As I mentioned last time my trusty lever pipe wouldn't budge the FW on the Randonee yesterday. I was not about to go quietly on that score.
I went to Home Depot first thing and had them cut a 10 foot section of pipe down to 30 inches for me or 3x the length I had before. I had to pay for the full 10 feet so I could have bought a new rear wheel off Amazon for that, but this was war. Even with the new pipe it didn't want budge at first, so I dosed it with liquid wrench again, put the old rubber back on the rim and then braced the wheel so it was up against a wall as a brake, and tried again.
Success!! It was an expensive success but it was also very satisfying. I called the old pipe the persuader the new one I will call Archimedes.
I had finished the stock front wheel and put on the new Pasela 27 X 1 1/4 tire so I put it on the bike. It wasn't going to work with the fenders (the old tires were 27 X 1 1/8) so I removed them, sigh. Even after taking off the fenders the new brakes and the new tires didn't play well together. The top of the tire rubbed on the bottom of the brake so that is a no go.
The beauty of having way too many bikes is that I just happened to have a 700c wheelset to try (it was on the Allez) and as the picture shows the front was fine...
With the rear brake mounted normally I couldn't get one side to hit the brake wall, it hit rubber, so I reversed it. The problem I see is that cable routing could be a challenge and using this wheelset is only a short term solution as it belongs to another bike.
So the only option I haven't tried with the new brakes is the stock 27" wheels with the original 27 x 1 1/8 tires which I think would work but a I don't really want to use old tires and I don't want to spend another $50 on a set of new 27 x 1 1/8 Pasela's right now. So I have cleaned up the original brakes, and now that the FW has been vanquished I can do the grease and bearings on the rear wheel and then I will do the original wheels with new rubber and the original brakes with new pads - that I stole off the not yet finished LeTour. And in theory, without fenders, it should all work.
When I get the bearings on the rear wheel done I will mount this new mega range 7 speed FW that I have had for years and never used. Its possible the stock Suntour Rear Derailleur could balk at handling a 34t low cog but I have a RD that can it that becomes an issue. That will give me a nice low gear for slogging up hills.
More to come next time.
Ride. Go Archimedes on a freewheel. Smile. Repeat.
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