[QUOTE=acoffin;16018974]
Originally Posted by
corwin1968
I'm very happy with mine. I'm middle-aged and very fat so I have it set up with high handlebars. I can put on my 32mm Vittoria slicks and it's very sporty and agile or I can put on my 40mm Schwalbe Duremes and it's a very cushy ride while still maintaining a good degree of agility, due to it's 73 degree head angle. While it will never be a lightweight road bike, if someone were to outfit it with light wheels, skinny tires and lighter components, it would be a very serviceable road bike. Built up with all components, including pedals and heavy saddle, my bike weighs 26.5 lbs with the 40mm Schwalbes and about 25.5 lbs with the 32mm Vittorias. That's with heavy 40-spoke touring hubs and rims, a heavy triple MTB crankset and an uncut steerer tube. No weight weenie stuff at all.
I rode a Trek multitrack or a Trek 7.2 FX from 1995 to 2012. Both basically have MTB geometry and the Devil absolutely blows them away for sheer fun. The roadish geometry works better for my riding preferences. Suspecting that kept me from going with a Surly LHT, Soma Saga or even a Surly Cross Check or Soma Double Cross. The Devil is closer to a Surly Pacer but with longer chainstays and heavier tubing. I wanted a cro-moly frame that had roadish geometry but that would also take fat tires and canti-brakes. That's a pretty rare combination.
This bike deserves it's own thread. I think many of us in the C&V community would like hear about your likes and dislikes regarding the frame and your build. It looks very sensibly put together to me
Thanks! It's not C&V in any sense of the term but my build is heavily influenced by the hybrids from the early to mid 1990's. Decent level (Deore) MTB components for the drivetrain (48/36/26 and 11-28 9-speed) and V-brakes, good, custom built touring wheels, heavier and wider tires, uncut steerer tube to get the handlebars high, comfy split Serfas saddle, cheapo but decent components for things like seatpost, stem, headset. I've got friction thumb shifters on it now but once I make a firm decision to stick with mtb handlebars I'll put Deore trigger shifters on it. The bike has quite a few braze-ons if I ever want to mount racks or fenders.
Likes:
Love the geometry.
Like the ability to run fatter tires
Like the shorter top-tube
Appreciate the flexibility to run a SS/FG drivetrain
Like the versatility of the frame
Some of my likes are double-edged swords.
Dislikes:
It doesn't quite have enough clearance to run the tires I really want to try.....Schwalbe Big Apples
I would prefer vertical dropouts because they are easier to work with and I'm unlikely to ever run it SS/FG.
The blue doesn't really work for me with the crankset I chose. I would have preferred silver but couldn't find an external bearing crankset with the ring sizes I wanted. Doesn't matter because at it's first overhaul I'm going to have it powdercoated black.
I spent almost two years planning the build and collecting components and I couldn't be more pleased with the bike. It's a true all-rounder for my purposes. As you can probably guess, I was influenced by Grant Petersen and Rivendell Bicycle Works but I prefer a more sporty bike than what Grant currently advocates.
My long-term goal is to finally have a custom frameset built and I would probably just copy this bikes frame but change the clearances so I can run Big Apples, set the chainstay length at 44-45cm (44.5 how it's set up now) with vertical dropouts and I'd probably have to slacken the headtube to 72 degrees and extend the rake of the fork to accommodate the fatter tires I want to run. Plus, I would get the builder's expertise in choosing the best tube-set for my particular style of riding.