99 Schwinn Peloton 650B candidate?

I have the above listed bike, but I don't really use it much. It's a nice
bike with an older 105 gruppo, with brifters. I put a Technomic on it and a
B17, but I still ride it very seldom. My Gunnar is set up pretty BoBish, and
I find it very comfortable. Fatter tires and fenders made a world of
difference to me. The Schwinn has Continental Ultra 3000 700x25 but they
are pretty narrow and hard. I was considering converting it to 650B, but it
has no eyelets. A Carradice and a Bagman can take the place of a proper
rack, but what can I do for fenders? It's either convert this one or sell it
to finance a Surly. Exactly which Surly is up in the air right now. The
Cross-Check, Long Haul Trucker, and Karate Monkey all meet my needs.They can
run big fat tires AND have beaucoup eyelets. What do you guys think, is it
worth it to convert the Schwinn? It's a nice 853 frame, just too racer for
me.

Mike

In article , gooserider
wrote:

I have the above listed bike, but I don't really use it much. It's a nice
bike with an older 105 gruppo, with brifters. I put a Technomic on it and a
B17, but I still ride it very seldom. My Gunnar is set up pretty BoBish, and
I find it very comfortable. Fatter tires and fenders made a world of
difference to me. The Schwinn has Continental Ultra 3000 700x25 but they
are pretty narrow and hard. I was considering converting it to 650B, but it
has no eyelets. A Carradice and a Bagman can take the place of a proper
rack, but what can I do for fenders?

Faced with a similar situation here's what I did. Using an inexpensive
Planet Bike full fender kit, I modified the front fender stainless
stays, fashioning the loops (meant for fastening by bolt to the
eyelets) into a hook which then was clipped just above the fork dropout
- no hardware required for mounting and the setup was quite secure. The
mounting hole within the front fender's tab intended for fastening to
the fork crown required enlargement with a rat tail file to accommodate
the brake caliper's recessed Allen mounting nut.

As for the rear fender, a dollar or two worth of all purpose clamps
mounted on the seatstays will serve as pseudo eyelets. On the right
seatstay, position the clamp so that it doesn't interfere with the
chain. If the frame lacks a chainstay bridge (near the bottom bracket),
you can either dispense with fastening the fender at this point, and
possibly trimming it so that it fits tightly between the chainstays
directly aft of the BB shell; or, tie the fender down using a cord (or
twist tie) routed through the bracket and underneath the chainstays.

This is one of those tasks requiring jiggling, bending, and filing;
but, if done properly, works just as well as on a bike with the
requisite fittings.

Luke

gooserider wrote:
I have the above listed bike, but I don't really use it much. It's a nice
bike with an older 105 gruppo, with brifters. I put a Technomic on it and a
B17, but I still ride it very seldom. My Gunnar is set up pretty BoBish, and
I find it very comfortable. Fatter tires and fenders made a world of
difference to me. The Schwinn has Continental Ultra 3000 700x25 but they
are pretty narrow and hard. I was considering converting it to 650B, but it
has no eyelets. A Carradice and a Bagman can take the place of a proper
rack, but what can I do for fenders? It's either convert this one or sell it
to finance a Surly. Exactly which Surly is up in the air right now. The
Cross-Check, Long Haul Trucker, and Karate Monkey all meet my needs.They can
run big fat tires AND have beaucoup eyelets. What do you guys think, is it
worth it to convert the Schwinn? It's a nice 853 frame, just too racer for
me.

Mike

As was mentioned, you can eventually get fenders working on it fine by
going nuts with p-clamps, taking diagonal cutters to the fenders to get
it fitting right everywhere, getting it secured crudely with zip ties
in various places, etc. You can actually do this without going to 650B
by using/making special fender-splitting brackets to get around the
brakes
(http://www.rivercitybicycles.com/pro...roducts_id=613),
but you still wouldn't be able to run larger than a 28 tire probably.

I haven't ridden a 650B conversion and don't really know what can be
expected as far as how the bike's handling will change. The steering
trail on 650B conversions is reduced, which is generally the opposite
of what one wants to get out of the deal, and that bugs me although I
don't know how big of a deal it is in practice.

Long Hauls are really cool frames. If you want a classic do-it-all
bike, that's where I would go. Cross-check if you want the racier
geometry and Karate Monkey if you want to go mountain biking with it or
do something that needs horizontal dropouts or discs.

gooserider wrote:
I have the above listed bike, but I don't really use it much. It's a nice
bike with an older 105 gruppo, with brifters. I put a Technomic on it and a
B17, but I still ride it very seldom. My Gunnar is set up pretty BoBish, and
I find it very comfortable. Fatter tires and fenders made a world of
difference to me. The Schwinn has Continental Ultra 3000 700x25 but they
are pretty narrow and hard. I was considering converting it to 650B, but it
has no eyelets. A Carradice and a Bagman can take the place of a proper
rack, but what can I do for fenders? It's either convert this one or sell it
to finance a Surly. Exactly which Surly is up in the air right now. The
Cross-Check, Long Haul Trucker, and Karate Monkey all meet my needs.They can
run big fat tires AND have beaucoup eyelets. What do you guys think, is it
worth it to convert the Schwinn? It's a nice 853 frame, just too racer for
me.

