Tweaking the Fuji

When I first got this Fuji League, one of the things I did was strip off the coasting bits and make it in to a fixed gear bike. A bit later, I traded my multi-geared mountain bike for fixed gear mountain bike. Having two fixies seems excessive and redundant, so I recently spent some time tweaking the Fuji into something different. Something that would let me coast and shift.

I figured if I was going to have multiple gears, I might as well have a bunch of them. I found a Sakae triple crankset in my parts pile. Matched up with the Fuji's original six-speed rear wheel, I get a very nice range of gear ratios that when plugged into Sheldon Brown's handy gear calculator looks like this:

52 23.8 % 42 40.0 % 30 13 105.5 85.2 60.9 15.4 % 15 91.5 73.9 52.8 13.3 % 17 80.7 65.2 46.6 11.8 % 19 72.2 58.3 41.7 15.8 % 22 62.4 50.4 36.0 18.2 % 26 52.8 42.6 30.4

A couple of old Shimano derailleurs are controlled by my all time favorite cheap shifters (friction only! work with anything! We sell a pair of 'em for $10 new including cables at Bike Works!)

While I didn't want to make the Fuji into a full-bore Xtracycle-style beast of burden, all my bikes wind up hauling groceries, tools, camping gear and so forth. A Jandd Frame Pack holds tools and snacks while larger loads can be carried in the rear basket. The basket is a Rubbermaid Dish Drainer that I modified by cutting and folding the dish holding ridges down flat. I also attached a couple of rear blinkies to the rear of the basket.

Over the years I've experimented with different handlebars, and concluded that Grant Petersen and I just disagree on this particular subject. Grant can find good things to say about Noodle Bars, Moustache Bars and North Road Bars but doesn't particularly care for the bars I favor, flat bars with bar ends. To each his own.