26” MTB to 650b Gravel Adventure bike conversion | custom Gary Fisher Bike

In this episode I’m going to be pushing what I think is the limits of what an old 26er steel frame can be converted into – by making this Gary Fisher Wahoo into a gravel adventure bike.

Starting with the frame, I’ll be adding wide range 2×9 speed gearing, 650b tubeless wheels and even disc brakes!!!

This is one super slick build bike fans, and the end result speaks for itself in my opinion! I think it looks amazing, plus it rides great too!!! – but you’ll have to wait for another video for a proper look at that!!

The build couldn’t have happened without a little help from Dave and Jack at www.pickeringsbikes.co.uk – based in Measham in the Midlands – thanks guys!!!

Without them, I wouldn’t have been able to fish the wheels out of the scrap and rebuild them, easily tubeless them or get those awesome ass savers parts to finish it off!!

If you like my content please like and subscribe to @Downhillsmoothtarmac

Find me on Instagram too!

#cycling #bike #gravelbike #retro #retromtb #bicycle #mtb

Oh no just got a wet ass the roof leaking again flipping a down here Dave was right as was of fun what is up folks welcome back to downhill smooth tarmac it’s another Workshop episode and it’s another bike build again I have been tempted by a

Frame out of the blue spotted this Gary Fisher w who frame and had some ideas it’s adventure bik time you may remember I built a specialized Hard Rock adventure bike back in the summer of 2023 truth be told it’s too small it’s not working for me so I’ve decided to

Use some of the parts off that on this but that is the thin end of the building wedge today I think this build is going to be about as far as we’re going to be able to push a 26 or frame without welding on tabs and that sort of thing

On this bike I’ve managed to Source some rigid exotic something something Forks to go with it that are straight going to either go for some flat bars or some drops we’re going to make it into a 650b adventure bike with cable operated hydraulic disc brakes got some disc only

650b Wheels got some pan aaser gravel Kings got a mixture of subcompact gearing and a nine-speed at the back with 1140 something like that we really are going to push this Frame to its limits it’s a humble Gary fish aaho it’s nothing massively special What drew me

To it is the fact that it’s this really lovely shade of purple that is one of the things that we’re going to start with after the credits is a proper cut and polish then we’re going to move on because the wheels that we’ve got for

This we found in the scrap at Dave shop myself and Jack have put some new bearings in but that’s only the start because got to Che those bad boys up so roll the credits let’s get started into time lapse the cut and polish here we go Gary Fisher Wahoo adventure bike roll them

Okay so while that car Uber wax is drying on the old frame behind me it’s time to True up these wheels these wheels are fulcrum racing 66s red 60 something something found these in the skip uh while they were going in the skip at Dave’s and we have

Managed to put some new bearings in them CU they were completely seized up we’ve managed to put some new bearings in and the only that’s left to do with them now is give them a true up right so this wheel has got quite a serious

Buckle in it so just going to work at taking that Buckle out let’s cut it into a time lapse we’ll come back when it’s a bit trer cuz that is eggy okay so that actually wasn’t too bad the back one was pretty buckled nothing we couldn’t sort out and the

Front one actually is perfectly usable especially as it’s a disc wheel I’m not relying on rim brakes here so within a couple of M of Tolerance I’m happy so that’ll do for this kind of build especially considering got to remember got the wheels out of the bin so they’re

Not going to be amazing but they are amazing because we saved about the bin right back to the frame let’s get that CaRu off okay so by way of recap we have teac cut this Frame so we cut out any scratches that we can sort of get and

We’ve added a coat of caruba wax just to give it a good bit of shine and protection now we’re just going to take that off whatever we’ve got is what we’ve got a lot of these frames really you’re just looking for a bit of shine especially if you’re doing a vintage

Road bike you’ve seen the levels I go to with the road bikes there a lot more to it want to touch the scratches in with a bit of paint and that kind of thing these trying to build an adventure bik so I don’t need it to be a perfect paint

