Originally Posted by
mechanicmatt
This thing is awesome. I have a MC in the box still in the garage because I can't seem to get to building it. What size tires did you have on there.
Thanks! Yeah, I am partial to it.
The tires currently on it measure 38mm- Vittoria Hypers that sadly stopped being produced a few years ago.
Its been a really incredible frame- it spent 4 years as my gravel bike with 2x11 modern drivetrain, old 80s SunTour canti brakes, and 40-43mm tires.
It lived a short time as a single speed flatbar bike with 50mm tires that I used to ride river bottom flat singletrack with my kids.
It was then turned into a 3x9 touring bike with front and rear racks for panniers and a dry sack, only to be limited to a few weekend camping trips because covid hit.
And now its what you see here- same touring drivetrain with an old Sakae triple, but I now have some cheap and good vbrakes in place of the SunTour canti brakes, so the levers were changed to long pull too.
I looked for a long time to find a wide platform front rack that attaches to the mid-fork mounts, but there was nothing in stock for months and months(besides custom). If a porteur/pizza rack like that existed, I would have for sure picked it up and use a bag like an ILE rack bag.
But this setup works great. I need a Wald 139 basket because I carry a 15" laptop and thats too big for the 137 basket. The 139 is BIG(barely fits even with so much space due to the large frame and 44mm bars), but I got the Swift Motherloaf bag on deep discount and am happy with the result. There is no wonky handling, even when there is 10# of stuff in the bag.