With a local online listing for two Trek mountain bikes. They were mid 90's Singletrack 930's, a mid level mountain bike. One was 18.5", the other was 21" and the price was very good, all things considered. Back in 1996 I was working at a shop in Fairfield, California called Solano Ski & Cycle. We were a Trek dealer and at $600, I always thought the 930's represented good value, especially so considering they were made in the USA of True Temper OXII double butted tubing. This was the same frame Trek used for the 950 model as well. At the time, they were STX equipped with Gripshift, Alivio brakes, and an interesting yet ultimately unsuccessful "Silent Clutch" 7 speed rear hub. A RockShox Quadra 5 rounded out the package along with a smattering of Trek's own house brand "System" components: handlebar, bar ends, seatpost, stem, and front hub. Treks own Matrix branded rims made serviceable, if unglamorous, wheels.

So they came home with me, figuring I could sell one to make up the cost, and build one into something interesting. Or at least something. I'd been wanting a mountain bike with top tube cable routing so I could mount my Supernova Dynamo headlight at the fork crown without shift cable housings interfering, like they would if they were routed on the underside of the down tube, and these seemed to fit the bill. Here's how they were when they first came home:



They were dusty, dirty, and otherwise neglected but appeared to be complete and in good condition. I like how the seat post on the 18.5" frame was installed backwards. I set them aside for a few days while I researched what they were and should have as OEM equipment, then something interesting happened. I started thinking I'd like a "One Bike To Rule Them All" kind of bike and stumbled on the Surly Bridge Club and the VO Piolet. Naturally, I began comparing geometries, which led to this discussion.

So I cleaned up and tuned up the 21" since it was closer to my size than the 18.5" and made a list of what I'd need to make it something along the lines of the Bridge Club, an all purpose, all road, upright(ish) type bike. There were only a few things that needed changing; I had read the hub was prone to failure, and although mine was still working fine, it was still limited to 7 speeds which I simply cannot abide anymore. It was the first thing to go. My local collective had a nice selection of hubs, and this 9 speed LX model fit the bill perfectly:



I'd done some sniffing around online and discovered that the new hub and the old hub would use the same length spokes so I simply delaced the old hub and relaced the new into the existing rim. Total cost was $5 for 9 speed compatibility. Next to go was the fork. The Quadra was serviceable and worked well. The elastomers were in remarkably good condition, but it was heavy, and I decided ultimately unnecessary for my purposes. The Bikeman/Carver fork represents great value and the axle to crown length is perfect, so once this came in the project really gained momentum:



Tires, of course, would not do. I wanted something that was more road oriented, but could also handle some dirt roads and light trail rides. I had some old Specialized Crossroads 26 x 1.95 tires hanging around so on they went. This bike will probably spend 90% of its life commuting to work and around town so I've ordered some "slicker" tires. I didn't get the blue, but rather black with black sidewalls. I couldn't see paying $45 a piece for some Maxxis DTH's but maybe in the future I will... The tires should be here this week so until then I'll just roll around on these Specializeds.

A few other things got changed as well. I don't really like flat, straight bars anymore, so some Soma Clarence bars add style and comfort for me:



Please take note of the vintage grips, also from the bike collective. They're just like the grips that came on my 1988 Peugeot Tundra Express, my very first "real" mountain bike back when I was in high school. They make the bike feel "big" and give lots of comfort for my trigger-finger stricken left hand.
The brakes needed attention, and since I had a set of XT cantilevers laying around, on they went. Kool Stop pads work exceptionally well as we all know.
The drivetrain needed upgrading as well, STX doesn't seem to age well when neglected, and mine were no exception to the rule. Thanks to an amply supplied parts box, the drivetrain is now all Deore XT/LX, with the exception of the shifters, some random Shimano 8 speed trigger shifters from a scrapped bike I got for free.



The gearing is 22/32/44 with a Blackspire 44t ring from the collective and an 11-32t 8 speed XT cassette from the parts stash. In the future this bike will probably get 9 speed and linear pull brakes, but for now I'm going to ride it and dial the fit in. The fork steerer will remain uncut until I've had some time to decide what I want, but preliminary rides around the neighborhood are very promising. It feels like a big BMX bike with gears. Lots of fun to bomb off curbs and ride no handed. I may find a big ole basket to put on the front as well...

So here's what I ended up with:





As far as adding the dynamo, I need to delace my Panasonic Dynamo hub (36h) from the 700c wheel it currently resides in and build a 26" wheel to fit this bike. I'd also need to find or build a 36h rear wheel that is 9 speed (because mismatched wheels drive me nuts). But that will come in time. Or maybe I'll just find a new 32h dynamo and lace it into the existing rim. Decisions decisions!

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading! I'll use this thread to document any changes to come; as we all know, bikes are an evolutionary process as much as anything else, but that's half the fun, right?

