i ssaw that on sf craigslist. I thought about it, but i thought it was some road that had been murdered with aftermarket track ends. Now after finding out what it really is, i hate myself.

It is, you shouldn't.

you'll love the bike! update us with pictures for sure :)
I'm still in love with mine after all this time! and out of my stable, I still ride my GT by FAR the most.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y14...hipoo/gtb4.jpg
heres what it looked like when I first got it.

Interesting, it def looks like a converted road frame given the geometry and the canti bosses. Take some closeup shots of the rear dropouts. Honestly even if it is $300 for it isn't bad if the conversion was done well. I've NEVER seen nor heard of a GT track bike with cantibosses.

So do we all agree that this is not the ultra rare potential Yamaguchi we once thought it was? Even if we do, it looks like the op has kind of a home brewed equivalent of a Bianchi San Jose, which is pretty cool.

That's almost definitely a road conversion. It even has water bottle bosses, cable stops, and canti pegs on it. Either that, or someone went through a lot of trouble to turn a Yamaguchi track bike into a mediocre road frame. Still a cool bike, I just hope the buyer didn't pay GT track-prices for it.

I'd be curious to see some real detailed shots, once it gets sand blasted.

I agree about it maybe being a converted road frame, because of all the braze ons and canti brakes and the rear spacing is too wide,... the fork is totally wrong, still I paid $325, and sold most of the original components already so the total out of pocket dollars was about $170, not bad for a really unique POS :D, and still WAY better than my motobacon.

I can't find a GT road frame that looks like this tho,..still lookin

rides: really good: wheelies all day, stoppies: nice and long, rides no hands very straight, but I'm thinking it doesn't handle QUICK like my friends bianchi pista track bike.

I'll change the fork and see what that does.

I went down to the blasters and he hadn't even started it yet, so I paid him, and said I'd bring it back in a week or so (because I was itchin to ride it) I have it set up now with the fixed running gear and it feels high in the front (which after looking at that fork, it is) other than that, I really like it.

oh and that thing has been on craigslist for over 3 months now, so you had plenty of time to go look at it :D

but don't lose too much sleep over it, the more I look at it, the more I think it's just a track end converted road bike. :D

That is a *****in' cross bike. Ride the snot out of it. Can't wait to see photos after the powdercoaters.

^ i can't believe that took that long. bfssfg is slippin'.

also, but no offense, but lol @ mistaking that for the any of the gt tracks, especially the shaklee custom, it's so tight and aggressive. and what you have looks like an 80's buick. also, you thought yamaguchi built an olympic team frame outta generic 4130?

honestly, i have a ****ty old karakoram that a roomate gave me... i threw 700s on it just to see what would happen, and it looked exactly like that.

you may have paid 300+ for a frame worth 25 bucks.

here's a photo of one (much bigger) with 26" & fat tires.

http://fixylife.img.jugem.jp/20070809_203428.jpg

my fork looks a lot like yours, btw...

edit: it's gotta be aftermarket, too new.

You might have a point although with the 700 wheels the canti brakes wouldn't line up.

yeah, but they already took a torch to it to add track ends (assuming the OP even knows what they are) so theoretically they coulda moved the canti bosses... i suppose that's really unlikely

actually, if i recall correctly, the canti brakes on the karakoram were rather adjustably not sure if there's any brake that could give you 40mm of play though...

also, the fork looks way too new for that frame, could just be an aftermarket cross fork designed for 700s, and that solves the front problem.

i dunno, i searched around for a gt cross frame, and nothing came up (with photos, at least) that would be old enough to still be threaded.

Even if that were the case (modded MTB frame) he paid $300 for a BIKE with a frame that unmodified, was probably worth $25. Getting canti-studs added isn't cheap. And all the other parts aren't free. No matter how you slice it, it's a decent price for a SS cross bike. Way cheaper than a San Jose or a Rob Roy, and it's cooler looking than both of those too.

i dunno, i took mine for a spin with 700s and the frame was very stretched out... it was really sketchy. i wouldn't ride it around.

also, he has no clue who did the modifications... could be very unsafe. at the very least i would have it blasted and checked out by someone who knows what to look for, before powdercoating.

just seems sketchy to me... dude claimed to be an olympian, and claimed to be selling a track bike; he's obviously full of ****.

and if it's a modded karakoram, i believe that's a pretty low end model, ie sold at costco.

2 bikes that are designed to be ridden on 700s, it's irrelevant.

I tried to justify my purchase of a Ford Escort once. Didn't work.

it came with canti studs, and the calipers were pretty adjustable, as i mentioned above, the bike is 6k miles away, so i can't be sure how adjustable, but i have seen fairly long adjustment slots on vbrakes.

dunno, i could be wrong and it may be some cross model that gt put out, but if i am right, it's a bad idea.

i wondered if it coulda been a cool beater/funnybike & every mechanic i asked told me it was a dumb idea, and one said it could put more stress on the frame, due to the longer wheelbase. safe or not, it definitely handled like ****.

That fork is definitely designed for 700c wheels. I'd bet the A-C height is roughly the same between the other forks. The only other real change to the handling would be a slightly higher BB, but that shouldn't make that big of a difference. Maybe your wheels were messed up? I'd bet he rode it around before he paid for it too.

