chico1st

can I take a road frame and use it as a cruiser?
I understood that the geometry would be all wrong but i have been seeing lots of mixtes around dressed as cruisers, but i always thought they were roadies.

joejack951

You can put whatever handlebars you want on any frame. You can also add extensions to achieve close to the geometry you want on any frame. Tire size is the major limitation.

fuzz2050

Mixtes were never made to be road bikes in the style of today's road bikes. They always had lax geometries, and wide tire clearance. It would be possible to do, but the resulting bike would be odd, to say the least. Unless you have the frame already, I would look for something different for a cruiser.

FBinNY 

If buiying new, try to get something appropriate to the desired style of riding. But if you have something lying around, feel free to build it up anyway that works for your intended purpose. It might not be 100% ideal to the task, but FREE or slavaged from the basement and put back into service, has a value of it's own.

noglider 

Zaphod Beeblebrox did an amazing job putting 26x1.75 tires on an old Schwinn Varsity. He put upright handlebars on, too. I even got to ride it. It was slow but fun.

Search his posts for his pictures.

Of course, the Varsity had wider tire clearances than the average road frame does. Also, he put hub brakes on his wheels to replace the caliper brakes. And if I remember right, he doesn't have fenders on his bike.

bigvegan

You might like this thread - https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...f-Your-Townies

Townie is the term for a road bike that's got a more upright seating position that's used for rolling around town in reasonable comfort.

noglider 

bigvegan, thanks for mentioning that. I'm also thinking of putting upright bars on my fixie.

I guess I'm getting old if I'm going from drops to uprights.

BCRider

Try some bullhorns as an interim step towards old fogy'dom. I can't deal with drops other than on the hoods or tops. The only time I get into the drops is for fighting heavy headwinds. Got my first bullhorn bar bike about 2 years ago and I love the riding position. And if I need to get down and more aero I just curl my hands forward and up around the caps of the brake levers and lower my forearms and my body stretches out in a nice open chested easy to breath manner.

We'll get to the need for upright bars like Nitto Promenades or North Roads soon enough. No need to speed up the transition if we have some inbetween options....

noglider 

Actually, I like the bars that USED to be called all-rounders. They are almost straight, but they have two small bends in them so the grips are angled back slightly. They make me lean forward.

HandsomeRyan

Do it! I put northroad bars on my motobecane messenger and I love it!