cptsilver

I posted this in the MTB forum but it doesn't seem like people have any idea, so reposting here hoping local socal guys here may know something, hope it's OK.

I just dug my 20 year old KHS Montana Summit out of my garage. I'd like to repurpose the frame as a commuter bike, put some 700c tires on, something like a hybrid. I plan on getting some used road bike parts off of ebay, but the problem is I don't know much about MTB parts, and there's not much info on the web on the bike.

Right now the bike has some kind of rigid threaded fork, I'd like to replace it with a threadless one so I have more options on stem/bars combo. Will I need a new headset? What size of fork do I need? How do I avoid from ruining the geometry too much?

I'd also like to replace the drivetrain with something like a SRAM Rival set. What type of crankset does it take? Do I need a new bottom bracket? What kind?

I need some of that info before I do my searching for parts. Any help or info you may help would be great appreciated.

Thanks much!

Flying Merkel

Get a road bike or a hybrid off Craigslist. Tune it up. You'll save money and have something that works. I've gone down the re-purposing road and ended up with a bike that cost more & didn't work as well as if I had left it stock.

Or spoon on some 26" street tires to the KHS and try it. You might be pleasantly surprised.

cptsilver

This frame has sentimental values to me so I don't mind spending a bit to make it work. I'm hoping to find a bit more info on what parts I should be looking for. Thanks much for your reply!

Flying Merkel

Here's a helpful link starting:https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...ie-conversions!

skidder

First: Try posting in the Commuter forum; you'll get lots of good input there, especially if you post a pic of your bike. Instead of committing a bucket-load of $$$, try these two simple changes 1) get some 26" street tires (26 x 1.5 or 26x2.0) and see how they work 2) If the gearing seems too low for street riding, see if you can find a bigger chainring for the crank that'll also fit the frame (a bigger road-type ring should fit on a 20 yo MTB crank since the frames were basically beefed-up road frames); this option might also requrie a longer chain. From there you can change the pedals if needed, maybe some different grips, also a rack to carry cargo, too. That should be enough to get a good idea of how your bike works as an commuter. I wouldn't worry about a threadless fork or other major stuff - that gets spendy, and usually doesn't give you the 'bang-for-the-buck' as the above changes will.

spinerguy

That's going to be a little difficult.

Road tires won't fit your MTB frame.

MTB componenents and Road components are not compatible. Seeing that your bike is 20 yrs old you won't even be able to upgrade to newer 8-9-10 speeds because there is no clearance on rear dropouts (frame spacing) and getting new old stock parts is going to be rather difficult and can be time consuming.

A good shop can give it a good tune up, surely is going to need some parts like cables and stuff, slap some skinny road tires on it, and that's the best that bike will ever be.

cptsilver

Are the newer cassettes wider? It currently has 10-speed, do any of the modern MTB transmission parts work? I think I'll start with putting some 1.25 or 1.5 tires on and a good tune up. But I'd like to upgrade the drivetrain eventually. Thanks.

cptsilver

Oops, counted the wrong cassette as I had a road wheel on to test. It was a 7-speed cassette originally. Rear spacing is 130mm. What are my options now? Did they stop making parts for those bikes now?

Yo Spiff

Here's what I did with a similar bike. Put 26x 1.5 street tires on it (Panaracer Paselas). Upgraded the brakes from cantilevers to linear pulls. Added drop bars, Suntour Barcon shifters and Tektro levers. Plus a Brooks B17 (A luxury, but I like Brooks). If you want the choice of all the threadless stems on the market, you can buy a quill to threadless adapter for under $20. I just stuck with the quill stem that was already on the bike.

Not a great pic, but here's how it looked on my first bike commute:

Commuter scooter by Yo Spiff, on Flickr

Yo Spiff

On the cassette question, my Trek has an 8 speed on it that originally came from a 2000ish Gary Fisher. It's a little bit of wiggling to get the rear wheel into the dropouts, but not too bad. For this purpose, I'm more concerned about the gearing range than the number of cogs. 7 speed would have suited me fine as well.

cptsilver

Thank you! That gives me hope. Did you have to get new deraileurs to work with the new cassette?

Yo Spiff

The existing derailleurs work just fine, but I'm using friction shifting, which doesn't require specific spacing. The bike originally had upright bars with Shimano thumb shifters. Index shifting with them worked poorly, as the bike originally came with a 6 speed freewheel. Fortunately, shifters from that period had both index and friction modes.

cptsilver

Wanted to post an update. Got a tune up from LBS, put on some spare parts I dug out from the garage and gave it a shower. Just got some new tires on today. Here's a picture below. Thanks again to those who helped!!

drg007

looking really good.