Mike

I agree with the others in saying P-clips and such can easily and
securely mount a rack and fenders to a bike without eyelets. I used
four P-clips to mount a rack onto a bike for brevets. I used P-clips
to mount fenders onto my touring bike. It does not have a chainstay
bridge so I used #12 electrical wire, hot, between the chainstays where
the bridge should be. Works just fine. And it all looks OK too.

Now, if you are really just asking for encouragement to get a new bike
and build it up. Then do it. Of the Surly bikes you mention, I would
only consider the Long Haul Trucker as good if I were building a true
loaded touring bike. Otherwise all Surly bikes are fairly pedestrian
gas pipe tubing. I'd prefer to start with quite a bit higher level of
frame at the price point you are talking about. If cheap is your main
driver, then nashbar sells cheap aluminum frames for 1/3 the Surly
price.

wrote:
Otherwise all Surly bikes are fairly pedestrian
gas pipe tubing. I'd prefer to start with quite a bit higher level of
frame at the price point you are talking about. If cheap is your main
driver, then nashbar sells cheap aluminum frames for 1/3 the Surly
price.

The Surlys are mostly double butted 4130 double butted cromoly, hardly
"gas pipe". I would agree if someone ventured to comment that they're
overpriced--a simple powder coated steel frame brazed up in Taiwan
shouldn't cost more than $200-250.

I'd also consider a Soma Smoothie ES:

http://store.somafab.com/somasmoothiees.html

Fully butted Reynolds for about $375, and somewhere in the style
between an Audax bike and a Touring ride. Accepts 32mm tires with
fenders, and uses long reach brakes.

wrote:
gooserider wrote:
I have the above listed bike, but I don't really use it much. It's a nice
bike with an older 105 gruppo, with brifters. I put a Technomic on it and a
B17, but I still ride it very seldom. My Gunnar is set up pretty BoBish, and
I find it very comfortable. Fatter tires and fenders made a world of
difference to me. The Schwinn has Continental Ultra 3000 700x25 but they
are pretty narrow and hard. I was considering converting it to 650B, but it
has no eyelets. A Carradice and a Bagman can take the place of a proper
rack, but what can I do for fenders? It's either convert this one or sell it
to finance a Surly. Exactly which Surly is up in the air right now. The
Cross-Check, Long Haul Trucker, and Karate Monkey all meet my needs.They can
run big fat tires AND have beaucoup eyelets. What do you guys think, is it
worth it to convert the Schwinn? It's a nice 853 frame, just too racer for
me.

Mike

I agree with the others in saying P-clips and such can easily and
securely mount a rack and fenders to a bike without eyelets. I used
four P-clips to mount a rack onto a bike for brevets. I used P-clips
to mount fenders onto my touring bike. It does not have a chainstay
bridge so I used #12 electrical wire, hot, between the chainstays where
the bridge should be. Works just fine. And it all looks OK too.

Flimsy little vinyl-coated P-clamps for lower rack eyelets? Even on a
lightly loaded rack, I'd be sketched about that...

Now, if you are really just asking for encouragement to get a new bike
and build it up. Then do it. Of the Surly bikes you mention, I would
only consider the Long Haul Trucker as good if I were building a true
loaded touring bike. Otherwise all Surly bikes are fairly pedestrian
gas pipe tubing. I'd prefer to start with quite a bit higher level of
frame at the price point you are talking about. If cheap is your main
driver, then nashbar sells cheap aluminum frames for 1/3 the Surly
price.

I don't know what gas pipe is made of, but if it's butted cromo then
I'd happily ride it in my frame. Surly's markup is high for Taiwanese
butted cromo frames, and most of that is indeed because Q wants to make
money, but cromo frames cost more to produce than al and Surly doesn't
sell a huge volume of them, which makes the frames cost them more and
forces them to sell each higher to cover their costs. The other thing
is that, other than the instigator, they all come as framesets with
nice-quality forks that retail for $80-$100 anyway, although that'd be
more like $60-80 for comparable non-Surly-branded forks. Few of the
other cheap frames out there come with forks. And then there's the fact
that all the Surly frames are marked by the fact that they have stuff
going for them that's pretty unique, which is the real reason why they
manage to get so many people to pay the high markup.

wrote:

Of the Surly bikes you mention, I would
only consider the Long Haul Trucker as good if I were building a true
loaded touring bike. Otherwise all Surly bikes are fairly pedestrian
gas pipe tubing. I'd prefer to start with quite a bit higher level of
frame at the price point you are talking about. If cheap is your main
driver, then nashbar sells cheap aluminum frames for 1/3 the Surly
price.