Job I do like a nice paint job it’s all about the color that purple color is so so cool with those Wheels with the Flur yellow on it’s going to look the business and I think you’ll agree that this has come up really nice it’s got a

Little bit of wear like Uniform Wear on the Gary Fisher logo but should we call it patina let’s call it patina I am more than happy with that tell you what else is nice about this Frame is all the cable routings up high so for an adventure pipe that’s pretty

Good or is it going to be a gravel bike there a temptation to go drop bars on this again because it’s such a large frame but I don’t know I’m bit bored of drop bars at a minute anyway there we go we need to get ourselves a headset for this cuz just

Realized we haven’t really got one of those got one waiting in the wings though it’s not make it dramatic I’ve got one nice silver one it’s coming off another bike that we don’t ride let’s go find that we can press it in that’ll be exciting okay so headset press time

First thing we’re going to do is just put a little bit of grease in here one is to ease the fitting two this is steel so anything we can do to protect it is good next going to get the cups I’m going to rest them where we

Need them to go just going to rest them in place at that oh these are going to be a snug press which is good get your headset press or your threaded bar with your washers or you block of wood with a hammer I ain’t judging you I’m lucky enough to have a headset

Press and I’m down while going to your it mine isn’t the most expensive so we have to thread it all up so come among yourselves there we go right now let’s make sure these are going in straight probably when you got a wonky eye I don’t like using the spacer shims

With this headset press because they have a habit of eating the cups there we go meanwhile those people that have hit theirs with a block of wooden Hammer I’ve already finished there we go now it’s time to take this out and we’ll introduce the new fork okay okay so let’s introduce

The fork Fork is brand new and it is even in its box from it’s upside down for you but the well-known eBay brand exotic carbon so I bet you’re getting all excited thinking oh yeah carbon Fork that’s going to be great well it’s not carbon to get over yourselves it’s

Aluminium I think or for those of you watching a across the pond aluminum but it’s brand new it takes discs Al takes V brakes as well which is kind of cool and that is it it’s even got a race on it it’s even got a race on it ready so

Going to put some grease on it bang some bearings in and some spaces and see how this is going to look it’s very exciting got old school grease on this because it’s what I’ve got there’s actually already a starf angled nut in here I don’t know if this has already

Been cut at some point but it’s quite long I’m hoping it’s going to give me loads of spacer room because actually with this going into Adventure bik territory I want lots of spaces which a little bit is down to the fact that I’m not as young as it used to be can’t

Can’t be leaning over at my age joking pop my head wow that’s quality oh I think I used to stock these in my shop remember where this came from now these are the budget of budget I think they’re ni Neco something like that whatever they are I’m not going to

B smch the quality they work as a headset but I think we’ll leave it at that let’s get a stem thankfully we got a stem here ready and waiting cuz we’ve just fit done chopsy a bit of a bike fit oh that’s lovely look at that oh yes that gives us our first

Taste of how this bike is going to look I think it’s badass it’s Neo retro of the highest order I think that is and it’s cool headset’s nice let’s wipe off the excess grease before we get any older what do you think of that what a

Build this is going to be the ultimate retro mountain bike turned into adventure bike this is so exciting I reckon we’ll put a bottom bracket and some Wheels in it next okay so before we get into to the bottom bracket details and cranks and all that stuff you’ll

Notice yeah CH lost me out I was getting away by bracket stuff ready anyway here’s a little bit of beginners info for those of you that might be wanting to fit holch bottom brackets holch 2 in fact which is this because on the outside not the inside yeah it’s one of

Them you get two types of these you get Road and you get mountain bike if you’ve ever fitted one you might have found that the mountain bike one came with three little spaces and there is a reason for that and that is because mountain bikes can have different size

Shells here this is the shell either 68 or 73 mm so those spaces account for the extra if you’ve got a mountain bike with a 68 mil shell what does that mean for the Fisher well it means that we ain’t going to be using a road crank that’s

