Try running the numbers for his Factor Lando HT and see where it comes out. And, then compare to a handful of different gravel bikes. Throw in some like the Stigmata and Fezzari Shafer that are known to be a little slacker.
I think we’re going to see more Gravel Bikes that can comfortably take 2.2+, so I’m not sure I’d be in a rush to start making a conversion like this unless I was real sure about it.
I wonder about this as well, I think there’s not enough people with enough experience to really understand the dynamic as applied to other bikes and riders.
Here’s the MOG compared to the Factor Lando HT
And here’s the Lando HT compared to the Epic World Cup
Part of what I suspect makes it work well for DJ is his setback is so small (might be negative) the front center and overall wheelbase have less power on the handling otherwise. This is with a 75.5° STA:
My drop bar MTBs are older XC geometry (74-76° STA and 70-71° HTA high 80s trail) but even then I needed 50-52cm handlebars to get the front end where it felt good on descents and rough tracks. I’m not sure how he’s descending so well on ~38cm handlebars with 695mm front center and 100mm trail.
On the other hand, my normal gravel bikes are 605-610 front center with low 70s trail and I built an old hybrid conversion to drop bars that ended up with 675 front center and high 60s trail and it handles great.
So I guess don’t get discouraged. This sounds like spurious advice but maybe ask and see if anyone local has a similar bike you can try. A few years ago (before covid) someone asked on our local gravel FB group about drop bar MTBs, trail, etc., I commented and we met up so he could ride loops on the MTB trails on my bike. I’ve done the same with my low-trail rando bike. Something to think about.
It’s probably worth stating, that all of this is pretty insignificant in the big picture. We’re not converting tandems to unicycles… Bikes in general put us, the rider, in a pretty wacky position. It only takes time for this to feel normal… So despite it looking so massive on paper, in context, these changes aren’t going to feel absurd. I frequently ride my 760mm wide flat bars the day after riding my road bike and it takes about two minutes before you re-adapt to a different feel and your brain is pretty good at compensating for the rest of the inputs and outputs…
I want to see a drop bar Epic WC, and despite my frivolous spending on bikesI couldn’t justify it, but I fully support someone doing it!
Just occurred to me that it would probably be worthwhile to look at the Chamois Hagar as it has a pretty comprehensive review from James Huang and is closer to the Epic to give some idea of progressive geo + drop bars.
And while that unique front-end geometry works great at higher speeds, it doesn’t work as well at slower ones. There’s a ton of wheel flop, and it’s harder to hold your line than it should be, especially on technical climbs where you really need to be careful in placing your wheel. In particularly tight corners, too, the Chamois Hagar tends to understeer.
“At lower speeds, such as going up a meandering gravel climb, the bike almost feels like it’s had too much to drink and is stumbling home,” Dave said.
This is close to my experience trying to manage 655 FC with ~80mm trail/45mm stem/44cm handlebars - took a lot of muscle to get the bike into a corner but then the fine control was so degraded that it was difficult to manage the bike’s road surface feedback and attitude in and out of the corner. Moving to 52cm handlebars was a big improvement and I would assume the trend would hold to even wider but then you’re always suffering both aero losses and the idea that “wait why am I on 60cm+ drop bars and not just flat bars?”.
So it’s a hard balance. I rode quite a bit on 38cm drops on my allroad bike and could never manage very well offroad. The aero gains are obviously there but it’s possible to lose enough time on descents and rough stuff to outweigh those gains, course dependent.
I originally went for dropbar MTB to get more tire clearance, hand positions for long races, and because I find dropbars a lot of fun offroad. My MO is as much having fun as it is race performance, or else I’d probably just be looking at race gravel and flat bar XC MTB.
Another example: a drop bar Cervelo mtb.
Chris Hall instagram
https://www.instagram.com/p/C1hfAhRolf7/?igsh=NTI5b296NzMybndp
Correct me if I am wrong, but there was a reason why he built the special bike: he broke his arms and after that the riding was too painful on his normal gravel bike.
You may be right. I have not followed him in the IG.
That seems overly cynical, considering he raced the Badlands 2023 on the bike.
The build looks good to me, ~45mm stem and ~52cm handlebars. Certainly better than a lot of conversions I’ve seen. At least we’ve mostly moved out the of LD stem/dirt drops paradigm from last decade.
Even without a dropper a (good) dropbar MTB is going to perform much closer to an MTB than a gravel bike is going to be to the dropbar MTB. The capability of the front fork (and wider tires) is worth a lot, even accounting for any compromises to pair with drop bars.
Can we see your bike?
I don’t know the answer to any of those questions, have you watched his videos? Or commented on IG/YT?
Not everyone is interested in pure optimization. Sometimes “it feels good/cool/fun/is trendy” is all the reason.
IIRC Keegan’s bars were 670, I get your hyperbole, but c’mon the widest Enve gravel bars are 480 in the tops.
