Advice on converting a mountain bike into a road bike

madcabbage

Hi all,
Just looking for a bit of advice on this. Got a Specialized Hardrock sport which is donkeys years old now, but looking to set it up as a road bike (cant really afford to buy a road bike). Just wondering about what parts i should invest in? (Obviously slicks are a must!) Is it really worth while and should i just wait and get a road bike?

Chips Lovell

By all means put slicks on your mountain bike if you want to use it on the road.

But trying to convert it into a road bike is a bad idea. Mountain bike frame geometry is very different from road and you'd have to make a significant investment in parts to get there. You'll end up with a pig of a bike that would probably cost as much as an entry level road bike.

Tenzor07

madcabbage wrote: »

Hi all,
Just looking for a bit of advice on this. Got a Specialized Hardrock sport which is donkeys years old now, but looking to set it up as a road bike (cant really afford to buy a road bike). Just wondering about what parts i should invest in? (Obviously slicks are a must!) Is it really worth while and should i just wait and get a road bike?

Depends on what your aims are?

Do you want to do a tri-athlon, sportive?

Or do you want to travel down the shops or to the office?

In the first case.... Buy a road bike! Even with slicks your running with wider heavier tyres, a heavier bike, upright un-aerodynamic position, leaving yourself with more work to do...

Slicks are fine for general use, and some have extra puncture protection...

madcabbage

Wanna set it up for long spins really. Dont wanna fork out for a gym membership to get fit when i have a perfectly good bike. The father has a racer that i was using but id prefer to have my own one. Unfortunately im not working at the moment so cant really fork out for a new bike. Had the Ring of Kerry on the back of my mind so that would be the aim at some stage

fat bloke

You can't make it into a road bike but you could make it a lot nicer to ride on the road but just putting good quality road tires on it, particularly if it hasn't got suspension forks. I used to have an old specialized hardrock myself that I used as a town and commuter bike, normal forks, put fatboy slicks on it, pumped up to bejaysus and it was a flier of a bike. You could do something like the ring of kerry on that no bother. Plenty of people do it on similar and worse machines.

funkyjebus

This previous thread might be of use to you

victorcarrera

madcabbage wrote: »

... Unfortunately im not working at the moment so cant really fork out for a new bike. Had the Ring of Kerry on the back of my mind so that would be the aim at some stage

If this is all you want it for you should be able to pick up a second hand racer for 100 Euro that will do.

Keep_Her_Lit

OP, as pointed out, the optimum bike for long road spins is a road bike. But you already knew that, right?

I bought an MTB a long time ago for commuting and over time, as parts wore out or broke, I adapted it for road use. Although it can't compete with a road bike for outright performance, it's more than good enough to use for long, non-competitive events and is plenty comfortable.

Even with a tight budget, some changes should be within your reach which, collectively, will make a significant difference to how you find the bike on the road.

It isn't clear from your post how much cycling you've done in the past, so some of what follows may be in the "teaching to suck eggs" category. If that's the case, apologies in advance.

Some suggestions:


Slicks
OK, you've already got this covered but it's worth mentioning a couple of things. The narrowest and lightest MTB slicks only work well on narrow MTB rims, ideally 17mm. On wider rims, frequent pinch punctures can become a real problem. The rim labelling may provide guidance on the range of suitable tyre widths and pressures. Adhere to that advice. If you opt for a wider slick, say 1.5" or greater, don't go bananas with the tyre pressure, as this will give a very harsh ride, won't yield a significant speed advantage and may end up destroying the rim.


Clipless pedals
If you're not already using them, get a pair! Of course, you'll need shoes too but once you've got used to them, you'll never go back to flat pedals on the road, either with or without straps. When you learn how to get the most out of them, they enable a big increase in efficiency. More of your energy will get to the back wheel and you can supply that energy for a greater part of each pedal revolution. If you swap to a road bike and are still on a budget, you can take the pedals/shoes with you, so it doesn't have to be a short term or wasteful investment.


Riding position
In summary, get your head down and your arse up! The aim is to reduce the profile presented to the air stream through which you are cycling. If you're moving at moderate speed or above, the majority of your energy is lost to aerodynamic drag. There are obviously limits to what you can or should do and there's no point in adopting a riding position that you can't tolerate for more than 20 minutes. So a bit of trial and error will probably be needed.

But stick with it because this is one area in which you may be able to make useful gains without spending a penny. Make gradual, infrequent changes to your bars and saddle until you find the optimum set up. There's lots of advice around on bike fit, so take a look at some of that.

