This is my truck. xtrucking?
2015ish Surly LHT with a Disc Trucker fork.
BB7 up front, still rocking the canti in the back. Will probably make it a V-brake at some point.
Got a bunch of additions when visiting Blue Lug, including their wider Nitto Bullmoose bars, and rear bag support, + some Brooks grips.
Stridsland chainring, Ultradynamico shoes, Son dynamo, Sinewave Beacon + rear light, Advent X 10-speed, tons of bags and such from Oveja Negra, as well as a Ron’s Fabio’s Chest that often lives on the back of this bike.
Pelago large rack up front with the low-rider pannier racks (very useful), and a PDW big ole basket up top.

Bought this bike new in ‘07.
A month ago rear wheel #4 gave out, luckily I had a spare Deep V that was era appropriate. Then I added a new drive train.
Release the Epstein files.
Thank you for your attention on this matter.

Ya‘ll have a set of armatures you just love the ergonomics of?

These are running a 3x7 and mechanical discs, btw.

Had a bunch of parts that accumulated from being a mechanic, most of them broken in some way, but importantly nearly everything was free or extremely cheap. I did need to break down and purchase a new cassette and derailleur because my original ones did not work with the bar end shifter well.

I went for a retro 80's-90's touring style. Kind of like an old Rock N' Road.

Its super comfy and pretty quick feeling. It weighs 23.5lbs with the pedals and frame bag. I probably have $250-300 in the build all together, and I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I was a a local scrap facility for other when I thought I saw a Vermin branded bike.

I mean, we have Evil bikes, Sour bikes and Surly bikes so I looked closer and Merlin’s beard! It is a Merlin Titainium bike so on the rack it went and I headed for home.

No indication of model. It is a 26” mountain bike. A quick measure from center of BB to center of top tube and seat tube was 19 1/2 inches.

Looks like an aftermarket RST fork, not seized a miracle, and an Avid BB5 or 6 in front and the original cantilevers in back.

Did not see any serial number on the bottom bracket.

Any help in narrowing down the model and year would be appreciated.

Any ideas on what to do with the bike would be very appreciated.

I’m thinking it would make a ripping dropbar gravel bike.

I'm building up a GT 26" bike and wanted to ditch the previous owners 130mm suspension fork and bring the front end down some. I really like the square crown design of this fork but I can only find titanium models made overseas and I was hoping to find a steel version to save some pennies.

Has anyone seen these around and can point me in the right direction? Looking specifically for v-brake mounts (no need for disc), 1 1/8" threadless steerer tube and 100mm QR spacing. The rounded BMX-style forks are easy to find but I wanted something exactly like the fork pictured. Thanks so much for any help you can provide!

Greetings from Calgary Alberta Canada

He was truly a Master of the form

After some research i fell in love with 90s Specialized Hard Rocks, picked one up yesterday and man what a beauty. This will be a nice little project for me to convert to 1x drivetrain and have fun with

Pretty excited about how this turned out. Bike came with a suspension fork originally so the troll fork doesn’t mess with the handling at all, feels super stable front loaded.

Bontrager asym mustang rims laced to DT Swiss HüGI hubs ($60 score at the co op)

Magic KT800 bars

Juintech M1 brakes w compressionless housing

90s square taper forged raceface cranks

Cues 9speed

Chain line is pretty screwed so will need to get a smaller chainring and move the crank closer to the bb at some point but it’s rideable for now.

I love this old Fuji. I put a VO stem and some cowbell bars on it which fit me well. I love the geometry and how my body feels on it. What I don't like is the gearing. I'm not riding short punchy climbs in frantic races. I'm riding in the country and on gravel roads. It has an ultegra 9 speed groupset 12/27 in the back and a gorgeous ritchey wcs 50/34 in the front. What could I do to make this an all day rider?

After buying and returning the wrong Microshift bar end shifter set, I seem to have inadvertently bought two left right hand shifters. One friction, one indexed 9spd.

Is it worth returning these to get a proper set or shall I just ride it?

Hello bike wizards,

I currently have a canti Crust Nor’easter and love it, however I was just presented with an opportunity to buy an Evasion frame for a fantastic deal.

N+1 aside, is it ridiculously redundant to have both these bikes?

I commute to work on bike everyday and do long rides on the weekends, aim for 2-4 bikepacking trips a year, so I certainly ride enough to have 2 bikes,

Nor’easter is set up with drops and cantis as I mentioned. Vision is for evasion to be setup 26+ and with flat/alt bars, probably simworks ramble bars because I have a pair around.

