Hi all,
I have a gravity g29 (cheap rigid Ss!) that I have been learning to mountain bike on.
I ride the Mohican IMBA epic on it. Slowly, but i make it! It's 25 miles long and quite hilly, and I've never seen another rigid or SS there.
I wanted to upgrade the fork and brakes and I decided to paint it at the same time. This is one of my first bike builds and I went from this:
to this:
I painted it olive drab, flipped the stem so it didn't look so dorky, and got a salsa cromoto grande fork on eBay. It is about 40 mm taller, and raked out 45mm or so. I also put on some supposedly better brake pads but we'll see if they're truly better tomorrow!
I do have a quick question, as this is the first fork I ever swapped. My stem is about 42mm tall
and my steerer tube is too short. I bought it on eBay when I didn't have access to my bike lol. Anyway, the steerer tube sits about 8mm below my stem. 
that's a little much, but 80% of the steerer tube is still secured in the stem, so I THINK I'm fine, unless you good folks tell me otherwise.
if I was doing jumps, getting crazy, etc., I may worry, but I'm not.
what say the group!?
I'm a weird mix of "can't get something I don't like out of my head" and also a hack, which is weird because by profession I am an engineer. But, I didn't like the thought of the stem not fully grabbing, and being a hack, I ended up with an insert to put in my fork.
Looks like this, and yes, it is JB welded together (hence the hack).
I will jb weld that to the fork tube and it will give my stem something to clamp down on.
Also, I'm deciding on bike plans.
I have a road bike that I converted to SS. I like it very much and will keep it.
I want to buy a "real" mountain bike this season or next season.
I will convert this rigid SS to a gravel grinder by adding some drop handlebars, etc.
So I'll have a 3 bike garage, which will pretty much cover all my needs!
Hack worked perfect lol
Took her on down to Vulture's Knob in Wooster, Ohio, and rode as hard as I can personaly ride, which is probably not that hard lol. Fun place though!
Nice clean build! I like the fix for the steerer tube.
There's a general bicycle thread over in the off topic forum with a bit more action if you ever have questions or want some advice
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/grassroots-pedalsports-do-we-have-a-bicycle-discussion-thread/139662/page1/
Whoa- I had no idea! Thanks! I'll post up my stuff there sometime.
In reply to rustybuckets :
Just be sure that there is at least a couple of mm of space between the top of the steerer tube and the top of the stem. if they're flush, then the stem cap can't do it's job and clamp the stem down onto the top of the headset.
In reply to shagles :
Yup, left about 3-4mm and torqued the stem cap bolt to spec. Thanks for the check!
In reply to rustybuckets :
Cool. I'm really liking the look of the bike. How's the new fork ride?
It's 100 times better. That little bit of rake makes me a lot more confident on the downhills. The exra length seems much better suited to the frame also. It's about the same rigidity, but being as I'm new to the sport, I probably couldn't sense much change if there was any.
I just picked up a minion front tire for it because I was sliding all around. I'm going to try the minion front, stock rear and see what it handles like. Mostly because this is a cheap bike and I don't want to spend too much. As long as my next bike is a 29, I can still use the tire though.
My paint job is absolutely horrible though haha. When I get a new bike and change this to a gravel bike, I may do a "real" paint job. We shall see.
Old boring:
new hotness:
maxxis minion dhf 2, and tubeless conversion.
not so sure what i think of the tubeless (aka- did I do it right?), but these tires will give some much needed bite!
In reply to rustybuckets :
Cool story and Vulture's Knob (which I had to look up) is about 2 miles from my parents house.
In reply to OHSCrifle :
If you're into mountain biking at all, you gotta try that place out!
