When it comes to converting vintage mountain bikes to commuters and cargo bikes, there are a few cargo fork options out there, but for Stolen Garage, they wanted to make something unique using Anne’s RockRider as the prototype. Let’s check it out with wonderful photos by Romain, below!
City life, a new job at Ten Belles (a well-known bakery and coffee roastery in Paris), a new apartment on the second floor without an elevator in the proche banlieue, a lovely hill to climb up and down every morning and evening, potential deliveries of coffee with enticing aromas or still-warm sourdough bread for upscale restaurants, Anne’s fixed gear bike just wouldn’t cut it anymore. She needed a new means of transport that met both her needs and her desires: a small, atypical, maneuverable and fun cargo bike.
At the same time, over at Stolen Garage, designer Romain Thouin brought the frame-building team a cooperative project: a modular cargo fork (he had already built two prototypes himself), which he hoped to keep developing alongside his artisan friends throughout France.
The stars aligned, Anne and Stolen decided to launch the production of a third model, TIG-welded, with a sturdy steel fork and a reasonably lightweight stainless steel rack.
So Anne scoured the second-hand market for vintage frames over several weeks. With the recent hype around 26-inch mountain bikes, a small-sized steel frame in good condition and at a low price, compatible with a 1″1/8 fork, was hard to find in the Paris area. The final pick was a Decathlon Rockrider, in a lovely slightly metallic teal-blue, common across France in the early 1990s.
Once the frame was disassembled, cleaned and quickly passed over Stolen’s surface plate, the transformation began with the addition of a disc brake mount, followed by the fabrication of a 20-inch fork, and finally the custom rack and connection pieces that make up the heart and intricacies of the project.
26-inch wheel in the back, 20-inch in the front, bulletproof tires for glass-strewn Parisian streets. TRP Spyre mechanical brakes for security, but also to avoid brasing new hose guides and damaging the paint and overall look of the bike.
Some second-hand parts or ones salvaged from Anne’s other bikes: a silver Nitto Bullmoose handlebar, a Raceface crankset, a well-worn Brooks saddle. And other new parts : a 9-speed drivetrain, a silver Hope seat clamp, tiny pedals for tiny feet and a Wald basket mounted to two inserts on the rack for quick and simple use. And finally, some glitter sprinkled between the grips and the varnished fork to brighten up every daily ride, even under the capricious Parisian skies.
We’d like to thank all of you who submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared here at The Radavist. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!
