Building a Bike with an Upright Ride Position
This is the storey of how I built a low budget bike £200 using aprts from my mountain bike that is more suited to my every day needs, I wanted a bike that will carry lots of shopping in panniers, was uprite, and had a comfy saddle. This assumes that you already have a mountain bike that you are willing to take apart for parts.
I have owned an old orange mountain bike which I built ten years ago, and the ride position was very racey, so now I like to pootle around it was getting uncomfortable.
I saw a chap riding a
Thorn Touring Bike which is basically a mountain bike with a very long steerer tube, and a comfy saddle (there is a lot more too it than taht, but for descriptive purposes. . ). Thorn Bike Frames are lovely and I wanted one but they do cost a lot £400 plus, so I resolved to combine some
Thorn Mount Tura Forks with a generic aluminium frame I purchased off of ebay for £80. There are tonnes for cheap MTB frames for sale on Ebay under £100, you may have a suitable frame already. My old orange had a 1" head set, and so I couldn't get any suitable forks. Most modern forks are 1&1/8".
Looking at this picture what you see is an ungainly rather peculiar looking bike, but infact it is comfortable, practical, and fun to ride. You can look around without breaking your neck. You can still go off road, not too fast obviously. After a 2 hour ride you feel significantly less tierd than you would on a normal MTB all bent over double in a hoop.
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