Last winter I did some experimenting with my Chisel. Put some drops on it and went from a 100mm -30deg stem to a 60mm -17deg. It’s a size small with a 100mm Sid. Road it a couple times only on a paved rail trail and it felt good.
But I decided it was just too dang ugly and built up a Fezzari Shafer with 50c’s instead. Here’s some pics…
Trying to eyeball geometries with my old SuperX…
And just because narrow flat bars were brought up, here it is setup rigid with 680ish bars with narrow grips and wireless blips for a gravel race that had a mtb class (no drops).
I don’t think that’s ugly. It’s a good looking rig. Did you try pushing the handling at all, or just a quick experiment?
Unfortunately no, just a couple quick rides. Wishing I did ride it more.
There’s a couple rowdy gravel races with some singletrack in the early spring I might build it back up for though.
Fwiw that carbon fork (diycarbon) is a stiff SOB in a bad way.
For anyone who was also captivated by Upcountry’s build, i’m pretty certain this here is the fork he bought. Weight comes in at about 530g.
Carbon mtb fork boost Blade 455mm Max Tire 29ER*2.5" FK016
https://a.aliexpress.com/_mONVora
As for myself, I have already bought the RYET version of this fork. I posted earlier in the thread. it comes in about 100 grams heavier, which isn’t great, but it was also slightly cheaper. The fork blades seem to be narrower, reminding me a bit of the factor Ostro gravel fork blade mindset 
The plan is to paint it with a candy tint over carbon alongside my incoming SPCYCLE M Epic Ht clone.
Some great points have been made here, but for the most part surrounding maintaining the suspension fork and thus adapting the “nominal” geo.
With builds like mine and Upcountry’s, the front end is dropped using the rear axle as the pivot point. As a result, the stem length/angle might just be something that is played with until it feels right. Obviously guided by the write ups like that of FT’s, thank you for that. I’ll see if my LBS can lend me a few beater stems to experiment.
For me, it was multiple reasons.
-Love the aesthetics of round beefy tubing like the Crux (i’m an industrial designer by trade) and the fork I chose pairs well visually.
-steeper HTA, to go with a 455 fork
-slacker STA, don’t want my ride too perched and stiff
-threaded bsa, i already have a dub bb set up ready to port over
-reach and stack figures are a few mm closer than the m06 to my current gravel bike set up.
-shorter wheelbase, slightly lower bb
-I will be running Red 1x12 mechanical, so to aid the shifting smoothness, i’m choosing less tight bends like an all internal set up has. I have this on my Ostro clone, it’s pretty intense in there. Also, i’m happy to have the shifter line snuggled up to the brake hose since that’s there regardless.
-And since at the end of the day, this is fairly budget minded, I want to emulate a cheaper >2022 Crux with big tire clearance. This will fit perfectly in between my road bike and short travel full sus.
-and regarding the chainring, I do want to run a 40t. I like that with an AXS 10-44. I snagged a used GX t-type crankset, it comes in ‘dub wide’. That will take my 40 tooth 8 bolt chainring offset and hopefully get my chainline about where it should be. I’ll likely have to play with that. If Keegan Swenson can run a 52t in the place of a max 42t, i’m sure I can make this work for me.
Late to the party but you can always reduce travel down by adding spacers to the negative spring side of the air shaft. You really only need a travel kit if you’re trying to get more travel.
If you fork has the type of air negative spring that works by burping air past a notch in the shaft then the notch won’t be in the right place, so you may have to add a notch, or come up with a mechanical system using spring/elastomers.
Hmmm I’ve never seen this done with modern air forks. Do you have an example write up or video?
I’m sure it’s technically possible but would require fabricating spacers and some specialty tools to disassemble the air spring. Unless you’re trying to go below the available travel lengths (80 or 90mm for example) it would make more sense to replace the air spring.
Removing the air spring shaft is easy and rarely takes more than split-ring pliers. The spacer could be any cylindrical object that fits, even a segment of garden hose if you’re just trying to do some quick experiments.
For example, see pp28-29, you would add the spacer between the red cap and the black rebound bumper.
Many air springs require at least shaft clamps to remove the seal head, although it isn’t totally clear what tools are required for the Sid example that you gave. A 3D printed split ring spacer would work well for this.
You’re misunderstanding how it works, you’re just adding a spacer so it doesn’t return to full travel. You don’t touch the air spring other than removing the pressure. Remove the adjuster knob, unscrew the 24mm(?) hex on top and snap on a spacer to the damper shaft. Reinstall. No need to 3D print anything, they will sell you them for $2-3.
Find me a travel spacer for a modern (high end) Rockshox or Fox product and I’ll believe you!
I see them online for the lower end/legacy stuff, but most new forks aren’t designed to work with those as far as I understand.
Most of the forks I’ve disassembled require a foot stud to be removed from the air spring before you can slide the seal head off.
I assume you mis-typed here, but you definitely don’t add spacers to the damper side of the fork…