For sure because it’s going to be too short so we’re going to have to fit a mountain bike one with a mountain bike bottom bracket so we’ve got this de here that is going to be our chain set but not with these chain Rings we’re going

To go for 3822 so we got some good climbing gear for when this thing’s carrying load by which I mean my fat ass right let’s get a bottom bracket in there funny enough behind me here’s one that I prepared earlier it’s almost like been mucking about finding the right one

So can just thread up the uh shells with a little bit of Grease just a little bit to keep those steel threads happy then we’re going to thread these in make sure right hand left hand remember right hand Cup’s going to have a left-handed thread so don’t go turning it the other

Way put in my hand first should clean these mess these ones are going to require a little adapter for the tool goes on like that and then the tool itself which is one of these you also get them as a socket if you’re a little bit more decadent here we go tighten it

Up and then do the same again fly enough there we go to wipe it down with your oily rag because it’s a mess there we go it’s a beautiful thing right now go off camera and get the chain set ready like this there it is just like that on the Cooper

Um look at that SLX chain Rings 38 20 well it’s only be a 24 but I think that’s a 22 actually is what I had that’s going to be all the gears all the gears right we’re going to put it on little bit of grease on the shaft we’re

Going to fit this up you not fitted one of these before they’re really really straightforward just double check everything clears the way it should that’s catching excellent the inner chain ring doesn’t work that inner chain ring is actually hitting the bottom bracket so we’re going to have to put another one

On Cut to that not feeling tested at all um just found a 24 even better in Black so that’s going on send that home that’s what we want that’s my finger there we go now it’s clearing lovely oh yeah never put one of these on before that

Easy well easy for me to say put the other crank C on the opposite way obvious you might think but no I have seen it done at skewy Angles we don’t want skewy angles take the cap this is just a tension of this cap we don’t need to tighten it up till it

Stops what it does is it takes out any excess tension in the crank against the bearings now if you tighten this all the way up what’s going to happen is your crank’s barely going to turn and you’re going to lose precious and valuable wattage and we don’t want

That so once you’ve got the slack taken up you’ve got a nice free flowing bottom bracket it’s two bolts on this side to be cranked up evenly and then torqued at the end so I’m going to do this by hand for now and then I’m going to torque it

Up on my final check there we go you haven’t seen this on camera but this is actually been a long time coming I’ve mued about with that many different ratios of Gears that this makes me really happy so next thing we got to do is put a deria on going to fit right

Deria for this is going to be something like this with a top pull we also ideally want this Arch to match this this which hopefully it will I’ve about to use a Christmas cracker Allen key because one of my Tang tools has just gone missing again so

Excuse this this is a touch big so I’m going to use a metal shim just to bring it where it needs to be and if we keep it low with one of these type of bottom bracket should mean that we can use all the bottle cages without being

Impeded make sure it goes on straight I think that’s probably about right judg you by the tools I’m using my next job is to build a Billy book case for my gear consent professionalism here at downhill smooth there we go let’s get a re one

Got some XT for that next up rear deria time got ourselves some XT it’s pre it’s pre dinisa I’m guessing it’s nped all I know is it’s got some new tax jockey wheels on it and I’ve used it on a few projects and it’s it’s bomb prooof goodness

Basically so I’m going to see if we can get this to go on cuz I think I damaged the threads on this once no no no it’s fine it wasn’t this one it was one there we go lovely make sure it moves smooth I’ll tell you what else

We’re going to do while we’re here I have no idea if this chain is going to be long enough it’s the one off the adventure bike I’m going to bang it on so it’s done then and we’ll see where we end up I reckon it’ll probably be all

Right might as well just get it in place ready for the wheels cuz that’s next Wheels okay so this is the first fit of the wheels and here we have them fulcrum red 66s since discovered that these originally would have been on a cube it just means they’re a reasonable quality

