Converting a road bike to a hybrid

[Blue Hills]

Quick thoughts.
Flat bar - for general purpose or even rather fastish and rather long rides.
The term "hybrid" came I think from the fact that though they had 700 wheels there was a certain MTB heritage - more compact frame than bikes of old, sloping top tube. Gearing closer to MTB than classic road bikes.

I'd never have got back into cycling as an adult if it weren't for hybrids.

My first such thing was a Ridgeback Adventure.

Now years later the bike industry has rediscovered the Adventure label.

(and along the way it rediscovered steel)

Such is the world.

 

[DCBassman]

And converting an actual road bike to flat bars and wide range gears is surely the very definition of where the idea originally came from. A super-light roadster, to recall the old term.

 

[12boy]

I have always thought that relatively light bikes with north road bars and 3 speed SA hubs such as were common in Britain from the 30s through the 60s were actually pretty much what hybrids reinvented.​

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

The only other thing to mention is that you won't be going to a hybrid but to a road bike with flat bars because you obviously won't have that hybrid geometry with taller head tube, sloping top tube and higher BB.

Glad you pointed this out. The term "hybrid" is often being wrongly used these days to describe any bike that isn't a drop bar road bike nor is it a knobbly tyred MTB. The first hybrids were really that; usually a beefed-up touring frame with a decently high BB clearance and room to have both sensible tyres AND mudguards both fitted at the same time.
I wouldn't consider anything unable to take at least 35mm tyres with mudguards fitted and having a wheelbase of less than 40 inches to be a proper one.

 

[DCBassman]

I wouldn't consider anything unable to take at least 35mm tyres with mudguards fitted and having a wheelbase of less than 40 inches to be a proper one.

I consider my Scott a hybrid in the correct sense of the word in that it is a 'bitsa', with one type if frame and another type of running gear. It certainly isn't what the marketing bods would call a hybrid.

 

[Gunk]

Personally I wouldn’t bother, you can pick up a decent used hybrid with hydraulic brakes for around £250 which is built to do the job, plus it will have lugs for mudguards and racks.

Something like the Boardman Team hybrids are a bargain used.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

I have always thought that relatively light bikes with north road bars and 3 speed SA hubs such as were common in Britain from the 30s through the 60s were actually pretty much what hybrids reinvented.

In the sense of a utilitarian bike, yes. But in overall terms, no. An English Light/Sports Roadster cannot really be considered to be quite the same genre of bicycle as an 80's-onwards Hybrid with MTB-style bars and wide-range MTB-derived gearing. I own and ride both types of bike, and for casual knockabout use with minimal care, the 3-speed Roadster is unbeatable. However, my Hybrids with their 27", 28/28 bottom gears will get me up gradient that would have me walking up if riding a 3-speed with a low gear of 50". The downside of course, is derailleurs are not so convenient for stop-start traffic riding, and are more easily damaged. But flat-bar derailleur bikes were nothing new; models such as the Raleigh Richmond existed years before and were marketed as day touring/leisure bikes. It's those Lightweight Tourist bikes that can be considered the true ancestors of the modern flat bar road bikes.

 

[12boy]

You're correct Skip Diver John, but I was kinda thinking between the drop bar bikes with sewups and derailleur and the very heavy utilitarian bikes with baskets, fenders and fully enclosed chainguards, the North Road 3 speed filled a niche. Although my ignorance of British bike history is infinite wasn't the bike I am talking about sort of a poor man's transportation, good for getting to work and shops and then light touring on the weekend? I've always loved the idea of an unpretentious bike that can do many things pretty well.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

Although my ignorance of British bike history is infinite wasn't the bike I am talking about sort of a poor man's transportation, good for getting to work and shops and then light touring on the weekend? I've always loved the idea of an unpretentious bike that can do many things pretty well.

That's exactly what they were, and the more basic spec of a Light Roadster with 26" wheels, cable brakes and a hockey stick chainguard made the bikes more affordable than a full-blown Heavy Roadster with rod braked 28" wheels, and a fully-enclosed chaincase. Don't forget that many models were also sold as single speeds, for those on the tightest budget, although the vast majority of buyers must have paid their extra £2 10 Shillings (or however much it was) for the SA hub gear option, because single speed Roadsters are now a very rare sight.

 

[12boy]

Sometime in the early sixties my folks gave me a red " Schwinn Racer" which was a single speed with a level top tube and north road bars. I rode it all over the streets of my neighborhood and on the dirt paths of the mesas running up to the Sandia mountains east of Albuquerque, NM, usually with a Winchester 22 rifle or a bow and arrow. Many bottles and tin cans were dispatched and great times were had, and amazingly enough none of us were shot or injured in this foolishness. Most of the Schwinns I saw then were very heavy, curved top tube, balloon-tired behemoths that later became the early California mountain bikes, and I thought my Racer was hot stuff in the day.