In 2020, while living in Austin, TX, I built up a hardtail mountain bike. I lived about 3 miles from the Brushy Creek Regional Trail, so it was a wonderfully convenient place to hit a few trail during my lunch break. It was great. In early 2021, my family and I moved back to Fresno, CA. Unfortunately, there are few immediately accessible trails that are suitable for that hardtail, so I decided I’d be better off with something like an alt-gravel bike for cruising around the mostly flat city and hitting some of the trails near Woodward Park.

As you are probably well-aware, it’s been hard to come by bikes during the pandemic. Austin had a very active, used bike scene on CraigsList, which is unfortunately not the case in Fresno. Fresno’s bike Craigslist scene is flooded with low-end, abused Huffy, Magma, and Schwinn bikes. They’re extremely overpriced and not worth building up into something decent. To complicate matters, there seems to be one individual buying up all the 90’s era mountain bikes and trying to resell them for >$400.

The Frame

Instead or trying to find something local, I decided to search EBay for a frame to build-up. I already owned a ‘98 Gary Fisher Big Sur, but I wanted something made of steel. The plan was to use most of the parts from the Big Sur to build up a steel, alt-gravel bike. I managed to find a ‘96 Gary Fisher X-Caliber frame made of Reynolds 853. Better yet, the frame had already been repainted. The color was a slime/lime green that wouldn’t have been my first choice, but was totally fine. I paid about $80 for the frame and shipping.

The Fork

Having secured the frame, I needed to sort out what to do for a fork. The Big Sur had a RockShox Indy XC with 60mm of travel. It was surprising good for a used fork that had never been serviced, but the steerer tube was too short for the X-Caliber. I managed to find a rigid steel fork from here. The Carver fork has a slightly shorter 410mm axle-to-crown length than the stock fork on the original X-Caliber. The difference was something like 5mm, which I figured was close enough. My only concern was pedal strike since the Big Sur ran 175mm cranks. To mitigate this concern, I’d run slightly larger tires to avoid dropping the bottom bracket too much. Since I had already bought new tires for the Big Sur that were larger than stock X-Caliber tires (2.1" vs 1.95"), I was in decent shape there.

The fork was fitted to a run-of-the-mill FSA headset. Since the headset had sealed bearings, I notched the crown-race to get it to fit to the forks without any special tools. I kept the entire steer tube intact because I wanted a very comfortably rise. 90’s mountain bikes are notorious for their short rise and long reach.

The Drivetrain

The Big Sur came equipped with a perfectly serviceable Shimano STX drivetrain. The shift levers were a little worn out, so those had to be replaced with a compatible MicroShift alternative, but the derailleurs, chainrings, and cassette, were all perfectly usable.

Despite the usability of the STX drivetrain, I decided to go with a 1x setup. When I had built the hardtail in 2020, I had intended to put a Shimano XT 11-speed drivetrain on it. What ended up happening was the drivetrain arrived well after the rest of the bikes parts (by several months), so I ended up setting the hardtail up as a single-speed. I enjoyed it so much, that I never bothered putting the XT drivetrain on when it finally arrived. That meant that I had a new XT drivetrain just lying around waiting to be used.

I did however need a front chainring that would fit the crankset that I already had for the Big Sur. I found this. Unfortunately, when it arrived it didn’t quite fit the Sugino crankset, but after some judicious filing, I managed to get it to fit.

The XT cassette and derailleur installed without further issue despite the fact that the freehub body was originally for a 3x8 setup.

The Cockpit

The seat that I had on the Big Sur was awful. I splurged on a Brooks C17 Carved. Having endured bad saddles in the past, I was no longer willing to make that compromise. I wanted the bike to be comfortable to ride.

The Big Sur had a 90’s era RockShox suspension seat post. It fit the frame after I bought an appropriately sized seat post collar. Despite the weight of the seatpost, I was pleasantly surprised by how well it worked. It offers just enough travel to offset some of the larger bumps that aren’t mitigated by the tires. It’s interesting to see the current resurgence of suspension seats posts for gravel bikes given that they were sort of a “thing” in the 90s. I’m not sure I would have gone with a suspension seat post if I had to buy one now, but since I already had one on-hand I figured I’d go with it.

The handlebars are Velo Orange’s Granola Bar. I had originally purchased these bars for my wife’s bike, but she didn’t like the sweep on the bars and said they hurt her wrists. So I’ll call these parts bin handlebars despite the fact that they were essentially new.

The Wheels

The Big Sur had 26" rims attached to generic Gary Fisher hubs (130mm rear, 100mm front). They were actually quite good, the problem I had was that I wanted to run a tubeless setup and after multiple attempts to get the 26" wheels setup and failing each time, I gave up and opted to convert the bike to 650B for better tire and rim selection.

This was easily the most expensive change and arguably not worth the effort.

After some research, I found that sourcing a 650B wheelset that was both tubeless and rim-brake compatible was a little challenging. Eventually I found a wheelset from VeloMine that fit the bill. The rims were Velocity Cliffhangers and they were laced to standard Shimano Deore hubs.

The Brakes

Depending on your luck, the brake calipers you were using on your 26" rims may have enough adjustability to fit the new 650B rims. With some hacks, I was able to get my Tektros to work, but I was pretty uncomfortable with the setup. Again, I decided to splurge. This time on some Paul Motolite V-Brakes. They were very expensive, but I managed to rationalize the purchase by telling myself that they would be the last brake purchase I would ever need to make for frames with cantilever studs and that this bike would be my primary mode of transportation for the foreseeable future. Was it worth it? I still don’t know. They are no doubt better than the Tektro V-brakes that came equipped with the Big Sur, but whether they are 5-6x better, I sort of doubt it. I don’t regret the purcahsed, but I do find myself occasionally re-justifying it to myself. At this point, I’m telling myself that they shouldn’t be terribly difficult to sell for similar value if I moved on.

I’m using the original Tektro linear pull levers from the Bug Sur.

The Tires

With the 650B setup I had a lot of options for tires, but at this point I didn’t really have the budget for something really nice. Also, product availability was still challenging. I found some Specialized Sawtooth Tires in 650bx42mm for $13 a tire. The reviews seemed quite good and several people reported that they were easy to setup tubeless. Figuring that price couldn’t really be beat, I purchased a pair.

Setting them up tubeless was ridiculously easy. I was able to use a floor pump to seat the bead, then I removed the Presta valve core, injected some Orange Seal, reinstalled the valve core, and reinflated the tires. It was unbelievably easy. I was glad to be able to do it on my own without an air compressor because my LBSs were charging $50 (per tire!) for tubeless setup even if I had the rims already taped and valves ready to be installed.

The tires offer a smooth, fast-rolling ride with enough suppleness to keep things comfortable. I run them around 25-30 psi and that does well for this area.

Maybe if Soma gets the Cazaderos back in stock, I’ll give those a try. I’ve also considered some of the Rene Herse and Panaracer options, but the Sawtooths perform well enough that its not all that urgent.

Decals

To spice things up a bit, I’ve added a couple decals. The first is a possum playing a banjo. I placed that one on the seat tube in roughly the same spot you might find the corresponding decal on a Surly. The second was depiction of The Tower from Tarot. I’m not superstitious, but I appreciate the symbolism of The Tower. It’s usually taken to mean some combination of danger, crisis, sudden change, destruction, higher learning, transformation and liberation. It seems fitting for a renovated 90’s adventure bike. I bought both stickers in monochrome as a nod to the punk DIY aesthetic. The stickers were both purchased from RedBubble.