buying new vs. finding the right vintage frame
I’m interested in building a steel bike for longer rides (50mi+) and I’d like to get in shape enough to bikepack within a few years. Last year I bought a GT outpost trail and did some minor upgrades to learn how to fix everything myself. Now that I’ve been riding it for a year, I realized I could use something more like a road bike, as the top speed of the GT is only around 15mph on flat in the lowest gear. Is that something I could adjust by converting to a 1x drivetrain with a bigger front chainring? Or is it a waste of time to try to turn a vintage mountain bike into a road bike?
I’ve considered spending $1000 on a new surly or all city or something, but they obviously aren’t as cool looking, and I don’t really care for disc brakes. Is there a go-to cheap vintage touring bike I should try to look for instead, and sell the GT? Or even a different vintage MTB that was sold with a lower gear? I see a really clean and tuned Trek 830 for sale that I was tempted to test ride, but I can’t tell if it’ll just be like a duplicate of the GT.
I appreciate any insight.