striknein

Wow, that bike is outstanding. Is that the stock fork?

Chrome Molly

Thanks. The fork is a Kona P2. It did not come with a fork, so I used the P2 (which is very nice, has almost a tuning fork ring to it). Maybe come fall MTB season I will find an old 1 inch suspension fork to hang on it. I built it more as a gravel bike with lots of float, and I think it will do fine for that. I may even spring for the Mavic crossride UB wheels, as they are advertised at only 1700 grams.

gomango

Been waiting for this one.

It all came together very nicely, didn't it.

I've only been out on mine a half dozen times, but I can tell it will be a long termer.

I have a fair amount of flex in the stays, but it hasn't taken the fun out of the ride.

We'll have to do a ride soon down at the river bottoms.

Soon!

Once again, you did a great job.

Chrome Molly

Thanks Grady, I was wondering if you cruised this thread...

It was a fun project, but very different than my road bike efforts. With road builds I can put all the parts on one order. I hadn't built up a mountain bike, much less with brifters on a top pull MTB FD. Some of it was guesswork, and hit/miss (with a few returns and lots of waiting for the postman). I do like the result so far, and we'll absolutely have to do a bit of riding on the gravel and dirt. Once the snow melts and things firm up, that is...

frantik

about to go take my new Compass 26x1.75 tires with schwalbe tubes for a spin.. at $60/tire they better ride like something amazing. I put them on my Univega.. to be honest i think the Univega looked better with the fatter Kenda k838 in all black vs these in skinwall (I'll take a pic on my ride), but this bike is probably the best to do a comparison on. Unless the ride is just amazing and I can't bear to go back to the other tires, i'll probably put the k838s back on the univega and put the Compass tires on my Jamis, whenever i get motivated to put it back together that is

I got the tires as a gift so i don't have emotions tired up in the money spent, so I'm hoping i can give a decent review. I'm expecting an improvement in the ride but doubtful i will notice a difference than would justify spending 4 times as much on tires. I'm hoping I'm wrong and they are amazing though

One immediate benefit of these tires vs the k838: bike lost about a pound and a half in weight! Still puts the Univega at ~28.5. I thought the wheels on the univega were RM-25s but they are the lighter RM-20s, so not much sense in swapping in the other RM-20 wheelset i had considered installing

Chris_in_Miami

Cool, looking forward to hearing how the Compass tires perform! There's been lots of speculation about them elsewhere on the net, but good info is hard to come by.

OTS 

Great looking build.
Please what brifters are those?

Bikedued

Looks like modern Campy ergo Veloce?,,,,BD

Chrome Molly

They are veloce triple 10 speed brifters pushing a shimano 7 speed rear end. For the time being using 8 speed spacers on the lower 7 of an 8 speed cassette (the wheels are 7 speed). I'm fine for now with the 22/24 low gear but may eventually want the 22-28 low gear for our steep local trails.

thirdgenbird

That croll is hot. I would finish it off with eggbeaters, silver tektro 720s and a pair of king cages.

edit: oh, and the crossrides.

ThermionicScott 

frantik, I'm betting you'll love the ride of those tires. If the bike looks too "naked" with the skinnier tires, fenders will make everything look right again.

frantik

it's more the skinwall doesn't go well with the similar color chrome imo.. but yeah it does look like it went on a diet too. I'm going start a thread for the review so people can find it in the search engine a bit easier

ThermionicScott 

As someone who feels that skinwalls always look better on every bike, I'm not sure what that means.

frantik

skinwall is "period correct" but I like the way all black tires adds a modern aesthetic, and only the Univega i really like the way the fat k838s make it look aggressive, like it can handle anything. plus the colors just don't go at all. I think the Jamis will look real nice with these tires though.

Here's some pics, and the review thread is here: https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ires-26-x-1-75

mainstreetexile 

Had the Cimarron out for a 53 mile loop in the mountains yesterday with a friend on his 20ish pound Gunnar road bike. 2200 ft of climbing, which is more than I'm used to, but I've been trying to start doing some longer rides with more elevation gain.

Took these on a short trail break about halfway through:







And these are from going down Proctor Valley Road (5-6 miles of dirt, including 1 mile of badly washboarded road at the end):

ThermionicScott 

I forgot the winky smiley on that one. They look great to me, and I posted some other thoughts in the other thread.

anixi

^Now that looks green for SD!

Italuminium

Mainstreetexile, what a beautiful pics. Looks like you have the perfect bike for those conditions.

