Mountain bike with road wheels, is it possible

[User65906]

Hi everyone
There is an old Carrera Kraken mountian bike
laying at my sons house, he said it is in rough shape,
no dints though, he just abandoned it when he got his
Trek Domane and took to the roads.
Is it possible to buy two road wheels and put them on it,
something that will take 32 to 38 tyres.

Or are the ale spacings different, the bike uses quick release
as far as I remember.
I don't remember what gearing is on it so not sure how
successful it would be on the road.

The other big issues is front fork, it would need to be replaced
with a solid one, any idea of what fork will slot in there, I would
like to use a good strong one like for Cross or even mountain bike
work, I don't know the head tube angle so if someone has done
this on such a bike may be they could recommend a fork with a
suitable offset for road riding, stable being the key.

I ask as the frame and the rest of the bike will just go to waste and
if possible I would rather rescue it, I have been looking into getting
a rough road bad weather bike for the winter and was looking at the
Boardman ADV 8.9 which also uses an aluminium 7005 frame and
this sparked me off thinking about the mountain bike conversion.

Any advise welcome, thanks

 

[NorthernDave]

Rather than buying new wheels, you should be able to get some slick / semi-slick tyres to go on the existing wheels for a fraction of the cost of a whole new wheels / tyres set up..
A mate of my has done that with his MTB for road riding.

 

[User65906]

Rather than buying new wheels, you should be able to get some slick / semi-slick tyres to go on the existing wheels for a fraction of the cost of a whole new wheels / tyres set up..
A mate of my has done that with his MTB for road riding.

Thanks NorthernDave
Any idea regarding a solid front fork for the Kraken,
or what the bike is like for speed, covering ground is
something I need to do, may be not possible on such
a set up, but am hoping someone can fill me in on such.

 

[cyberknight]

MTB has a rear dropout spacing of 135 generally and road bikes are 130 mm .
As said above you could put slicks on it and it would make a reasonable winter commuter , i have a subway which i did a drop bar conversion on.
Using 26x1.5 city jet tyres it goes very well on the flat , slower than my road bikes on hills but then again its a good 6 kg + heavier

I went for bar end shifters for cheapness as road shifters can be used but the front STI has a different cable pull to MTB so i would have needed a road FD, brakes too have a different pull on MTB to road so i use linear pull brakes that pull the correct cable for mtb discs.To use the STIs i would have had to change..
shifters
brake calipers
front mech
MY set up means i have changed the shifters to bar end and brake levers to linear pull.

 

[NorthernDave]

Thanks NorthernDave
Any idea regarding a solid front fork for the Kraken,
or what the bike is like for speed, covering ground is
something I need to do, may be not possible on such
a set up, but am hoping someone can fill me in on such.

While a lot of it is down to the rider, a modified MTB is never going to be as quick on roads as a road bike, or even a hybrid.
It would depend on what you'd be using it for - and how much you'd want to spend on an old MTB frame?
It could be easy to spend far more than the bike is worth getting it back on the road - or spend as much a you'd pay for a decent entry level or second hand bike that fits your purpose better.

Last weekend Halfords had their entry level road bike, the Carrera Virtuoso on at £220 brand new and ready to ride, for example and Decathlon have entry level road bikes from £249. There are lots of very nice bikes around second hand at that sort of money too.

 

[User65906]

Hi cyberknight
Thanks for the info, I can see for the wheels that a tyre change will suffice.
I have never done much mechanicing on a bike, always just kept them for
a while and updated so not even much maintenance was required,
this leave me in the dark regarding how the components differ,
I like the idea of the drops, and the brake levers you used,
will keep your set up in mind if i go ahead, will look into the cost
before I do anything though.

 

[User65906]

All I remember of Kraken when my son got it was it was a whole lot
lighter than my 7005 voodo agwa, and I mean a lot, this is why I do
not want to dump the frame, for with lighter road type tyres, and a
straight fork, the bike would be lighter again, so why spend on new.

 

[cyberknight]

Can you lock out the front forks ?
Try that with slick tyres and see how you go 1st , as @NorthernDave says it could cost you an arm and a leg to do the conversion , i got the shifters second hand for £20 and the brake levers were similar so £40 even as a cheap job but it was for me a technical challenge anyway and i prefer drops anyway .
Your probably best looking for a new CX style bike ,i know that halfords do a vanquish disc for £425, less BC discount .Does look a nice winter bike .
http://www.halfords.com/cycling/bik...uish-disc-mens-road-bike-black-51-54cm-frames

 

[User65906]

Thanks cybernight, I had a look, my roads are not that good,
I would not trust that bike on them, hens the mountain bike
idea, or the likes of the Boardman ADV
http://www.halfords.ie/cycling/bikes/road-bikes/boardman-adv-8-9-mens-adventure-bike
or their Cross bikes, the cross looks to have a tougher front fork which is appealing,
http://www.halfords.ie/cycling/bikes/road-bikes/boardman-cxr-8-9-cyclocross-bike
but the price goes up when I would have to remove the tyres and replace
them with more slick ones, so the ADV may be on the cards.

 

[Salar]

@Silvercycler

I've shown this before, but this my mtb conversion, just slicks, a rigid fork from On One, flats, bar ends and a few other mods, all easy to do.
I could have bought a cheapo hybrid, which I did anyway as you can't have too many bikes, but this has a Deore XT groupset and I like it a lot.
I've future conversion plans for this to make it more laid back.

 

[Drago]

Krakens have decent frames. They ride particularly well on Cityjet 1.5s. The Suntpur forks arent brilliant, but they have lockput. The weighty wheels are the biggest handicap, but the frame is decent enough to make upgrading them worthwhile.

 

[cyberknight]

Of the two it depends onwhat you want , the CX has a 1x11 and knbllier tyres and the ADV is 2x10 and slicker tyres .otherwise there is not much between them.
If your doing mostly road or path then i would personally go with the ADV

 

[User65906]

Of the two it depends onwhat you want , the CX has a 1x11 and knbllier tyres and the ADV is 2x10 and slicker tyres .otherwise there is not much between them.
If your doing mostly road or path then i would personally go with the ADV

Yep, mostly road, just don't want to waste the frame of the Kraken, the ADV
is more road orientated, if it had the stronger front fork of the Cross I would like
it more.

 

[User65906]

Krakens have decent frames. They ride particularly well on Cityjet 1.5s. The Suntpur forks arent brilliant, but they have lockput. The weighty wheels are the biggest handicap, but the frame is decent enough to make upgrading them worthwhile.

After my recent speed wobble the last thing I want is a suspension that could lead
to another wobbler, heavy wheels all right, but I do not know what to replace them
with, as I do not know the difference between the fork widths, and how to overcome this.

 

[User65906]

Hi Salar
Nice bike, I like the components too.
Are they wheels original mountain bike ones, or wide road wheels.