daaxix

Today my bike went from this :



to this :





My brother unexpectedly came to town on a trip back from Canada. He is an expert level MTBer, and I suggested we go mountain biking. Since he did not bring his bike, or any of his bike stuff we quickly converted my commuter bike to a rigid MTB. Notice the MotoCross helmet (all I had) and my wifes camelback.

I actually was able to keep up with him, the commuter has road gearing with the lowest being 30 in front and 25 in rear. On the descents I could barely hang, even though my MTB is a hardtail with a REBA Race Fork.

What do you guys think?

pOrk

Looks like a super short TT

G-Monkey

Go back to commuting before you hurt yourself.

dminor 

I think you will have some of the retro-grouches confused and wondering why that is not your primary mountain bike instead of a commuter

Cool you guys were able to whip up some impromptu fun.

sirtigersalot

i'm glad you removed the rack for your mtn ride, I also loled hard at that helmet with that bike. But anyway nice, i had a similar experiance for an adventure race i did with a friend, his shock blew 2 days before our race, so i had to convert my old flat bar cross/urban bike into a rigid mtn bike it had 700c wheels but luckily disc brakes too so i took the wheels off teh broken bike, put on the stock 1.9 tires, but there was only like 2mm of clearance for the tires so i had to re-dish and true the wheels to perfection or they would rub on the frame. Then my friend rode my rush it was hilarious.

daaxix

Hehe, fortunately I was riding my HT with a REBA Race front fork, my brother got to ride the commuter. He was actually a lot faster than me on the descents, even with the fully rigid bike.

daaxix

That is an awesome story, improptu is always fun. The crazy thing is that my brother is amazingly fast. I have not ridden with him in a couple years, and he has gotten crazy fast at XC. He schooled me on the descents, even though he was on the rigid (Intermediate level technically). On the hills I could keep up, but only because I had much better gearing than he did.

His normal race bike is a 2005 Specialized Epic Pro.

He said he thought I was fast enough now to do fairly well in the sport class though, so I think I am going to start racing in the sport class next season!

Mr23779

I converted my Bianchi Milano into a rigid MTB a couple of weeks ago. Stripped all the fenders, racks, etc off it and put on some knobbies. Not easy on the wrists...but I'm having a blast beating the snot out of the thing!

daaxix

I like that color. How does the gearing work on the trails?

Mr23779

The color is called celeste and is Bianchi's signature color.

Gearing is pathetic, at best. It's only 8 speeds and when I'm in 1st, I find myself cursing all that is good and pure in this life. While my friends spin away from me on uphill sections...I'm struggling to keep up.

Keep in mind that I'm using an aluminum, rigid frame communter bike for something it wasn't designed to do...but it puts a smile on my face...and that's what it's all about!