The fork looks great on there.

Looks awesome! I'm considering a similar build for an older Specialized RockHopper (~95)

I like where you are going with this.
Bravo!

I'm subscribed. I love old Trek Singletracks, and I actually have one of these exact frames, a Singletrack 930, from '97 I believe. Green. I think it is the medium size, 17"-ish. Bought it as the whole bike but wanted to build it up with nicer components. I wonder if I can find an old post I made (either here or a different forum) in which I stripped the frame down and weighed it. I've also got a '96 Trek 990 and a mid-90s MultiTrack 750. Just the tigged frames, although I did have a ('92?) red Trek 970 I think that was lugged that I refurbished and sold on behalf of a bicycle non-profit. The frame was too big for me, but I tooled around on it anyway for at least a while - I'll probable end up with one of those in my size too one day.

The '94-'96 and '97-'98 frames are different. The 94-96 had OXIII as the top of the line, and you are right the 97-98 Treks had the same frame between the 930 and 950, and used OXII tubing. I don't think they ever released these frames with a steel fork, as I think the geometry and riding trend was heavily 'pro-suspension' at this time. This is truly Trek's VERY last American made steel mtb frame, sort of the last hurrah. You are starting to inspire me to do something with this frame!

My main squeeze is my '96 990 that I have converted (similar to you) into a bit of a hybrid 'do all' type bike. I found a 700c cyclocross fork and right now the bike is sporting 700c wheels, albeit with a poorly functioning road caliper brake mounted to the seatstay bridge. I am going to rebraze the canti posts further up after a bit more research. For a while I had a road seat, 7410 cranks, very small ti-spindled pedals on the bike, and it was FAST! It has some different/heavier components now as I'm using parts elsewhere, but these bikes can be built up pretty light - they are a super fun project. Folks were concerned I was going to have BB height issues with the 700c wheels, but have literally never ever noticed it. I'll try and dig up a pic if I can.

Keep posting - I can talk about these old Treks all day!

EDIT: I stand corrected on some of the info above. I was a year off. The second gen frames went from '94-'97, not '96. The last gen was '98-'99. Trek discontinued the Singletrack line after that and no new American made steel mtb framed bikes appeared in their 2000 and up catalogs. 1999 was the last great year of the Singletrack! I can't wait to have one from each generation. I believe the gen II (1994-1997) is the lightest, with the OXIII tubing used on the higher end Singletracks. All I need now is the '93 970 to complete the trifecta!

Here is my '98 Trek 930 frame in green -

I had a 930 that was too small for me but it was a great frameset. Would love a bigger one.

I put that Carver fork on my ‘98 Kona Explosif:



I also went from 8-speed twist-grip index shifting to 7-speed friction thumb shifters. Much more comfortable.

Thanks for the support, folks! The Carvers are really quite a good value. I don't know what they're made of beyond "steel" but they ride really nice. I've also got one on my '92 Fishlips Toxic Tuna. I like that they come with mid fork low rider braze-ons, a feature that rarely seems to appear on forks from the era in which the frames were built. I guess back then the emphasis was on racing and suspension was all the rage. Thankfully, we're realizing that not every bike ride has to be a race.

Nice looking 930, AdventureMan! I love the wishbone seat stay, and would love to have a bike with one. If you build it up I want to see pics!

The aforementioned tires came in yesterday afternoon, and I gotta say, they are enormous! Marked at 2.125, which may not seem large given the industry trend of big giant tires, but to me they almost look cartoonishly large. And they feel heavy. Probably because they are. I may just swap em back to the original Crossroads tires I had on it before. Or I have a nice set of Specialized Hemisphere 26 x 1.95 on my tandem that could make their way to this frame. But I'll give them a fair shake before deciding. Have a look; they don't look too big in the photo, but in reality, to my eyes anyway, they are Phat!

So I did a longer ride this morning and as I suspected, these tires are too big and too heavy. It felt like a truck! So I swapped them out for the Specialized Hemispheres I had mounted on my tandem (which never gets ridden anyway); I think they look better on it but still kind of silly.



Preliminary rides around the neighborhood are promising. The rack may or may not stay; I'm liking the idea of a big ole basket and a bag up front....

Nah, either tire looks fine from here, you could even go up another size if you got some tanwalls on there.

The nice thing about Maxxis DTHs is that they're big, but not heavy; I find them supple and fast-rolling. They eat chunky pavement for breakfast.

EDIT: I'm still torn about passing up that '96 rootbeer 990.

Korina,

Did you ever get that sweet red SR Mixte mountain bike in your hands? I'd love to see some pics of it!

Oooh, I would too.

These are underappreciated bikes.

