the OP is suggesting a exactly what I wanted to do years ago for the AIDS ride- plan was to get a gt road bike as a starter donor and basically turn it into a hybrid - I ended up getting a Gary Fisher Mendota (that I loved dearly) but it was weirdly difficult to get bike shops to help me- there was real resistance to “ruining “ a road bike like that.

I always felt like i was getting road bike times and performance from my hybrids but with way more comfort and utility (subjective of course but with some objective measures)

curious to see how the OP bike shapes up but I am also marveling at how Covid sorta put the hybrid at the top of a weird pile.