Taxi Rob

The Schwinn Mirada hasn't come through yet, so when I saw a pretty complete Ross on CL I jumped on it. The original stem was sold before I got there unfortunately, and even though it's a late 80's frame, it still has a 21mm ID steerer. I guess my only drop bar options are ancient 7/8" steel with a BMX stem? The damn thing is heavy enough, I think I'm just going to pass it on. $15 for the biopace crank and Shimano u-brakes isn't that bad I spose. If only the headset cups were a normal size I'd swap the fork out and go for it... oh well, lesson learned.

It's funny that I've bought a few frames from mainstreetexile for this exact purpose (not the Ross.) Someday, I might actually get to ride them out there in Chula Vista.

7speed

You can by an adapter that will allow you to use a 1 1/8" threadless stem.

Chris_in_Miami

I had a .883 steerer on my Lotus, and didn't have too much trouble finding a properly sized stem in my parts bin. If I hadn't sold the Lotus recently, I'd give you the Ross stem that I put on it. I wouldn't give up on the Ross just yet, a BMX headset is all you need.

neo_pop_71

I've met my match, "Thrifty Bill" you win... your 25 pound Cimarron beat out my 26 pound Cimarron! I mocked up the finished bike at my LBS today, even with Time ATAC carbon pedals, Flite Ti saddle, XT chain (draped but not attached), and no frame pump or water bottle cages... my '88 Cimarron LE came in at 26.3 pounds. Congrats to Bill, still the builder of the lightest Cimarron in history!

So, I've abandoned the featherweight build and I'm going comfort, stability, and a bit of style. This bike will be my grab and go for the trails and/or neighborhood, just about any riding situation this Cimarron should be well-suited. I did not install the chain today because I was not a 100% on whether or not I was going with a double or triple crank but in the end it was the look of the Super Maxy crank that cemented my decision. The bar set up was up in the air too, I knew the Soma Sparrow bar with the STI brifters were a must but the height of the stem, the angle of the bars, and bar wrap versus grips all had to be ironed out. I chose to run an Oury "downhill" grip backwards with Brooks black leather bar wrap. After that was decided I grabbed the Thomson seatpost and Brooks B67 saddle from my '85 Cimarron commuter build. I also robbed the pair of Ciussi cages, the Jandd utility bag (that fits perfectly between the seat springs on the Brooks), and the frame pump from the '85. The WTB 2.4 Raptor tires have got to go, I'm leaning towards the Michelin Wildgripper tires, I have a set on my dirt drop MB-1 and I love them! I have a few loose ends to tidy up and this baby will finally see some use. Unfortunately the bike doesn't weigh 26 pounds as pictured but it is set up to go just about anywhere and I can't wait to start logging some miles!

ftimw

^Whoa. When I do get to build mine up, I want it to look like that^ Nice job neo_pop.

jdefran

I'm very curious how shifting those STIs will be in that position..have you had much test riding with em?

neo_pop_71

Thanks ftimw! I'm finally pleased with the results after much trial and error, the bike is finally settling in with me. I can't wait to get the build completed and start riding. My problem was not completing this build before starting two other bikes ('85 Cimarron commuter & '92 Trek "3x1" 3 speed) but now I'm close and feeling good.

Hey jdefran, I've had a couple mention the STI shifters on the Sparrow bars since these shifters technically won't work on this diameter handlebar, I had to do what other people had done and make some shims to mount the levers. Once the shims were made and the brifters mounted, I ran this bar set up with a tall Nitto quill stem from my '84 High Sierra on a spare road bike. As I was informed by others with the same set up, the positioning of the thumb trigger is a bit of a reach at first but once you're comfortable it's a breeze. The key for me was getting the bars high enough to be comfortable and make the shifting effortless, this didn't happen until I ordered a Nitto "Dirt Drop" stem. That stem solved everything! I'm not taking any credit for this, I looked at the set up Grant Petersen went with on the '87 Bridgestone MB-1 Dirt Drop bike. I was already test riding the STI shifters on my spare road bike with the Nitto Technomic stem and Nitto made Rivendell Albatross bars (now on my '85 commuter), the stem pushed the bars too far forward and the bars lacked enough drop even after being flipped over. I've been running the On One Midge bar on my '92 MB-1 and that has been perfect but I didn't want to build a similar bike, I couldn't see the point. That's in part why I gave up my featherweight quest to beat "Thrifty Bill" because the Cimarron will never perform (geometry & weight) like a MB-1 for single track riding... two totally different animals!