No argument there. But sketchy != ripoff. Sometimes it's just sketchy. Even if there is a rear-brake malfunction, that's not a death sentence. Not even a walk-home sentence. Quite fixable.

You have no idea what you are talking about. Karakorams were a relatively high-end model for GT. Went for around $800 new, full LX drivetrain. GT made tons of frames like that, what makes you think it's the same as yours?

re: the fork. i already stated that it's most likely not the original fork. it's pretty mint & chrome... the bike's been painted, what, 3 times?

re: him riding it: no offense to OP, but he thought it was a track frame when it had canti & bottle cage bosses. he obviously doesn't have much track frame knowledge.

um, i was talking more about having some brazed on track dropouts and having no clue if it was someone's highschool shop project or whatever. all i recommended, if he insists on keeping the bike that is totally not what he thought he was buying, is that he has it checked out.

also, as i said, i had a mechanic say it could totally stress the welds to be riding my frame around on 700s, due to geometry changes... i'm not a frame builder or an engineer, so he could be completely wrong and i probably wouldn't know, but it felt sketchy to me.

ok, great i'm glad it's a better mountain bike than i thought. as i said, i acquired it for free and didn't really research it. and it only took a spin around the block to realize it wasn't a great conversion option. while it's a pretty cool looking frame, i assumed there is nothing too special about it. regardless, it's a mountain bike being sold & setup as a track bike. all you have to do is look at the photos, it's not built up how its supposed to be... look at the wheelbase. any steel road bike would be a far better conversion option.

afaik, mine it was a mix of reg. deore & LX components, which is definitely not high end stuff... budget 'pro' gear. and that's neither here nor there, because these 'coveted' (decade + old, maybe close to 2) components were stripped off before he got it. i've got mine in a box if you wanna save on your next build.

again, this may not even be a karakoram. all i ever said is that it looks like mine when i threw 700s on it. and if it is, it's probably pretty dumb to be buying one to play track bike on. and if it's not, it's a super slack ride that has been torched and ****ed with. dude should ask for his money back.

It doesn't take "track frame knowledge" to tell if a bike is rideable or not. It really only takes the ability to ride a bike.
You're jumping to tons of conclusions like you did before. All we know is that the seller didn't know much about the bike and made some stuff up. It could be a converted road bike, cross bike, or mountain bike. It may have been done by a reputable builder. It may be the frame that Christ rode into Jerusalem. You can't say that because it looks kind of like a junky bike that you had once that it's definitely a horrible bike that has been chopped to bits by a blind dude with a blow torch.

I'd really like to know how 700c wheels are going to endanger the frame.

lol, that's why i've said, in all of my posts, that i could be wrong, and he should have it checked out. it might not even be safe. i never said it's definitely a junk bike... just that it looks exactly like a rather old bike that i haven't found enough of a use for to build up.

regarding it being a road bike, i really doubt someone canti bosses onto some slack-ass gt road bike, but whatever, they went through the trouble to put track/bmx dropouts on some slack 4130 frame, maybe the previous owner had yamaguchi do it cause he was racing offroad in the olympics or whatever.

my only 2 points were that he didn't get the GT track frame he's been running around the forum bragging about and that he should have it checked out.

There was a period of time before widely-available cyclocross frames when crazy roadies and bike shop rats would just torch cantis onto decent road frames.

I've owned a pogliaghi and a 3rensho that have been butchered in that manner, and they've held up just fine.

http://i18.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/d9/72/b0b0_1.JPG

http://images.craigslist.org/0101110...1719004a6e.jpg

gt road bikes were pretty aggro, btw.

and were threadless in the late 90s, so that's one more thing you can use to determine what your bike is. i'm guessing GT didn't have a dedicated cross bike in the mid 90s.

like i said, that coulda been bull****, just the advice of a mechanic frame... now that you got me wondering, i'm thinking he may have been talking more about squashing the 135 spaced frame down to 120.

just saying, this:

http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a2...Ttrackbike.jpg

looks a lot more like this:

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...3&d=1188080550

or this:

http://www.geocities.com/alicestrong...t/karknew2.jpg

than this:

http://www.fixedgeargallery.com/2007...rcDiVall-1.jpg

or this:

http://i18.ebayimg.com/01/i/000/d9/72/b0b0_1.JPG

It looks a lot like that last one to me.

um look at the tire clearances (seriously, it's like 3x), smaller triangle, the protruding top tube on his, the canti bosses...

ignore the fork and bars for a sec.

i'm not worked up, really, but i'm pretty sure he didn't buy a road and damn positive it isn't a modified track frame.

This is just about the only way that it could hurt the frame. It sounds to me like the mechanic doesn't know what they are talking about. Changing wheel size does not affect the the wheelbase since the axles don't move. Also the overall diameter of a 26" wheel with a fat tire is not that far from a 700c wheel with a skinny road tire. This should not stress the frame as long as everything fits.

The main problem with 700c wheels in a mtb frame (aside from brake mounts) is that it just looks plain silly. There's just something wrong with having two inches of clearance between your tire and your frame. I've done it, changed it back. Maybe your mechanic has done this too and was trying to come up with a reason not to create another frankenbike with kludged together parts.

Not that there is anything wrong with kludged together bikes (like most of mine).