glsmaverick

I have a 98 Cannondale rigid mtn bike that I enjoy riding. It fits me well and I put many miles on it commuting to work while living in Louisville KY. My commute at that time was 3.8miles one way and I rode about 4 days a week. I put street tires on the stock mtn rims and it did okay.

Well now I have moved to MI and my commute has increased substantially. I am thinking about driving half then biking half (around 12miles one way). Because of this I would like to decrease rolling resistance and set up my bike to run 700c road tires.

I know that Mavic makes a conversion rim but does it work? Has anyone used it with success? Does anyone else make anything I could use? I cannot swap over to discs due to the age of the bike and I have v-brake currently. Any suggestions; I tried search to no avail.

Andy_K 

I suggest buying a nice set of 26" tires and calling it done -- maybe some 26x1.1 Gatorskins.

Bikewer

I agree with Andy K; simply switching to any number of excellent 26" street tires is going to help a great deal, and will be vastly cheaper than replacing the wheels. I've never heard of a "conversion" rim...Quite a discrepancy between a 700c rim and the standard 26" MTB rim. The big problem being both clearance and brake alignment.

garage sale GT

While these guys may be right, even the slightly larger 27" wheels will fit in a 26" MTB frame. I don't think the standard cantis or v-brakes will work, though.

The bike I tried it on had a drilled fork crown and brake bridge, so I just slapped on some vintage road calipers.

If you got your brake issues figured out, you'd still need to respace the hub to be wide enough for the mtb frame. It has to be 135mm wide.

Pick up a nice 1980's road bike from craigslist and ride it to work. If you know how to do your own bearing repacks, you can get one on the road for $50-$75 with new tires.

Velo Dog

I'm with everybody else. I commuted 25 miles RT for years on an old Bridgestone MB, and you can do fine with roadish 26-inch tires. I wouldn't even go as far as 1.1s--I'm riding on 1.4s now, and they're no slower, plus you get extra air volume for a better ride and more rubber on the road for traction. You can sink a lot of money into a wheel swap for almost no gain.

furballi

Noobs tend to equate smaller tires to faster speed. Stick with 26 x 1.4 for a more comfortable ride. The speed difference is 2 mph under ideal condition (no wind, no light, no road debris). I'd look for slick or semi-slick tread. Comfort is key to a longer commute. A smaller tire will result in a very punishing ride.

c_m_shooter

Keep your current setup. The swap won't work unless you have disk brakes and the difference will be minimal. 12 miles should be a doable commute. Instead of driving halfway, haul your bike to work monday and ride home. Ride to work tuesday and drive the car back...... Pretty soon riding both ways won't seem like a big deal.

dynaryder

If you have discs,then you should be able to swap between 700 and 26 with no issues. Cannondale's Bad Boy Ultras are just MTB's with black paint and 700's. You would notice a difference if you were running light rims with 23-25mm tires,but you would prolly do better to swap to some 26" slicks and raise your gearing with a touring or hybrid(48-38-28) triple.

glsmaverick

Thanks for the info guys. I will check it out tomorrow and see what rim I am running and also what tire. If there is a better tire that may be skinnier i would love to know.

I am currently running a road style tire not knobby mtn tires so I have already taken a step in that direction. I will get some info and maybe you guys will have some more tips to increase efficiency as well.

I have been riding for a while but I just never really learned anything about bikes. I just buy what fits and ride the crap out of it. I am not hip to all the technical stuff so bear with me.

knobster

I put some 700c wheels on an old '87 Bianchi Grizzly MTB. Worked fine. Had to do some modifications to the fork to allow the new brake calipers and add some clamp on cable guides. I did it just to play around and I agree with everyone else. Not worth the trouble, get some nice tires for your 26" wheels.

Shimagnolo

It is not a rim;
It is a brake adapter: https://www.mavic.com/mtb/products/ca....323944.3.aspx

alexvpaq

my dad just changed the tire to some flat ones and he said it was a world of a difference. So try with that first.

garage sale GT

You didn't say what kind you had. Some of the big 2-inch wide slicks are very thick and it makes for drag. They are also heavy. A 1 or even a 1.4 would probably make a difference you could feel right away.

I disagree with these guys on the tires. I have had 23mm tires on a road bike and they just don't ride that harsh if you stay off the bigger bumps.

Instead of going 2mph faster, you can go the same speed with less fatigue. If the difference is really 2mph, then it's a pretty major decrease in rolling resistance, even if it may not boil down to a huge difference in time.

glsmaverick

Yeah they are some fat boy slicks for sure. I will try to get stuff down tonight and get some photo's up of what I am running. Like I said before, my previousl commute was only a few miles so it didnt really matter. I got a good deal on a CDale rigid and just through on some "non knobby" cheap tires (whatever the local bike shop had). I know they were not expensive or anything.

The bike is a 98 M500 CAAD2 frame with Sun AT-18 rims