A Decade Convert2 built up as road bike

Upgrade Bikes have been working with frame building giants Kinesis for the past ten years, turning out UK-designed and -specific bicycles that have continued to be popular year on year. To celebrate their 10th anniversary, a brand new range of Kinesis frames has been produced.

A flick through the current Kinesis range reveals mostly road and race/training orientated framesets, but the new Decade range steers into new territory. Decade is intended to cater for the growing interest in stylish yet functional bikes.

There are three models. First there’s the Tripster, a frame that can roll on 700c road wheels or equally happily on 26in wheels. Also in the range is a mountain bike frame. But of interest to us today though is the Convert 2, interesting because of its versatility.

Using the ace Racelight T as starting point, Swopout dropouts – more commonly found on the company’s sister brand DMR frames – mean you can easily set the frame up for gears or singlespeed/fixed at the flick and twist of an Allen key.

As you can see from the two different bikes in this article, the same frame is used with two very different builds. Up above with a standard dropout a typical road bike build is possible, this is called the Winter Build and it’s only missing the mudguards for the upcoming winter season.

Then, below, a completely different bike can be built simply by removing the standard vertical dropouts and sliding in a pair of horizontal dropouts, making it possible to ride the same frame as a fixed or singlespeed. One frame, two completely different styles of riding catered for.

Same colourful background, same frame, different dropouts