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whats the difference between a road bike frame and an xc frame?

2K views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  PCC 
#1 ·
i have an old gt mtb frame.. any reason i cant put a road fork on it, drop bars and 700c wheels, and have it reasonable to ride on the street? the bb height will be a bit high, but thats ok.

the stock suspension fork was probably 40mm or so, so i doubt the ac height is really going to change much.
 
#5 ·
Road bike frames have shorter top tubes. My all-weather commuter bike was built around a mountain bike frame that is one size too small for me to begin with and I still ended up getting a short 70mm stem and it's still a bit of a stretch to the bars. I normally use 100-110mm stems on my road bikes.

My commuter bike uses V-brakes but not just any V-brakes. I didn't get the Paul's BMX V-brakes because of cost and went with FMF V-brakes (half the cost and came with brake levers, cables, and housings, too). They have a 2" slot for mounting the brake pads, which allows me to raise the pads enough to reach the rim. With V-brakes you would normally have to use brake levers with a greater amount of cable pull but the pads are mounted so high on the arms that normal brake levers work just fine with these brakes. If your frame has disk brake tabs then you can probably get away with building disk brake wheels for your bike. Oh, yeah, I'm running 700X28c tires on my bike with clearance for fenders, too.
 
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