Good news is that they are still not super collectible, yet. They are still currently in that sweet spot of being way better (frame-wise) than your avg 'old mtb' yet still can be found for 'old mtb' prices. Even a lot of bike-savvy people don't think much of them but they will be classics, all of them one day. The lugged frames are already getting there.

My '96 990 is one of my all time favorites just because it has been so fun to build up, play around with parts, etc. It is the perfect project bike, and I've probably enjoyed the planning and building stages as much or more than the riding. It is a 700c conversion that has lots of little things that still need hammered out, but it is progressing. I don't know if I'll ever been done with it, but I also don't know if that is really a bad thing.

This one wasn't a project bike; it had been upgraded, so the seller wanted $350 for it. I don't think it sold, I think it just fell off the end of the CL listings.

Yeah, that is on the higher end of the pricing for sure. Have you seen one in person in the root beer color? I got the grey ice color, or whatever it was called, which was okay but the root beer color was fantastic. Sort of reminds me of the old mid-90s Schwinns and the bass boat paint jobs. They weren't incredible durable, but they were beautiful.

::sticks fingers in eyes:: LA LA LA I CAN'T HEAR SEE YOU!

We had a Root Beer 990 in the shop in Fairfield back in the day. Very very cool color!

Found these lovely Shimano ST-M567 shifter/brake lever units at the local bike collective last week:



They were like new, and I had no real plan for them, but I figured you can never have too many shifter sets on hand. Just in case, you know.
I had intended to make this bike a V-brake, 9 speed deal and had all the parts I needed to do it, but I realized it would be easier to pull the crappy old 8 speed rapidfire shifters I had on it and replace them with these sweet LX units. This would alleviate me having to swap over the brakes as well, so I figured why not?

Additionally, I won on the evil bay an auction for a NOS version of my favorite saddle ever, a Bell Dart 500:



So for now I think this bike is done. Only thing I could see changing in the future might be to add a dynamo hub to the front wheel and a dynamo light. I really like the color and it rides really nice!

Thanks for coming along!

Those ^^^^^ _are_ lovely; I have a slightly less lovely similar set on my 750 hybrid.

Smokinapankake Great thread! I've been looking online for info on these Trek 930 Singletracks. I just picked up this one in an 18" today off Offerup. From what I can tell, it's pretty much untouched except for the tires, seat and maybe grips. It's in good shape and needs to be cleaned up a bit. My plan is to keep it as stock as possible in it's mid-90's rigid form.

Cool build!

I used a lugged 950 frame to build a commuter for my son.

So I’ve been tooling around for a couple years on this bike now and thought I’d update this thread with its evolution.

To begin, I bought a very nice donor bike that was kitted out with 8 speed Deore LX components. So the wheels found their way onto this bike. Mavic M227S rims on LX M563 hubs.



Then, I changed the handlebar to a swept back townie style bar so the Soma Clarence could go back on my tandem where it belongs.



Found a matching M737 rear derailleur somewhere. This is my favorite version of XT.
I’ve got a set of XT M737 shifter/brake levers and V brakes I could transplant on; I’d have to add a rear cable housing stop (which I have on hand) but I haven’t done it yet because I’m lazy, mostly.



I decided a really short stem would act as a headset spacer and a stub of handlebar would be a great place to mount a cyclometer and possibly a headlight out of the way.




I never did put a rack and basket on the front since I decided the rack on the back was quite useful considering I already had a few pairs of panniers. So why spend the money?

When I got the aforementioned donor bike, it came with a matching spare front wheel. A few months ago I was able to source a couple more cheap Panasonic/Sanyo generator hubs without really having a plan for them. Maybe now I’ll get around to lacing up a generator hub into the spare front wheel….

And that’s how it sits today. It has been a fantastic do it all type bike. I can commute to work in the same time as on my dedicated commuter, it can comfortably carry luggage front and rear should I decide to, and it can handle any dirt road and rough stuff I decide to subject it to.

These old Singletracks are awesome!

I concur, and have been saying so for several years.

In general, there are a lot of great 90s mountain bikes that are worth the search. I'd like to eventually try a lot of them and see where I land, but I'm a big fan of the mid-90s OXIII Trek 970s and 990s, and have been getting more into upper end Specialized bikes as of late. Then there are the higher end Gary Fishers, the Bontragers, Giants, Diamondbacks, etc. Really want to try out a DB w/ their proprietary TT tubing. The great thing is that most of these bikes are relatively cheap, because not many people go hunting for them, but there was a sweet spot where they just seem to check so many boxes for a do everything type of bike, as long as you are comfortable w/ 26" wheels (which I am). And if you need more tire choice, go 650B. Or, get some V-brake extenders and throw some 700c wheels on there.

Great build. {sigh} Makes me want to take my Zoe, a '95 930, out for a spin. One of these days, after my sprained knee heals. Sorry not sorry for the NDS pic.



On the Hammond Trail Bridge