Exactly. I’ve even gone one step further with the “suspension” fork. Oh wait..... now they do that as well. Always wondered about the “relaxed” geo and asked what’s the difference ?

I think its so funny how many people ripped hybrids and now have nice cross or gravel bikes they've put flat bars on. My fried did it on his Long Haul Trucker and jokingly said he'd spent $2k to get a fancy 90's mountain bike.

Ahhh... the perfect people for me to ask this question. Whats the diff between gravel and hybrid? Is it just the drop bars? Im getting a bike soon and im kinda confused. I saw a hybrid the other day where u can lock out the suspension to ride on roads and some dont have those. And i always thought it would be harder to turn on a trail using a drop bar than a flat.

@@ryanqz Usually gravel biking is considered more gravel roads than trails, although you can do both, so tight turns aren't really a big concern. Hybrids are generally a bit more upright with flat bars. Most I've seen are more upright than most gravel bikes. Check out Spindatt's vidoes: "What is a Gravel Bike," and "Gravel bike or Cylocross Bike."

That's exactly it. You're taking a bike to get battered by rocks and you're gonna cry when your super expensive bike has stone chips and dings all over it.

I hope it never gets painted! Haha

Yeah those decals are horrendous

@@alexdcpe I don't really agree the decals are horrendous, but everyone has different taste.

Thanks Ronni!

That made me laugh cause I recognized myself in that statement. Lots of good frames, lots of parts. But....it makes for some fun experiments in swapping parts. If only I better understood things like those darn pull ratios etc.

If you go on reddit you should check out the xbiking subreddit. Or just search for it on Google if you don't. It's loaded with great builds like that and other old steel mountain bike conversions.

Have you swapped out the fork and if so, did you go with a shorter axle to crown fork?

@@rochat no, I probably will eventually. the geometry is all wacky. but I want to go as cheap as possible to start with

S. Ivers Yup, couldn't say it better myself! Out on 4wd trails we can easily see the difference in built and bought. When the 'bought' rigs break down, guess who gets 'em fixed so they're not blocking the freakin' trail??

Same here! Before I started wrenching in a shop I loved tinkering on my own bikes almost as much as riding them. Since I've started wrenching, my customers (and patients) use up most of my patience! Haha! All I want to do is ride on my free time! I haven't worked in 3 weeks now and I'm getting all of my 7 bikes up and running! Ive also ridden almost every day. But still I mostly ride my singlespeeds due to their reliability and low maintenance. I'd much rather ride than wrench anymore! My next build for this week is a drop barred 26" Bridgestone MB3 with a Marzocchi Bomber fork. It will be a 'dinglespeed ', one gear at a time with several gear choices that you get off the bike to change. It's motivation to pedal harder! I know it's weird. I'm bored and I love simplicity.

My favorites are Nitto RM013 Dirt Drops 52cm wide! And more recently the 46cm Ritchey Venturemax. I wish the Ritcheys came wider! Ive tried VOs Far Bar and a couple others too, but I don't care for bars with lots of flare. It makes the hoods and other hand positions less desirable and less comfortable. The Nittos are pretty deep drops and require a high stem. But the control of all that width and leverage is wonderful. Plenty of hand positions or room for a large h'bar bag too. The Ritcheys are nice in that the drop is fairly short and they have back sweep on the tops. I like riding in the hooks all the time now! Most riders coming from the road side of things don't understand that offroad you want a more upright position. Handling rough terrain and steep descents is much better. Long rides, comfort and your neck will thank you for it! Offroad you don't have as much control while riding on the hoods! Dirt Drops, gravel bars, flared bars etc, are designed to be ridden primarily in the hooks, where you have the most leverage for steering and control and best leverage on the brake levers. The BEST THING to do is get the tops of bars near level with the saddle. That often requires a high stem. I like the Velo Orange Cigne and Happy stems. A little bizarre looking but much better than high rise stems and a huge stack of spacers. Seriously, take those roadie fit 'rules' and forget about them. Wonderful adventures and looooong rides await those who are comfortable.

