Trending: Vintage Drop Bar MTB?

   Always on the look out for the latest trend, I stumbled across this on the bicycling subReddit: Drop handlebars on vintage mountain bikes. What's that mean, you ask? Well check this out:

Nishiki

   This is a project for people who like to tinker, since there probably aren't two of these builds that are the same. For people that like to tinker, and have access to a co-op or somewhere to get some old parts easy and cheap, this would be a fun thing to try.

Univega

   There are a lot of considerations with a project like this:

Brake compatibility: Road levers don't work great with V brakes due to the amount of cable pulled, so you need to find a bike with cantilever brakes. This dates the bike, as V brakes started coming onto the scene in the mid 90's.

Handle Bar clamp size: These vintage bikes use 1" threaded stems, compatible with a quill stem. These kinds of stem are designed to clamp to the tiniest of handlebars. Clamping to a modern bar will be a challenge.

Stem Reach and angle: Judging by these stem lengths, you might think that stem designers had adequacy issues. You'd be hard (ha) pressed to find a 110mm MTB stem these days, and even harder to find a vintage 60mm. 

Gary Fisher... maybe 

Shasta

Gary Fisher

   Like most things vintage, performance is sacrificed for soul. Serious racers would put themselves on a newer machine, optimized for performance rather than rework and old mountain bike. But if 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance' has taught us anything, it's that that book is confusing as hell. And the journey is the reward.

   Still interested? Here is a lengthy (180+ page) thread about it.