Whe they got uro bearings in now so they’re more than capable that is in look at that oh my goodness there’s something about that first fit up of a wheel where you just get a real chance to see how it looks that is lovely oh

Got a kned skewer tried to go Gucci with the skewer kned right let’s get an old school one old school skewer that’s what we’re going for this bit of old school Shimano that’s it wheel is in let’s have a look at that first impressions my word that chain is too

Long and it’s falling up minor things front wheel so while I fit this front wheel should really give a shout out and a thanks to Dave at picker in’s bikes stopped by their shop earlier cuz I wanted some tubist doing cuz I got a compressor and uh all

I wanted to do is use the compressor and Dave stepped in to the a lot for me know what I’m doing here thinking a right mess of it front going in lovely oh yes it looks like a 650b bik that’s amazing right let’s get we’re going to

Have to get some handlebars on so we can get a hold of this thing now let’s do that we righty now it’s bar time sticking with the old Adventure bar adventure bike I’m going to be fitting my favorite adventure bars in the shape of these on want Jeffs love

These they are the coolest bar they’re basically in a nutshell they’re like a a knockoff Jones bar for people on limited means that’s how I like to class them ‘s the Billy bookcase alen key again this is embarrassing on the plus side for those of you that might think you

Haven’t got the right tools for the job or stuff like that this is in the back of the tool chest it’s saving the day on this video look at that there we go still a alen key shaped piece of metal in an allen key bolt doing its thing okay

Right so first glimpse of what this thing is going to look like and what a pretty bike this is going to be not doing Mad tight yet there we go look at that it is looking like an adventure bike sort off there we go all right I’m

Going to switch it around now because it’s time to put some calipers on this and see where we’re at with those right so for the brakes I’m going to be adding some semi hydraulic or cable actuated hydraulic brakes in the shape of these acors these basically work by a cable pulling a

Piston cylinders F hydraulic fluid I have never ever used these before so like a bottle of Doctor Pepper what’s the worst that can happen let’s get a little adapter do dad and fit the front one is that the front one oh that’s post mount that ain’t

Going to help me yes so if I have checked I have known I needed a different C but I didn’t check so anyway so these old Forks are is Mount so that’s what these look like where the posts holes go that way post mount holes go that way Crystal yeah this is marked

Up front 160 rear 140 so now it’s got to go which want a brain F that way bling long B these what am I doing here there we go oh dear this isn’t going in very well at all no it’s not the bolt it’s the thread all right that’s

Fine looks Co we cool centralize that nice though which is good yeah right I think the front one was fun back one’s going to be really weird he so for the back we are going proper old school anyone remember A to Z disc adapters well I do cuz I’m old

Imagine my surprise when I looked on Amazon and found one without The Branding and really not made anywhere near as well these are a great way of testing adding rotors to the back of nonis specific bikes reason why I’ve gone for one of these and not gone

Grinding and Welding is because I want to see how it goes just want to see how it goes before I commit to ruining it so we know we got clearance we know we got the wheels we got the brakes let’s just have a go at fitting this the only

Downside of these I remember many a rainy wet muddy ride where I’ve about to take the wheel out and these can be a bit of a pain but small price to pay for disc power so let’s have a go it if I remember correctly cuz obviously being Amazon there’s no instructions with this

Skewer has got to come off first it doesn’t bloody want to slide this over the Dropout oh this one fits nicely okay right got wheel back up into the Dropout inside the adapter hopefully will still run free yes it does excellent chops has actually

Got one of these on one of her bikes an old Cove hand job put your skewer through into the o on to there and see if it holds it in place you then tighten up all this stuff around it and you should have disc mount in roughly the right place oh mama don’t

Know that’s going to actually work miles off okay so this rear break has been one hell of a head scratcher I’ve had to step away I’ve had to turn the camera off and I’ve had to come up with the solution because no matter how I fit

