Converting the Mongoose Title Elite to OS20

December 23rd, 2021
bmxultra
0

Converting the Mongoose Title Elite to OS20 by Paul Knox

When the Mongoose Title Elite was released, I was intrigued. The complete bike has a very attractive competitive price, yet the specs of the frame (Tapered Headtube, BB86, weight and geometry, etc) suggested hidden potential. Then when Mongoose riders started appearing on the podiums at World events, my interest grew.

Now I must admit to some bias here; my first “proper” race bike way back in time (literally the dawn of 24” racing) was a Goose, and my go-to 20” in the early 90’s was a Mongoose Solution, so the appeal of a new Mongoose may have initially been a bit nostalgic. But when bmxultra.com were able to get a hold of a Title Elite though, it was a prime opportunity to see if Mongoose had matured well, or simply aged. A few laps on the complete Title Elite was enough to convince me that Mongoose was on to a good thing.

My plan here was treated with a bit a scepticism by some – 2 weeks out from the Vic State Titles take the complete, strip it down to a bare frame and then rebuild it as an OS20 and race it at the States. Hold up – rebuild it as an OS20? Yes; I’ve been running an OS20 setup for a few years now on a variety of different frames, some OS20 specific and some regular 20” conversions. The Title Elite measured up for exactly what I was after – a long back end and a converted BB height that matched my cruiser, long wheel base for the bigger wheels, and a head angle that was steep enough to be responsive without being too steep for the OS20 wheels. There had been a few Mongoose conversions popping up on the ‘net, so it looked like an easy swap.

Now after the experience of a few OS20 swaps, I’d better quantify “easy”.

The first step is measure up what you’ve got. OS20 wheels are a larger diameter than a standard 20”, and the overall measurement is also effected by the size of the tyre that you’re planning on running. This bigger size just isn’t going to work with some 20” frames, so this is where you start. The easiest way to see how much dropout length and frame clearance you’ll have is to simply set up the OS20 wheel (with the inflated tyre) in the frame. On some frames the OS20 will allow you to use the full length of the dropout without the tyre hitting either a seatstay or chainstay brace; on most however you’ll probably find you’re restricted and will need to run towards the end of the dropouts. On the Title Elite it’s definitely the former. I was building up using the XXL Frame and the wheel was going to be right at the end of the dropout, with very little room to play with. The good news was that it fitted, and I was prepared already with next check – chainstay length.

On an OS20, the most common default gearing is 42/16. Running a Tioga Powerblock OS20 1.6 this works out to a 55.59 gear (by comparison on a regular Powerblock 20 x 1.75 44/16 = 54.78, and 45/16 = 56.03 so it falls in between) which is perfect for the tracks I race. Since I had 42/16 already set up on the my current bike it was an easy matter to measure centre of the BB spindle to the centre of the hub bolts to see where to wheel as going to sit. As a reference, 42/16 on the Title Elite is going to run your back end and at 15.5”. If you’ve only ever run a regular 20” this might sound longish, but it’s the same length as a most Cruisers and remember they’re bigger wheels. With the back end all sorted, it was bolt it all in place, fit the cranks, chainring & chain, and on to next step.

Forks… they’re not all built with same tyre clearance. As this Goose is a regular 20” frame, you’re going to want to run a regular 20” fork to keep the geometry as Mongoose intended it. The stock Title Elite CroMo fork has plenty of clearance for an OS20 1.85 which is a bonus. As a majority of Racers use a Carbon Fork, I fitted it out with an Answer Dagger instead. The Title Elite is built with a 1.5/1 1/8” Tapered headtube, and the Dagger I had was a Pro 1 1/.8”, but the stock Mongoose headset has a 1.5/1 1/8” crown adaptor that I simply used on the Dagger so this was probably the easiest part of the change over!

At this stage, you get to one of the more disputed/discussed/debated aspects of OS20 builds – bar height. On an OS20 Specific frame, with a lowered BB, there’s some playing about with either lower bars, or inverted/front loader stems to get your preferred bar position (like on a 24”). With the Mongoose I had no such no such issues. Since as a conversion, regardless of the BB Height, the relative distance to your bars is the same as on a 20” I simply run the same Bar & Stem combo I would on a normal 20” (eg, even though the BB is taller with the bigger wheels, the position you stand on your pedals to hold your bars is still the same). Yes, your centre of gravity is slightly higher this way on a conversion than it would be on the same frame with 20” wheels, but then again the BB heights on frames from various manufacturers can vary considerably, so what may feel high to some can feel perfect to others (not even taking into account the varying “centre of gravity” of differently built riders!).

The last stage of the build was to mount up some brakes. This can be problematic if you’re trying to use stock brakes since the bigger rims mean the brake pads won’t reach, but there is now a good selection of aftermarket brakes available with extra long adjustment. It’s worth investing in a set of arms with long adjustment (and you don’t have to break the bank as some are fairly inexpensive) rather than messing around with trying to stretch out standard arms to their max – getting the proper pad angle can make the difference between merely an ineffective slowing device or a killer set of grabbers that’ll catch a high speed loop out.

With the build all done, it was time to see how it worked at the track. It was immediately comfortable and only took a handful of laps before I was jumping everything that I’d normally attack on my own bike. The higher bottom bracket was allowing me to push hard through manuals so all ticks there too. It was after a couple of gate starts though that I got my first surprise.

Setting up for the gate I felt a strange sensation through the front end; figuring it was a new build and things were settling in I checked all the bolts – nothing loose? A bit more analysis and I twigged as to what I feeling; the frame’s Tapered Headtube is so stiff that I could note flex in the stem & bars. Normally this would be absorbed through the frame, but not on the Title Elite – although it’s not a bone-jarring stiffness around the track it’s stiff where it counts when you want to put the power down. Next up was the State Titles; a familiar Track but it’ll be my first race laps on the new bike. This was where I got my second and bigger surprise.

After 3 good moto’s I checked my lap times. 2 ½ seconds a lap quicker than my normal times! What??? New bike psyche? Maybe. Better rider conditioning after a year of lockdown—definitely not! Better fit of bike and body? Possibly. Whatever the reason the Title Elite was just plain faster to the finish time for me on the day.

I’m going to be sorry to give the Mongoose back at the end of the experiment; it’s light, fast & fun to ride. What more could you want in a BMX?