What Adjustments are Made to a Mountain Bike When Converting it to a Drop Bar Setup?

Question

What will I have to adjust on the mountain bike when I set it up using drop bars so that I can race?

Answer 1

Someone who has been used to riding a mountain bike will find it easier to switch to drop bars on the same frame size but, in that case, they would need a shorter stem, which works similarly to the drops. These handlebars are bigger than what is used on a gravel bike thanks to the reach being shortened from the saddle to the bars. Also, gearing may be adjusted in order to prevent being spun out during a race and even a dropper post for heavy technical descents is completely plausible.

Comments

I've been gravel for 30 years, it used to be called trekking....currently I ride a CC Hardtail 29'....only modification, narrow gravel tires and a carbon fork with eyelets, 1x12 (36 x 11/51)... and it works great.

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Hey Dylan, wow, what a really insightful and performance-first take on drop-bar MTBs! One small consideration is the adoption of suspension corrected geometry by bike manufacturers for gravel bikes... think early MTB era when front suspension forks were just beginning to be used and suspension corrected MTB frames started. Currently there are a small handful of gravel bike companies that are leaning ahead and incorporating these design standards to better accommodate folks who want to put a gravel specific suspension fork on their frame. Salsa happened to be one of the first modern bike companies to have suspension corrected frames, several other manufacturers are rolling their updated frames out too. The new Santa Cruz Stigmata for one. Food for thought, but a gravel bike with suspension corrected geo and 700x50s just might do the trick too for some race courses. That all said, I personally dig riding my recently built drop-bar Ritchey Ultra--it's a long distance ripper!

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My MTB is in the shop getting converted as we speak. It was cool getting to talk to you at Big Sugar this year.

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Was looking at buying a gravel bike  a few years back as it seemed to be the cool thing to do. I opted for converting my old Gary Fisher hardtail to a drop bar and converted from 3x to 2x as I only had a spare pair of 105 shifters... they were cable too so had to down grade to cable pull disks. ( one lucky win was that the pull ratio for 105 10 speed is exactly the same as 9 sp deore so could go up to a 10 speed cassette and didnt need a new rear mech)  Anyway, it's only on 26.5's so proper old school. Struggles a bit on tarmac, so sit in the draft, but like a lot of places here in the UK the gravel quickly becomes quite narely and a lot of technical single track. Suffice to say for a couple of hundred spent, it leaves very expensive bits of kit in it's wake.  Not so surprisingly many riders are now investing in front gravel shocks here.  If not racing, and just enjoying gravel riding, I would definitely go for a more relaxed setup with a shock, it just gives way more scope.  As you say though, it boils down to horses for courses.

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A drop bar, hardtail mountain bike is... a gravel bike