Originally Posted by
staehpj1
I may buy a gravel bike, but in the mean time plan to ride the Cannondale more than I have been to gauge how much I enjoy the bike. There is a lot of nostalgia there, but also it is still a nice bike in many ways.
To me two of the bigger advantages of a gravel bike in the choice I proposed are tubeless and disc brakes. No reasonable way that the Cannondale can run discs, but I have considered going tubeless on one of the wheelsets. I happen to have a set or Stans Ravens in 26 x2.something. They are tubeless rated and I'd be willing to try them tubeless on the non tubeless rims. The thing is that back in the day we believed in narrow rims, so I built the wheels with Araya RM 17 rims. Any thoughts on running fat-ish tubeless tires on a skinny non tubeless rim without tubes? I know that these days wider rims are in fashion, but the RM17s have worked fine for the last 32 years with tubes. Will going tubeless somehow make them a terrible choice? Burping, poor seating, something else?
A friend of mine used an older Cannondale mountain bike for his first two tours, he then started to invest in other bike frames. He liked that Cannondale a lot but eventually sold it when he was not using it much.
I use an older Bridgestone mountain bike as an errand bike, grocery store trips, etc. It probably handles a lot like your Cannondale. I am keeping that bike. It is pretty rusty, but it works just fine.