This it’s not close enough to the rotor so what ended up doing spacing the bracket with some little spaces off a v bra to a point where I can then balance the caliper itself I know it balances cuz I’ve got that lovely free flow that look let’s talk about the front one

Behind me well I’ve ended up having to retap the threads on the adapter for this because it was sending the bolts all over the place that is now rolling freely as well that’s all I want to say about these the a toz adapter thing works really really well uh I’ve just

Got to make sure the wheel actually does drop out these have been a nightmare apologies there’s no filming of the re one being fitted I just couldn’t face the concept of filming it at the time it’s absolutely broke me but it’s done now we can put some cables in let’s get this going

Awesome so with the brake cables in I thought it was about time for a nice hot cup of java and a bit of a tidy up in the workshop the great news is I found me hat so I’m back in me woolly hat because it’s still bloody cold in here I

Tell you but anyway what’s even better news I mean really even better news is the brakes the cables on feel is lovely it’s really weird I’ve never had these brakes before it’s it feels somewhere between weirdly like you’d expect somewhere between a high and a cable is weird but I can’t wait to

Try them out but the feel is nice and I’ve got a good solid stop at the end and I’ve got fre moving Wheels lovely that’s brilliant so really all that is left now on the build is Gears so we need to get some gear cables in and

Carry on with the setup right first up let’s cut some outer cable want enough cable that you can spin the bar without having any problems and you also want front and the rear to match if like me you’ve got chronic OCD about such matters so I’m going to cut one and immediately

Cut the other one for later so I’m going to cut that one about there put one to one side check the insides of your cables are clear or your inner outer cables are clear rather ready for your inners put an end on even though these are coated cables

I’m still going to add a little bit of fine oil into the inners some people mock about wiping it all over the inner I use one of these cheap syringes off Amazon and I put it into the outer it’s cleaner and I’ve been doing it for years

And it works just fine make sure the shifter is in the highest gear possible highest being an arst so this is nine-speed so we want it in gear nine pull it through and just I like to do a bit of this just to make sure that the shift is actually working

As well perfect get your outer with a little bit of look we can feed it through there we go here we go oh some oil coming back out that’s the oil I told you about look you see I wasn’t lying and into to the holder just run

Yourself down the cable get any dirt off we’re going to move to the back to do the outers for the rest of the routing now cuz this has got some old school top tube rooting we’ve got two pieces we need to cut one for here and one for

Down at the deria that leads up to there it’s simple this one what we’re looking for is a nice smooth Arc we’re not looking for tons of extra cable remember that outer we those ends we talked about need to more of them I see people who do

This they cut the outer they put it in place and then they spend ages trying to feed the cable through just do it first in your hands like that look feed it through it’s why these are split I know it sounds obvious you see it time and

Time again there we go lovely nice line down and we’re going to go to the back of the bike now do that last bit so again with this outer for this one just want a nice Arch don’t want the cable to feel impeded anyway so we’re going to go

About there I reckon forgotten the little donuts for the tube has it got any forgot my tube Donuts that we go you don’t need these they just stop the scratching on the frame getting any worse should be two set there should be two tube Donuts where’s the other one

Actually we’re going to need another tube Donut for the uh for the front one so we’ll have to just use them and split them up I’ve used all of them on the break on one there tube donut in place cable going through yeah before I clamp

This down just going to go back to the shifter and undo the barrel about four turns marvelous let see if it works okay so all the gear adjustment it’s actually going to be up out the shifter because of this model of XT doesn’t have a barrel adjuster so go

Straight in so it’s all done up here so we’re looking for one click one left quite got ex just undo this a little bit Same Again One Click one lift see it comes back down there we go it’s a little slow so we’ll go another turn little quarter

Turn now it’s up we’ll have a look at the B limit here I can tell straight away that needs a little bit more limit so we’ll use the B limit screw here just to separate the jockey wheel from the cassette oh yeah smashing at that there we go

