So I’m looking for an old steel frame bike to do a custom build for bikepacking. Something with plenty of room for bigger tires, something that I could upgrade the drivetrain/components fairly easily…ect.
I found this on Craigslist for $100 it seems to have been garage kept for the past 10 years, the owner doesn’t seem to know much about this bike so I’m looking for info (at least what you can tell from the pic) and what I should look for when I go see this bike.
by Traditional-Peach722
6 Comments
Tire clearance will max out around 40mm. If that’s enough for where you want to ride, it’s a great bike to build into something modern!
Make sure the size fits and plan on replacing drivetrain and brake system entirely plus the seat.
The geometry is close to a road bike so not entirely out of this realm to go with drop bars.
Ensure wheels are decent (even if not great) and that you can actually fit wider tires (you should but no hurt in checking).
Take a flashlight to take a look down the seat tube for rust.
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Otherwise, great bike.
Anything with two straight wheels breaks and solid frame is good for bikepacking!
https://preview.redd.it/2jcuhaup2ftc1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=5499f96ce7121c54b630e0d72d03deeecb87f8d0
Giant Iguana 650 from 1996. Full stock except for tyres. Was a $30 eBay find. Takes me anywhere , my favourite bikepacking rig.
This looks like it’s a very large bike. Are you tall?
Looks like a nice one for bikepacking. Triple crank and cassette seem to already have useable gear range. It even has plenty of braze-ons for mudguards or a rack. I would not mind being limited by tyresize a bit. 42 is pretty reasonable, did my last tour on 32mm and it was still okay for the mountains of albania on rocks and gravel. I actually prefer the lower weight and better rolling resistance of a smaller tyre at high pressures. Also i prefer the looks of a frame and fork evenly matched to the tyre size over gigantic spaced MTB Forks and frames.
What i can’t spot in that angle is the shifters, but it is probably individual deore type shifters. All very useable already. Just replace the cables and housing because they cost nothing and it feels much better than old ones and you probably need a new set of tyres and you are good to go for the forst overnighter trip!
For the longterm i’d go for a gravel drop bar and install either bar end friction shifters or campy ergo levers. Those can be mixed with shimano cassettes if you adhere to the guides. Just make sure you have actually HG cassette wheels and not a freewheel and then buy the right sized new cassette and shifters to match (11spd to 9speed cass or 10speed to 8sped cass)). I just bought centaur 10spd shifters to do the same. They are much sturdier and even more lightweight than shimano STIs and for gravel roads i prefer their safer way of operation where the braking levers don’t rotate sideways. Shimano 8speed STIs are a cheap alternative and can be had for 30-40bucks already. Also there is the chinese sensah R7 and R8 which i heard works decently and may be a better deal than old used shimano stuff.
I have a couple of these bikes. If your bikepacking is gravel roads, dirt roads, two-track, etc this is a great choice. If you are planning to be on singletrack maybe not so good.
I would strongly recommend a near-complete re-build. Velo Orange stocks a lot of good parts for resto-mods on a budget. I think a 2×11 Sensah groupset would do great on this bike and only be like $220.
For wheels I bought a pair of Sta-Tru i21 tubeless ready hoops at Bicycle Wheel Warehouse and they have been totally solid, great wheels for off road riding.