To lower the bars, you may be able to remove spacers from below the stem and/or flip the stem. If you have riser bars, you could also replace them with flat bars. Precautions:
- If the stem has a rise of more than 6 or 7 degrees, check that it is a flip-flop stem before flipping it, since some stems with larger rises are not designed to be inverted.
- Don't overtighten the stem bolts when re-fitting.
- Once you're happy with your riding position, you can cut any surplus length from your fork steerer tube, so that you don't have a potentially damaging stack of spacers sitting on top of your lowered stem. Obviously, don't rush into doing this irreversible job!

As for the saddle, most MTB's ridden on the road have the saddle set below the optimum height for efficiency/power. Depending on the bike fit and frame geometry, you may need to use a longer seatpost, with or without a layback, to achieve the desired height (your bike has a fairly steeply sloped top tube and hence a fairly short seat tube, so you would probably benefit from a longer seatpost). Don't be tempted to pull the existing seatpost out of the frame beyond the "Min-Insertion" mark.


Bar-ends
A lack of alternative hand positions is often cited as one of the main disadvantages of flat bar bikes. Bar ends can go some way to addressing this shortcoming. They are also a big help when climbing or accelerating. I always use the bar-ends, except when braking, changing gears or riding in heavy traffic.


Saddle
If you've got some big comfy sofa on there, swap it for something leaner. Bouncing up and down on a big squidgy saddle hinders an efficient pedalling style. A Charge Spoon might suit you and is a snip at ~€25. It might take some getting used to but will be helped by your new lower riding position which will provide a more balanced weight distribution.


Cadence & gearing
On the flat, if you're not used to spinning the cranks somewhere in the region of 90-110rpm (typically), it's worth working on that. Power and endurance are generally both improved, relative to lower cadences. A computer with a cadence function would help in "learning" that speed. Once it becomes habit, you'll find that you naturally gravitate towards that range.

Your gearing can help here. A close ratio cassette, with only a one or two tooth difference between adjacent sprockets makes it easier to stay on the boil, since you can change gear up or down without moving outside of your optimum cadence range.

If swapping cassettes, try to keep your 11-tooth smallest rear sprocket, otherwise you may end up badly undergeared. Many road cassettes have a 12-tooth smallest sprocket. That would probably be OK if you're running a 48-tooth large chainring but not if its only 42 or 44-tooth. Fast slicks also lower your gearing significantly, since they have a smaller rolling radius than the knobblies for which MTB gearing is intended. I run a 44-11 top gear on slicks and only occasionally run out of gears. When you do, just spin like crazy or alternatively, enjoy the freewheel!


Rigid forks
This would be one of the more expensive mods but well worth doing if you can stretch to it. Suspension forks are relatively heavy and they also waste a fair bit of energy, especially when you're out of the saddle (I'm assuming you don't have a lock-out on yours). When my forks broke, I replaced them with Kona Project 2, which were lighter, not very pricey and being steel, safe as houses.


Overall bike condition
True your wheels, adjust your wheel bearings, clean and lube all the relevant moving parts, treat yourself to new brake cables and pads, etc. None of this will cost much. A well maintained bike rolls along that much easier and is less likely to surprise you with sudden failures.

Good luck!

JayConlon91

actualy found that info helpful thanks

ednwireland

john tomac used to race on a drop bar mountain bike, back in the day

Raam

ednwireland wrote: »

john tomac used to race on a drop bar mountain bike, back in the day

Garage door looks nice.

NeedMoreGears

What Keep_Her_Lit said ^^

I did most of what KHL said to a Giant Rock MTB (front suspension only) and find it's grand for a commute of 21km. The only thing I haven't changed is the front shock - it does absorb a lot of energy but it makes things quite comfortable. I wouldn't like to be doing longer distances on it on a regular basis - it's about 10-15% slower than my road bike.

The thing was wrecked when I got it so I had to replace a few bits but essentially I got a reasonably acceptable commuter for the price of two tyres (1.75" decent slicks) and the effort of flipping the stem/cutting the handlebars. I also splashed out on two new grips for €3.95 because I wrecked the old ones cutting the handlebar

Sean02

Makes more sense to advertise for a exchange, perhaps.

piston

It will never be as fast as a road bike no matter what you do but old steel MTBs can be nice to ride when fitted with decent tyres and change the headset for something like a Stronglight A9 as the factory fit headsets in many bikes of this type are rubbish. This will improve the feel of the steering no end.

These type of bikes make excellent touring bikes as they are strong, durable, usually comfortable, decent brakes and have sensible gearing as standard.

Don't goo too narrow on the tyres, 26 x 1.5 or 26 x 1.75 is fine.