Cassette is 11-42

@@aybee69 Only heard him say chainring was.

@@thegefster1988 👍🏾

Yes!

Martyn Gregson Tinkering at some new idea is always fun. If you're adventurous, try a singlespeed commuter. I live in a hilly area, but geared right, it's fine. It makes me stronger, a better pedaler, it's cheap and very reliable. Fixed gear is a blast, a brutal workout in hills, but most modern frames won't work easily.

Semi hydraulic disc brakes such as TRP HY/RD are a good start.

Not trolling. What's "semi" hydraulic ? I get mechanical or hydraulic

@@YoungDoug13 normal cable to the caliper, but there it activates by converting the cable pull into hydraulic pressure basically mechanic lever and hydraulic caliper

I went wheels first, but I think the brakes that are mentioned here is the better way to go

Douglas Young The best hand built wheels you can afford would be my first pick, then Avid mtn BB7 mechanicals and Cane Creek V levers/bar end shifters. I'm not a fan of brifters. I tour to remote uninhabited places. I want stuff thats extremely reliable and easy to maintain/repair far from civilization. Unless you build wheels and can find good old parts those wheels might break the piggy bank! Shimano loose ball hubs are great, easy to service and affordable! But wheels are ultra important, it's not worth compromising in my mind. I don't trust prebuilt wheels either. Especially proprietary junk and low spoke counts. I gotta know who built them. Then again I love building them as a small side business. I build with mostly used parts for my personal wheels . I find killer deals and own over a dozen sets, all ghetto tubeless. Wheel building is my favorite part of bike mechanics!

This is coming!

you can do it. Just take your time and be patient

@@Spindatt anything i should know about changing the shifters? Have to tell you that SRAM 1x I saw on Posseidon's site is tempting tho!

As far as brake power goes, there's not a big difference between Vs and cable discs. IF they're decent quality brakes set up well. BIG IF! That's the most important. Many mechanical discs (especially road!) are shockingly bad and won't stop the bike while pedaling and pulling the brakes hard at the same time. SHAME on manufacturers for supplying such garbage! Comparatively, V brakes are super simple and light. Good quality Vs, salmon Koolstop pads and ceramic rims (hard to find anymore) work as well as strong discs in wet conditions. Have you tried compressionless cable housing and some fancy cables yet? Maybe different pads/rotor? They can help firm up the brakes. My customers with TRPs like it! It saved them lots of dough! I use it too. We sell Jagwire Pro Kits at my shop, about $40 I think. Avid BB7s are the best mechanicals Ive come across, the mtb variety. Its what I use. Ive worked on those TRPs before but never owned them, but they didn't seem bad. Unless your frame has both disc mounts and canti mounts your talking a new frame or a visit to a frame builder. Its could be less expensive to just get hydro brakes and brifters, but I know this is NOT cheap! You may even be better off with a different bike. But I'd try that housing first. Its relatively cheap!!

@@rollinrat4850 I have the original Specialized Diverge. I'm not sure what the underlying problem, but this setup (TRP with QR) just seems super finicky. Every time I take the wheel out and put it back in, the disc brakes rub. Trying to find the balance of not rubbing and having reasonable pull and braking power is just a pain. I currently have the original (circa 2014) Jagwires. The pads are fairly new. Might have slightly warped rotors and/or stretched out wires. I'm debating going old-school and getting something like a cross-check with V-brakes or ponying up for hydro disc and thru-axles in a Cannondale Topstone 105 or Trek Checkpoint ALR 4. Either way, I'm looking for more tire clearance so I can fit 35-40mm tires with fenders in the winter. The old diverges were limited in this respect - more endurance road bikes than gravel bikes.