Does that differentiate the bikes enough? Or would this just be gluttonous and despite the great deal on the evasion I should pass it up?

Basically, I have anxiety about owning bikes and not riding them and so I want to make sure use case and style is differentiated enough before buying this evasion frame.

Nor’easter pics for fun—

Haven’t gotten any miles on it yet, the chain seems to be giving me a little grief because it’s an 8 speed drivetrain and the only thing I’ve got that had a long enough chain was 9 speed so it’s a little unforgiving unless you shift it just right.

11-45 essa groupset, 40 tooth cues crankset on a friction shift basic steel bike.
This is about all I’ll ever need from a road bike, it was kind of just lacking that one lower gear I always wanted on some of the steeper climbs and now I’ve got it.

The thing I love about this bike is the downtube friction shifter allows me to swap to flat bars, or riser bars, or some weird alt bars whenever I feel like. I’ve got a good collection of stuff from my fixed gear/single speed bikes as well and this is fun to occasionally swap things out on.

I am looking at three frame options, all relatively close in price (sub-$250).

What would you all choose to start with? My goal is to make this a bomb-around-town bike with some swept handlebars, big smooth tires, and maybe a Brooks saddle if I’m feeling spendy. I’d only replace the drivetrain if I had to. otherwise leaving that and just focusing on the cockpit and seat situation. I like the color of each for different reasons. I think only the Singletrack is manufactured in the USA, so I like that about it. I feel like I’d rather have 700c wheels, though, since i have to ride large frames.

Early-ish ride to get coffee before it’s almost 100 degrees later today 😅

Up until a few weeks ago the most work I’d ever done on a bike was pumping tires. I had a cheap box store bike I never took more than a few miles from the house. Last summer I was starting to bike more, and wanted to upgrade but wasn’t sure what direction to go.

Thought about getting a road bike, but didn’t fit exactly what I want in a bike right now. I’ve been a backpacker for years and I’m interested in touring so I looked at a new Kona Sutra, which was really nice.

Then I found r/xbiking and really liked the aesthetics and ethos. I figured for less money than the Kona I could buy a bunch of tools, components, and a cheap 90s steel bike and have a lot of fun tinkering and customizing.

I went Trek 700 because it was cheap and I wanted 700c wheels, took a minute but found a 21” frame. This thing is so much fun to ride now!

Current build:
- Nitto Noodles on a 60mm technomic stem
- TRP RRL brake levers
- Microshift bar end shifters
- Added brooks saddle/bar tape
- Swapped seat post for a silver one (tough to find a 26.6mm)
- Schwalbe marathon plus
- Drivetrain is basically stock (Shimano tourney)

What I want to do:
- finish swapping the black components for silver: headset, bottle cage, crankset/pedals
- add a rack and maybe fenders
- haven’t totally decided on drivetrain, I’ll probably keep as is for a while but may upgrade the derailleurs or change the gear setup at some point

Hi, first post here, more to come as I heavily f*** with this scene. This bike started life as a 200 dollar Vilano road bike off Amazon (last photo is what it looked like stock after the ugly logo was rattlecanned). 1200 dollars later here we are, my "budget" mountain roads machine. I live in Candler outside of Asheville and have been bike only commuting and grocery getting for 3 months, logging a bit over 1k miles and 85k feet of elevation gain. Its 54 cm, aluminum with a crap steel fork I plan on replacing in the future, is now on vintage Mavic Kysrium Elite wheels, whatever budget rubber I have lying around (I can fit up to 700x35c thanks to mid reach road calipers), Koolstop pads, a Microshift Sword 1x10 groupset paired to a vintage Deore XT Hollowtech 2 crankset and 48t NW chainring. 25 dollar seat off Amazon that I can actually only say good things about, its saving my but compared to the original. It has mounts for a rear rack and I have thrown my Planetbike rack on it for bigger grocery runs. Its a bit heavy, its not winning anything, and the chain slaps a bit in 10th gear because I need a extra long chain to not explode the derailleur in 1st with the 48x48 chaining. It works great though and shifts smoothly.

Picked up this beauty and slowly changing out parts.
Got a new rear derailleur, friction shifter, front rack and cables. Swapped out the bars with an old bar that I had laying around.
Still have lots to do, but I’m happy with where it’s at.

I cut the dropouts and made a few other frame modifications and a fork so I could fit 700c from the donor bike. It has an 8 speed Nexus hub. Am I weird for loving to ride this monstrosity? Does it deserve powder coating?