Originally Posted by bluehills3149

I built up this bike as a gravel/cross bike using mostly parts I had lying around but I think it came out OK. I first tried to do this using an old Fuji road bike that had 700 wheels but the brake clearance precluded any tires greater than 28mm wide (and even then it would rub on occasion). I was out walking one day I spied an abandoned Nishiki Sport that had 27" wheels (or at least it did before it was dumped sans wheels, bars, gears and most of its original paint...) so I hauled it home.
This frame makes a good candidate as 27" wheels are slightly larger than 700 so I can mount larger tires on it and not worry about frame clearance. There are a ton of old 27" bikes out there and some had halfway decent frames with forged dropouts, crmo tubing (double butted even) and these are the ones to get.
As the paint was shot and starting to rust, I slapped a coat of rust-oleum paint on it, just sanding enough to score the under paint but it'll no way win any awards. Cranks were from an old mtb bike with 22/32/42 gearing but I chopped off the 22 inner cog so it is now 32/42 and does not need a long spindle (which I didn't have anyway). Gears are what I had from an old road bike - 9spd Campy shifters, Tiagra rear derailleur, 12-26 cassette, (this is a Shimergo conversion which I won't detail here but the lever is modified to give correct cable pull). Brake calipers are mid-reach Tektro 539 I had on hand but cost only $28 on Ebay if you need to buy them. Normal short reach brakes would not reach the rims. Tires were the only expense and are 700x32 and they have plenty of clearance.
It rides well with brakes and gearing being good but if I was buying parts I would put on a cassette with more gears 12-32 perhaps and 10 spd would not go astray. It's also a tad small but that's another issue.