Brad Thomas The issues aren't caused by the QRs as long as you close them with the wheels bottomed out in the dropouts properly. Im pretty sure your problem is you're running your pads with just a tiny bit of clearance to the rotor. There is no room left for even a tiny bit of error or rotor warpage. That's why they alwaysrub. Rotors normally warp slightly going through their heat cycles. You are forced into the pad clearance issues because your cable housing compresses a lot, using up your valuable lever pull. This is a normal issue on cable discs. Some stock housing on new bikes is horribly cheap- cost cutting on brakes really SUCKS! As an example, Take a piece of brake housing, cut it apart to look at the coiled wire inside. This is what is compressing. Now cut apart shifter housing, it uses linear wires which resist compression for shift accuracy. But you can't use shifter housing on brakes. It's unsafe! The cable WILL burst out between the linear wires. Compressionless brake housing uses the linear wire to resist compression, then wraps a Kevlar sheath around the linear wires to resist bursting. I'm a shop mechanic and bike tinkerer of 50 years, I'm also a machinist and pretty good at fixing all sorts of things much more complex than bikes. I'm almost positive that housing is your issue. I think it's well worth a try if you like your bike otherwise. If not you're just out $30-$40 and a little labor. My customers have had the same complaints with the exact same brakes. Ive done this upgrade many times on many different cable discs. One guy was ready to swap over to full hydro. I convinced him to try the housing solution even though I could have made a big sale, even though I got chewed out by my manager! I value this particular customer, hes a good guy with a very sick child, I try to help him out. He came back a week later with 2 cases of beer for us! He claims his brakes are nearly as good as the Ultegra hydros on his road bike. Happy, satisfied customers are what make all the headaches worthwhile! PS One piece of advice, never buy a Creakenfail (Cannondale). One of the crappiest , cheapest NOISIEST brands on the market even at the high end. My large chain of bike shops dropped them due to all the issues and complaints. Be vary wary of what you buy nowadays. The larger bike industry preys on unknowing and nontechnical consumers. Its all about sales, marketing and the bottom line. Marketing is almost pure BS. Not much different than brainwashing or propaganda!! I bet you would probably be happier if you were still riding on rim brakes huh?

@@rollinrat4850 Good stuff! Thanks for the advance. I'll give it a try.

Brad Thomas Here is the stuff I sell :jagwire.com/products/diy-cable-kits/2017road-pro-brake-kit I've also used Yokozuna housing on my own bikes. I prefer Japanese or USA made products personally.

1 1/8. I’ve seen this a lot of these hybrids for some reason, and it’s awesome for these projects!

@@Spindatt awesome to watch this budget gravel bike! For its condition i think it is better than your Poseidon atm

rw b Ive used Cane Creek's V levers on a couple bikes with v brake and discs. I think they're made by Tektro as well. Ive seen similar Tektros. They work well with my Avid BB7 mechanical discs too. The hoods are big and comfortable. I did break one of the plastic lever bodies in a crash. Being a brake lever, I wished it was metal! The only complaint I've had is they rattle from vibrations a little. I ride my bikes on lots of rough trails. Never be tempted to use those Travel Agents with brifters or plain road levers. Those are the pulley cable pull adapters. They require a new cable every time you remove it and they take away lever travel and good feel. Besides that, brifters don't handle dirt or abuse well and they're very expensive to replace. Ive used bar end's for many years. My Dura Ace bar end's indexing wore out after 'only' 25 years and now Im friction shifting. With modern chainrings and cassettes, friction works great!

There’s a few of them!

Lol definitely, I don’t remember which one I’m thinking

@@Spindatt apparently, according to wtb website, You ment Tour Divide 😅

That’s the one!

hahaha that's put exactly the way i was hoping someone would

Lol I almost brought you up in this video because I knew you would say that haha! Like you said before, it was a fun build, it’s just more reasonable to get the Poseidon

I pretty much did a drop bar conversion on an old 26er mtb. Might do another drop bar conversion on a hybrid...lol

No it’s a real Easton fork