How to Convert Mountain to Beach Cruiser Bicycle

Convert Mountain to Beach Cruiser Bicycle

How to Convert Mountain to Beach Cruiser Bicycle

This article is all about how to convert a mountain to a beach cruiser and I put them side by side here, so you can kind of see the differences.

There are lots of differences, the frame is different and the geometry is different and so and it’s true between a cruiser and a mountain bike, but what would you really rather have and what’s better for resale and what gives you more features.

Shape

Let’s look at the beach cruiser kind of shape here and why it works so that and people can sit down, put their feet on the ground.

There’s actually extra space and more of a lean on that seat tube that leans towards the back. So your distance between the seat and down to the pedals, see that distance will be greater.

So you’re actually leaning kind of back and your legs are going forward more like a driving position in a car instead of as on a mountain bike or you’re more straight up and down.

The other thing is the handlebars come way back because you’re leaning back and make up for that offset so those are kind of the differences.

Maybe you don’t want to buy a beach-type best cruiser bikes because they’re super expensive, so three easy steps throw on a kickstand, pop that baby in most mountain bikes, come with the little hole there so you can put it on.

A lot of people have their kickstands way too low so It’s really funny and it’s really easy to adjust them and depending on which one you buy this one’s from but super cheap and easily adjustable.

So you want to adjust that. So your bike is just leaning a little bit, not leaning a ton, um, which will put too much weight on the kickstand.

So those differences in geometry between the two bikes and can make a big difference, but let’s not make it impossible to here and we can still make a comfortable cruiser bike that has disc brake suspension, a good frame.

That’s lightweight that has 1800 needs or whatever you need with a mountain bike versus a cruiser which only has usually three speeds and sprays lane.

So this is a seat tube and a seat adjustment. I just went and bought a bigger, wider seat.

It was causing a kind of shoulder pain. So, it mostly seats you know almost all seats are standardized and they’ll fit.

Seat Post

Every other seat post, unless you get the kind which I’ll show you and this one comes with both parts that have a hole in it for one of those seat posts that it goes straight up and doesn’t have the clamp type, which I’ll be putting on.

Now it’s just two different kinds in this seat that can work with either. You just take that circled clamp, post clamp off, and just trash those parts and use the method that you already have on your seat posts.

So, I forgot to mention this bike is called a specialized pitch. It’s a women’s version, but I honestly couldn’t tell writing myself, you wouldn’t know that the pink color, which is pretty awesome.

Anyway, super reflective now on a beach cruiser bike, and the angle of the seat matters and so usually you want to have that more up because you’re leaning your feet.

You’re leaning back more and a flat seat angle horizontal with the ground is usually good for mountain bike per beach cruiser and you want to tilt it up a little.

Then you can also slide the seat forward and back on and in respect to that, see you posting, you want to slide that as far back as he can just get a little, little more legroom there.

They ended up being a little bit smaller than I would have liked. I would have liked him like a more traditional beach cruiser bike.

These are some kinds of cruiser bike comparisons with the lengthier and the different angles.

It’s really hard to buy bars online. I’ll give you a link below to some good ones that I’ve seen, but don’t be afraid that your bars won’t fit in terms of diameters.

Diameter

All beach cruiser bars are generally one-inch bike diameter at the stem and you see these bring your arms back a little more into tilt, inwards to keep your wrist from being in an uncomfortable position.

You may be seen in this bike that I actually do have some spare room here with my cables and that’s one thing you want to check before you modify.

Make sure you’ve got some extra cable length there. Then you need to take a little test ride and I would say I’ve only got one hand on the handle.

So, unscrew the top cap in the side of the clamps, I would say there’s a little cap with the screw, the bolt, excuse me, pop this baby off and you don’t need to adjust anything there as far as the bike brakes or anything now.

Your bike may get a little wobbly here on the little top dust shield kind of came up with not to push that back down.

There’s one thing you want to make sure when you put some like this one, or when you put a new stem on.

You want to make sure your headset is nice and tight, and those bearings are kind of pressed and compressed everything compressed.

So first I need to check here and see if I need any rings underneath. There needs to be a little space between that dark silver. Which is the S the, um, steer tube from the forks and the middle portion here.

You’ll be all wobbly and it’ll be terrible. You’ll probably ruin your bearings and everything and it’s slide this backdown.

I put one ring in between, down there so that I can maintain that gap. And now you see this is adjustable and it can raise it up as much or as you want.

Try to put some rings in there and luckily this little adapter came with those rings and it came with an extra-long bolt because the point of that bolt is you put that on first and it sucks everything together and clamps it uptight.

Before you start bolting the sides together to get that side clamp force if you want to do this first.

Then you will need to compress everything, make it nice and tight. So your steering is good to go. I’m not going to give you any torque specs on anything.

I don’t have a torque wrench for, for this, um, for Alan’s and I actually, you know, something I should get, but on here it says six Newton meters for the side, bolts are going to start at the bottom one, two, three, four.

Once I have those tightened up, making sure they align it with my front wheel, then I’ll be ready to go for another test ride.

So you might say, oh, okay. It looks a little weird. It looks a little popped up in the front there, but, um, when you get used to it and you, you hop on there and you feel so comfortable in your ride and you get a little suspension there, you really, really will enjoy converting your mountain bike into a trail cruiser.

Conclusion

Maybe not a beach cruiser, but certainly we’ll be taking this on the hardpack sand at the beach, but so much more comfortable.

Check OutdoorXsports if you want to learn more biking tips and tricks.