Right let’s get some cables in the front right this is proper mugging me off here here we go there we go this time we’re not going to forget the donuts no idea if that’s the technical term but that is what I’m naming them don’t forget the frame

Donuts the bloody old is that booger go then oh no I think we might have a rooting problem here bugger right this might require further investigation let’s flip the bike around okay so as I thought we have got a problem I’ve used the gear routing for my rear disc brake

Because I needed it because this is the cany brake routine up here no good to me cuz I ain’t running a cany brake so my front gear changer got two options I either sack it off and run one by that’s not what I want or the only other thing

I can think of is I’ve got a cable guide off a road bike that would normally go into a bra on down tube shift amount can fit it just here drill it Riv nut and a bit of epoxy and we’ll have pretty much exactly where we want it the

Routin that will take the rest of the guide round to here so I’m going to do that I think it’ll just look cleaner otherwise I’m clamping stuff around or just compromising another way don’t want that so let’s do that step one is going to be put the thing where we want

It about there we’re just going to put a mark on the frame so we know where roughly we want to drill it’s going to be about there little Mark little bit of oil on the drill spraying oil all over the frame I don’t see the poin in that

With that paint dry we pushed the rivet into the hole I’ve just set to do that off camera cuz that’s to just tap it through a tiny bit with a hammer now I’m going to squeeze the rivet gun put the rivet in place looking for a good hard clamp

Down these are a little different to a pot rivet where it’ll you snap the end off this you just have to compressed till there’s no more compression to be had and remove the gun I think we can machine this down a bit smaller okay so that has been a bit of an

Ordeal to get this into a position where we can use it I’ve done it it’s holding basically what I’ve had to do off camera is just using grinding wheel and a file just slimming down reprofiling the adapter so it sits here and it’s slimming off that it’s not

Going to BOS me on the leg when I’m riding so there we go so now we’re ready to carry on now I’m actually quite pleased with this just good job really cuz there wasn’t any way that I was going to be redoing this CA in there we go

Right let’s thread it through see if it goes straight through then we’ll know we’re on to a winner yeah there we go right and then we’re just going to flip the bike back around so we do the low limit on the front drer and then the

High and then you know all that kind stuff right so look looking at this my lower limmit is exactly where it should be so we can now put the gear Cable in place see if it works oh yeah yeah now we need to tell this because it’s on a

Triple shifter we need to tell it we don’t want it to go any further than small and big which is where it’s at now we identify near the high and the low limit high is at the back we’ll see how much it’s got to bring in from a little fine

Tuning I think this bike is about done okay so there we have it the Gary Fisher is finished another bike another build is done and this one I am pretty sure has pushed the limits of what you can convert from a 26er mountain bike towards a gravel offering we’ve managed

To squeeze in disc brakes tubless 650b with two .1 in tires manage wide range 9speed 2 by gearing to cover everything we need for Adventures it’s got rack mounts it’s got semi hydraulic discs and it’s also got these as the Finishing Touch which is some ass Savers with a

Cool squid paint job soon as I saw those at cike I knew they were going to finish this off right nice so I got Dave at Pickering his bikes to order me some and yeah according to other people on YouTube this little diddly one actually does do something so we’ll see I think

The wing at the back looks ostentatious and very cool so all left now is to go ride it as always I’m going to save that for a whole other video I don’t know quite what I’m going to choose for the test ride might take it

Out for a bit of an adventure or I might just go get it muddy see if these us Savers work whatever happens if you like And subscribe you won’t miss the next video but don’t let that get in the the way of your riding your bike and I hope

Your next ride when you do get out is downhill for smooth Tama keep your wheel spinning keep your rubber on the road Nobi on the trail look out for each other be good cyclist say hello give them a nod if you see somebody in trouble stop and help him they might not

Have the tool they need and you just might be the Caped Hero whatever anyway just get out ride your B thanks for watching a