Ok gentlemen, you all know how much I hate putting on my Moderator Tone with ya'll, but this thread is getting a bit out of sorts. I know that conversions are a hot bed topic for many of us here in C&V, and that there is a SS/FG forum that may be better suited for such threads. Some of those threads posted in here in the past about conversions are/were likely attempts at trolling, and should be brought to the mod's attention so that we can handle them. In regards to this thread, if you can not participate in this thread in a respectful tone, I will have to ask you from refraining from participating in it at all.

Now that is out of the way, my two cents: Reversable conversions are one thing. Drewing up a frame that can not be put back to original is another. How big of a "crime against cycling" it is, depends greatly on the quality and the rarity of the frame. Was it a lower to middle range Centurion or was it a 78 Paramount or Masi? I'll admit I resprayed a "bike boom" mid 80's lower end Centurion and rebranded it as my own. I stripped off the nearly unused Centurion ARx shifters and put on a NOS Shimano 105 Golden Arrow group. By the end of it (which included drilling the fork and brake bridge for recessed brake mounting) the bike could not have been put back to "original", though it was still a geared bike. However I doubt many people would look upon a Centurion Sport DLX as a loss to the collective vintage cycling history. A 92 Paramount is a slightly different story, as while it does carry the Paramount name, it's not the same bike of the 60's - 80's. Simply put, we've seen lots of GOOD bikes forever stripped of their gears, and any time we hear of a decent bike going down that road there is a chance that the owner will one day add an even nicer bike to the Drewed ranks. So we get defensive due to those fears, jaded by past experiences and examples. I'm not going to stand in anyone's way of a conversion if it means they are going to ride the bike, treat it with some respect and hopefully keep it in a form that can one day be restored to geared ability. I'll go as far as to recommend not breaking out the grinder on even a mid range frame, and probably would risk the wrath of my wife to make an offer to save a high end frame from the grinder wheel. A conversion on the street is better than an original in an attic if done right.