Surly bikes are about uncommon but desirable features, not fancy
materials. Things like ample fat tire clearance and horizontal
dropouts are generally not available on cheaper no-name frames, even if
they are equally well-made.

I was all set to buy a Nashbar steel MTB frame when I heard they made a
23" model. Then I looked over the specs, and found that the 23" frame
has a 23" top tube! That's the kind of oblivious design feature that
lets me know there will be other issues with it as well.

Chalo Colina

In article .com,
Nate Knutson wrote:

Long Hauls are really cool frames. If you want a classic do-it-all
bike, that's where I would go. Cross-check if you want the racier
geometry and Karate Monkey if you want to go mountain biking with it or
do something that needs horizontal dropouts or discs.

All versatile frames. Peripheral to the topic, I don't understand why
Surly spec'ed the Long Haul with vertical dropouts. Double eyeleted
horizontal dropouts, a la the Crosscheck, would've added the option of
SS/FG conversion to the LHT's list of attributes without conferring any
liabilities or extra cost.

Luke

Chalo wrote:
wrote:

Of the Surly bikes you mention, I would
only consider the Long Haul Trucker as good if I were building a true
loaded touring bike. Otherwise all Surly bikes are fairly pedestrian
gas pipe tubing. I'd prefer to start with quite a bit higher level of
frame at the price point you are talking about. If cheap is your main
driver, then nashbar sells cheap aluminum frames for 1/3 the Surly
price.

Surly bikes are about uncommon but desirable features, not fancy
materials. Things like ample fat tire clearance and horizontal
dropouts are generally not available on cheaper no-name frames, even if
they are equally well-made.

But why make it out of poor materials? I looked at the Surly website.
The 58 cm c-t Pacer road frame is TIG welded and lists a weight of 4.75
pounds. My Waterford 1200 lugged steel frame, 58 cm c-t, is 4 pounds.
Why did Surly use extra, extra heavy gauge pipe for the frame? TIG
welded frames should be much lighter than lugged frames due to the
weight of the lugs. I figure there is 1 pound of extra steel in the
Surly pacer tubing. Why? Is this one of those desirable features you
mention?

The fork for the Pacer is listed at a bit over 2 pounds. My Reynolds
531 fork is 1.5 pounds. The Pacer fork does have 1.125" steerer
compared to 1" on mine. But still that is a lot of extra steel in the
Pacer fork. Why use such heavy gauge pipe for a fork?

I understand this desirable features thing. But when QBP puts these
desirable features on a frame made out of heavy gauge pipe, doesn't
that defeat the purpose? QBP is selling the options and accessories on
the Surly frames, not a quality frame. And the people who buy them are
paying for options and accessories, not a quality frame. Do you buy a
car based on the options only? If it has air conditioning and
automatic, and moonroof, and V8 engine, its a great car? Never mind
its a Pinto or Citation or Gremlin or Pacer. I know these cars did not
have many or any of these options.

I'd prefer to buy a plainer but high quality frame and forego the
options and accessories on a Surly, given the same price point.
Ideally I'd get a quality frame with the options too.


I was all set to buy a Nashbar steel MTB frame when I heard they made a
23" model. Then I looked over the specs, and found that the 23" frame
has a 23" top tube! That's the kind of oblivious design feature that
lets me know there will be other issues with it as well.

Chalo Colina

I have a 58 cm c-t Nashbar aluminum road frame. 57.5 cm top tube.
73.5 head, 72.5 seat. Pretty close to perfect geometry. It carried me
successfully through 400 km one day. And shorter rides too. No
eyelets, but 4 P-clips mounted a rear rack to the frame easily and
securely for brevets. With the bike I own, and have ridden thousands
of miles, I do not find any obvious design faults or other issues.

"Luke" wrote in message
...
In article .com,
Nate Knutson wrote:

Long Hauls are really cool frames. If you want a classic do-it-all
bike, that's where I would go. Cross-check if you want the racier
geometry and Karate Monkey if you want to go mountain biking with it or
do something that needs horizontal dropouts or discs.

All versatile frames. Peripheral to the topic, I don't understand why
Surly spec'ed the Long Haul with vertical dropouts. Double eyeleted
horizontal dropouts, a la the Crosscheck, would've added the option of
SS/FG conversion to the LHT's list of attributes without conferring any
liabilities or extra cost.

Luke

Especially since the bike is designed to be fendered. I think changing a
rear tire on a fendered, fully loaded LHT would be much easier with
Cross-Check dropouts. Any bike designed for fenders should have front-entry
horizontal dropouts, if it has horizontal dropouts. Seems like a no-brainer.
I don't understand the obsession with rear-entry dropout "track ends".