While Pumping the Greenspeed's Pedals

I'm building up a restomod 90s mountain bike, a 1995 Giant Sedona "Full Butted" frame I found on hard rubbish a decade ago. Bit of a trend at the moment, I know, but I have connections to that era and brand. My fifth adult bike was a 1993 Giant Iguana that lasted 20 years and would probably have lasted 20 years more had the quill stem not rusted itself solid inside the steerer, making it impossible to recondition without ruining the paint. The problem required the stem be "sweated" with a gas torch, which would have likely ruined the fork as well as the paint. So it got put on hard rubbish and was gone in minutes. It went to a home that valued it, I hope. "Iggy" was metallic forest green with silver lettering, an 18" (46cm) framed, chromoly 26er and it rode like I was sitting on feathers. "Sedon", the current project is a 16" (40cm) butted chromoly frame with 1 1/8 inch steerer compatibility, it was stock with the A-Head system, the bug that killed "Iggy" can't kill "Sedon"! Slight problem, all the cycling guides tell me I should ride a 50cm frame.

The bike in its current state of test fitting, as of Feb 2026. Many more jobs to be done, watch this space and please excuse the mess in my studio/workshop.

So, look, frame sizing is a guide. 40cm is nominally like a trials bike size for me, not a daily commuter, but look at folding bikes. None of these are "the right size," they have long seat posts, long steerers, high bottom brackets and they have large adjustment ranges for the stem and seat post. They can also be a bit "whippy" (flexible, "bendy") because of this. The advantage of small, conventional, diamond-shaped bicycle frames is they're very stiff in the right areas and, steel especially, compliant in the right areas. "Sedon" is potentially this and, also has one other advantage, the bare frame fits in a largish, only slightly oversized suitcase.

Putting all this together, inch and an eighth, threadless steering, modern long dropper posts, modern frame shims to allow a modern dropper to fit Giant's "arse-hat," seat post "standard" all make this a bike that can be easily disassembled, like completely, even the fork, and flown to another country as luggage. Then reassembled in that other country to be used as a bike. In fact, can a suitcase be made foldable? Folded up enough to carry on the back of a bike, too? This would be the perfect touring bicycle setup, right? I'll come back to the folding luggage later, maybe even not in this article, but that is also a project in my workshop, too.

Since late 2017, I've been riding a 700c urban bike as a touring bike, I did the Great Ocean Road from Melbourne to Port Campbell on it, it's been my daily workhorse, coming on for 9 years soon. The thing it is not good at is packing for travel. I took it home to Tasmania when my parents were still alive, road to Tullamarine, disassembled the bike, bagged it up, got stung a fortune for "sporting equipment", reassembled it at the other end then, a few weeks later, repeated the process, ride, dissassemble, bag, stung a fortune, fly, land, reassemble, ride home. What I'm hoping for is a bike that can go into a suitcase, or suitcase-looking, thing, be asked, "Is that a suitcase?" then reply, "Yes!" and only pay for a little bit of overdimension, not "specialised sporting equipment." A collapsed bicycle is not a f'ing surfboard!

So, first stage is the bike. Can I get the old bottom bracket out of it so I can put a shiny, new, quality sealed bearing BB in there? Yes! Can I tweak the 16 inch height and nineties geometries? Yes! Not tested, and can't be until built up, ready for test rides, but I have some solutions. The fork with this frame was damaged beyond repair and recycled long ago, so a new fork was easy, wait, it's disk and rim brake compatible, can I adapt the rear for disks? Yep, for sure.

I've recently started using a Chinese laser melting metal 3D printing service, and I've successfuly figured out the gemotries (and some adjustability) for this frame. Can I rase the bottom bracket an inch or so and get a slightly slacker ATB geometry? Yes! A crown race spacer for the top of the fork! (Essentially a kind of suspension correction for a non corrected rigid fork.) In fact, one of the great things about parts you can't buy is, if you can design the part in CAD, you can 3D print it these days. In China. Have it in around 2 weeks. Print it in plastic at home, first, though, for testing fit, but DON'T RIDE THE PLASTIC PARTS! Don't worry, I didn't ride them. I didn't even have wheels for the bike at this stage.

Wheels are the next stage. They're here, first mistake, thought I was ordering disk wheels... The pictures showed disk hubs, arrived as rim braked wheels. Hubs are on the way. Spokes will be ordered when I do a bit of design over at Freespoke. Sigh. Yep, I've been rebuilding and fixing my own bikes since I was 16, buying bikes and parts online since I was 35 and I still make dumb mistakes. That's ADHD for you. Thank f*** I have autism to balance it out...

However, on the wheels, I'm going 27.5. I might be mad. "Sedon" is a 26er, but I'm aiming for more of a tourer/ATB gravel vibe than mountain bike. I can always add a 26er wheelset to the toolbox, but 650x1.75b will fit the frame, and will carry broader tyres than my 700x35c rig and this is about f***ing about to find out. Yeah, 650b is usually for shorter riders but the wheels will fit in that barely oversize suitcase (if I take the tyres off and fold them), so this is a good fit for the project.

So, making a smolbike to fit my 6 foot human frame is:- a 450mmx28.6 Merocca dropper post (underseat actuated) held in place in the 30.2 frame by a 30.2 to 28.6 shim and the clamping quick release bolt, then a riser bar up front (120mm by 650mm) held to the untrimmed 300mm inch-eighth steerer by a stack of shims and a fairly stock stem, the fork itself shimmed "down" to raise the bearings and the head of the frame by 60mm (and the bottom bracket by roughly 25mm), front and rear disk brakes, 650b wheels (that I have to completely rebuild except for the rims)... Oh, and the groupset!

1x11 is the drivetrain, Shimano Deore, half the price of the MicroSHIFT Sword group I'd been looking at and better suited to what is still a mountain bike based flat bar tourer/bikepacker rig. Initially, this will be paired with a crankset in my junkbox. (It's 38 tooth, I have a heart condition, I'll start undergeared, see how I go, this isn't going to be electric, unlike my trike or the 700c beast - the latter a retrofit.) I've calculated about 20 to 90 gear inches with the provided cassette. (The effective wheel sizes of each gear, BMX to a cruising commuter in sense of what the bikes lowest and highest gears will be like.) Maybe I'll go 2x later, but this is a tourer/bikepacker, not a racer. Brakes are Merocca dual piston disks.

It's getting close to bedtime, now, so I might leave the folding suitcase idea for next post, but I'll be putting my custom part designs (the headlift suspension corrector, the rear disk brake adapter and my bike suitcase design) up on my github, after that, too, so stick around for those. Meanwhile, the next job, when the 24mm spanner arrives, is to get f$%@ing bottom bracket out of the frame. My BB tool is up to the job, my 10" cresent wrench wasn't. Only a cheapy, so the jaws stretched, it looks like a punch drunk boxer now, and is about as useful. Pause a second, I put so much force into loosening the left side (righthand thread, the right side is a plastic cup), I ruind a drop forged adjustable wrench! I was using a metre long piece of metal for leverage.

Anyhoo, see you soon.
Crunchy