My Titanium Pheonix
Discussion
I have a very trusty steed which I would like to reinvigorate. It's a late 90's vintage DNA Ti Tube. A very rare hard tail titanium mountain bike.
It's built on a pair of Pace RC35 forks and an XTR groupset. All late 90's kit.
What I want to do is bring the bike bang up to date with a new groupset, discs and some decent forks but I have two barriers to overcome.
1. It's 21 gears. Can I update this to more modern 8 or 9 cassette gearing or will clearances be too compromised?
2. The forks can obviously easily be upgraded to disc but there are no rear disc mounts. So I have three options:
a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
Any ideas, suggestions or input?
It's built on a pair of Pace RC35 forks and an XTR groupset. All late 90's kit.
What I want to do is bring the bike bang up to date with a new groupset, discs and some decent forks but I have two barriers to overcome.
1. It's 21 gears. Can I update this to more modern 8 or 9 cassette gearing or will clearances be too compromised?
2. The forks can obviously easily be upgraded to disc but there are no rear disc mounts. So I have three options:
a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
Any ideas, suggestions or input?
Olf said:
1. It's 21 gears. Can I update this to more modern 8 or 9 cassette gearing or will clearances be too compromised?
It'll be fine - just go straight for 9sp as that will make your choice of shifters that much wider. Olf said:
2. The forks can obviously easily be upgraded to disc but there are no rear disc mounts. So I have three options:
a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
c) I run a front disc and rear V brake and it's fine. I do try to ensure that the V is adjusted so that the bite point is the same distance into the lever travel as for the disc but the difference in feel isn't an issue as you're doing more braking from the front even on a V brake-only setup.a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
Olf said:
I have a very trusty steed which I would like to reinvigorate. It's a late 90's vintage DNA Ti Tube. A very rare hard tail titanium mountain bike.
It's built on a pair of Pace RC35 forks and an XTR groupset. All late 90's kit.
What I want to do is bring the bike bang up to date with a new groupset, discs and some decent forks but I have two barriers to overcome.
1. It's 21 gears. Can I update this to more modern 8 or 9 cassette gearing or will clearances be too compromised?
2. The forks can obviously easily be upgraded to disc but there are no rear disc mounts. So I have three options:
a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
Any ideas, suggestions or input?
Can I have first dibs on your old XTR kit please? It's built on a pair of Pace RC35 forks and an XTR groupset. All late 90's kit.
What I want to do is bring the bike bang up to date with a new groupset, discs and some decent forks but I have two barriers to overcome.
1. It's 21 gears. Can I update this to more modern 8 or 9 cassette gearing or will clearances be too compromised?
2. The forks can obviously easily be upgraded to disc but there are no rear disc mounts. So I have three options:
a/ after market bracket but I'm not sure if they still make these and not sure if they are up to the job.
b/ Get a spcialist shop to weld rear a disc mount on but mount type, alignment, strength, welding technology for titanium etc all concern me.
c/ Run a disc up front and stick with v-brakes on the back. The difference in break feel and componentry concerns me.
Any ideas, suggestions or input?
Thanks for the info chaps. I'll follow up on the A2Z stuff. One website I looked at said you have to have an ali frame. Can't imagine they would preclude Ti?!
Anyway we shall see.
As for first dibs on the XTR kit, maybe, I've still got to decide what to do with my 1994 Cannondale SV2000 which is built on late early 2000 XT kit.
Old skool.
Anyway we shall see.
As for first dibs on the XTR kit, maybe, I've still got to decide what to do with my 1994 Cannondale SV2000 which is built on late early 2000 XT kit.
Old skool.
Olf, check the distance between the rear dropouts, they increased the width by 5mm going from 7 to 8 speed cassette, but kept the width constant going to 9 speed by making the chain thinner and closing the gap between sprockets....
Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
Sway said:
Olf, check the distance between the rear dropouts, they increased the width by 5mm going from 7 to 8 speed cassette, but kept the width constant going to 9 speed by making the chain thinner and closing the gap between sprockets....
Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
The hub width never increased, they made the freehub longer and the hub body narrower I believe, meaning the wheel needs dishing more.Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
Happy to be proven wrong though
Edited by Mr_C on Thursday 4th September 15:42
Mr_C said:
Sway said:
Olf, check the distance between the rear dropouts, they increased the width by 5mm going from 7 to 8 speed cassette, but kept the width constant going to 9 speed by making the chain thinner and closing the gap between sprockets....
Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
The hub width never increased, they made the freehub longer and the hub body narrower I believe, meaning the wheel needs dishing more.Although you will probably be fine pulling the dropouts apart by 5mm, and sliding the hub in.
Why not go for Magura hydraulic rim brakes? Stronger than almost all discs as the effective 'disc' is far larger with a similar power caliper, only downside is the loss of rideability if the rim gets pringled.
Lovely setup by the way, rode one back in the day and it was a truly sweet singletrack attacking beastie.
Would love an old Ti frame, be great to be able to clean a bike using lemon juice.
Sam
Happy to be proven wrong though
Edited by Mr_C on Thursday 4th September 15:42
yep, you're right, just trawled the shimano website. Should've remembered, it's not that long ago I built my lsat set of wheels.
Mr_C said:
The hub width never increased, they made the freehub longer and the hub body narrower I believe, meaning the wheel needs dishing more.
Happy to be proven wrong though
Partly right, the move to 8sp meant more dished wheels due to narrower hub/wider freehub body, but waaay back in the 7sp era there were two available widths of hub for MTBs, 130mm spacing and 135mm spacing. In many early cases 135mm hubs were actually 130mm hubs with a 5mm spacer whacked in on the NDS and dished to suit Happy to be proven wrong though
However this is a late 90s frame and IIRC the last of the 130mm stuff was churned out circa 92/93 (and mainly at the cheap end of the market), so there should be no frame spacing issues.
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