Meet Frank N. Bike

[wavedancer]

Having been bit by the cyclocross bug, the next question was what to do for a bike? I did my first race on my Fisher front suspension mountain bike with the 2-inch mountain tires. It was comfortable and familiar and worked well for the course of the first race. She was rather hefty at 27 pounds and so I looked to lighten her up a bit.

The second race I swapped out the tires to some Schwalbe CX Pro 1.35 26-inch tires and found that they worked fine and made the bike a bit lighter.

I felt too upright, though, and really wanted to try a true 'cross bike. There are very few options for those of us with 28-inch inseams (right Eden?) and I didn't feel I could really put out another $1000+ right now on another bike (just bought a Ruby Expert a couple of months ago). So with the help of my DBF we created Frank from my old road bike, the Fisher mtb, and a few additional parts.

We swapped over the Ritchey Biomax bars and 105 shifters, kept the XT mountain derailleur and cassette, ditched the front derailleur and used the single Stronglight 34T compact ring and cranks. I got a rigid suspension-corrected fork from Spicer Cycles, some Tektro bar levers, a Third Eye chain guard and a bash guard for the outside of the ring from BBG.

This got Frank down to a trim 22.6 pounds. He was really fun to ride at Gloucester and seems quite trail-worthy on not-too-technical single track. He's much more nimble on the road and will probably get ridden a lot this winter. It was great fun to help build a bike and to get a little better understanding of how they go together. So...meet my friend Frank

[Eden]

Frank looks great! I'd say you got the best of both worlds out of your rebuild.

Yeah - I couldn't find ANY adult cross bike that I could comfortably/properly fit. I ended up buying a used kids Redline and its working out pretty good for me. (I'm going to put the canti's on - they are just as cheap as a travel agent! and I'm not sure there's enough cable run, on the back at least, for a travel agent anyway)
I did see just recently that REI is offering a 26" wheel kids cross bike (my Redline is a 24"er), but I picked it up and I thought it was very heavy!

[alpinerabbit]

That's what I would like for some winter riding.

Now add that lockout Cannondale front suspension fork and I would be a happy camper. Can this be done?

[SheFly]

Wavedancer - congrats on getting Frank ready for his first race at Gloucester! It looked as if you were both having a great time. DH was impressed with the build as well, and your DBF looked pleased as punch that you were out there racing.

So, when will we next see you and dear Frank????

SheFly

[ehirsch83]

Frank looks so neat! Very cool.Maybe one day I can get you to make me a Frank!!

[onimity]

Frank is *such* a cool bike! Cooler too that you put him together yourself.
Nice work!

Anne

[tish's hubby]

thanks for the great pics of Frank, my wife was in need of a bike for some vermont country road riding and some charity road work and we decided to attempt a similar project. The key to BoF was a great adapter that Mavic makes which allows you to run 700c wheels on your MTB frame. Here is the result... hope you all like, it was a cheap way to get a very useful dual purpose bike out of an old MTB:

[Tokie]

Very cool! Good to know about the Mavic adaptors! Tokie

[wavedancer]

Sweet!!! She looks totally slick. How do you use the adapters?