New Bike: 1981 Fuji America

Part Two of my good mail day is almost exactly opposite of Part One. Part One, if you look back a post, was my 2016 Trek Stache, a fairly modern mountain bike: formed aluminum frame, tapered head tube holding onto a suspension fork, dropper post, through axles, and plus sized tubeless wheels.

Part Two is nearly as old as I am:

It's a 1981 (I think) Fuji America frameset, non-aero brake levers, Nitto stem, and Grand Bois Hetre 650b tires. Yes, I'm trying yet another 650b conversion, on a bike that came out when I was nine years old.
I love the concept of a 650b conversion: take a classic steel frame, with lugs and a skinny horizontal top tube and a classic threaded stem, but add the comfort of fat, supple tires. My first try at this, on my old Trek 620, was spoiled by the awful Pacenti rims. These rims were virtually impossible to get a tire to seat on to them. Thin rim strips, lubrication, bead in the well... I tried all of the tricks, and they still sucked. I could barely get these on when I was in my workshop. A flat on the road would mean a walk home.

Take two on a 650b conversion was my Raleigh Technium. The Soma Weymouth rims worked fine here, but the long reach brakes couldn't stop the bike if there was any moisture on the rim. I'm a little nervous here, because I'm using the same brakes. My hope is the different brake levers will help the activation.

I didn't have any wheels at hand for my build. While I was shopping, I assembled what I could from what I had on hand: Suntour XC Pro mountain bike crank, the Nitto stem, and old Dia Compe 750 centerpull brakes.

For the wheels, I eventually splurged and ordered the cheapest set possible from Niagara cycles. The generic hubs with Alex 1000 rims cost me less than $100 shipped. I was nervous about the rims, since making a rim profile that allows a tire to easily mount has eluded most 650b rim makers, and I couldn't find any feedback on the Alex 1000 rims online. In the end, the rims worked fine: a strip of cloth tape down the deep middle well, and the Hetre tires popped right into place at about 50 psi.

The issue with the wheels came up in the hub sizing. Niagara advertised these as 130mm width, but they were actually 135mm. It's not worth sending back a $45 wheel, so I disassembled the hub, removed a 7mm spacer, and unlimbered my miter box saw to cut the axle down. A bit of redishing, and now the wheel fits the 127mm spacing perfectly.

As a side note, the bearing adjustment and grease in the no name hubs seemed fine.

I eventually got everything together for a test ride:

The 42mm tires fit fine at the seatstays:

But are tighter than I like at the chainstays:

I need to keep my wheel true or it will rub. Long term, I may either try to dimple the chainstay, or switch to a 38mm. Or just live with it. Sometimes close is good enough.

Loads of room at the fork:

Up front is a 46cm Noodle bar. I like the curve of this bar, but wonder if I should have followed my first instinct and just gotten the 48cm:

Drive train is 44/34 rings, and an 11/30 8 speed cassette in the back. I don't like front derailers, so my plan is to move the chain manually over the 34t ring if I'm ever carrying a camping load or something.

So far, I really like the ride of this bike. With the skinny frame and fat tires, it is plush and smooth. It doesn't feel super flexible and "planey", but it moves along well enough. I've heard some people say the front end geometry of the America is in the low trail category, but it feels more stable than my previous experiences with low trail. Regardless, it steers fine, and I don't have any complaints.

I just like the way the boys snuck into this picture:

To test the brakes, I squirted all four brake tracks with my water bottle and immediately tried a hard stop. There was some shudder and judder, but the bike slowed well enough. On my Raleigh, with these brakes and pads but modern aero levers, I only seemed to get about 10% of my brake power once the wheel was wet. That was a bit spooky the first time it happened.

I keep thinking someday I'll make a free body diagram to study the mechanical advantage of these caliper and lever combinations, but that seems too much like work.

Here it is almost done. I need to get some fenders and some sort of front bag, but I'm pretty happy with this conversion. Maybe third time is the charm.