Has anybody done this? I've got damaged 590 steelies on our POS Columbia and I'm too cheap to pony up for the 590mm CR-18 rims or go 650. Not wanting to imitate the guys with the $500 primered Buicks on $1000 chrome dubs.. doesn't make sense to me. I mean cost wise. Not that it makes sense to me in any other ways either but that's a different thread...

This beater's front tektro cantis have a huge range of adjustment. By my math its only like a 15mm drop, so as long as the tires aren't too fat, looks doable. Rear is a drum brake, so no issues there. Have an old MTB rim for the front and a 24" to relace for the back. Anyway, looking for pics from others who have done this as I haven't heard of this particular conversion. Also posting so I wont forget to do it, and for search posterity.. I'll find out and post pics if it does work.

You can go with 559mm or 700C but you will have to switch to drum brakes to get around the issue of brake reach.

I've seen it done with caliper brakes and no problems, to do it with cantilevers your posts would have to be quite low.

Thanks, so it been done before, I'm not crazy for thinking of going 590 to 559 then.

From memory the front brakes on our big ugly Columbia have like 30mm (!) of adjustment range, and they're near the top with the 590 rim. I'll go caliper if the cantis dont work out. And hopefully a 559-38 street tire won't be too wide for the fork! I'll post a pic after.

There's a guy over at Ratrodbikes with a converted mountain bike Varsity.

Got a few minutes to mess around today, so pics as promised. Hard to tell what camera angle the pics were taken with, but I tried to keep it level. Looks like the 559 still leaves it within the adjustment range of the slot. Question is, is all of the available range usable. Last pic is what our Gary Fisher is stuck with for the time being..