With a steel frame, you don't really need to cold-set the frame from 126mm to 130mm. My wife recently acquired a 1983 Trek 500 and we modernized the parts and use 130mm OLD ultegra/A23 700c wheels. The frame has 126mm but a gentle tug east-west of the drop-out allows me to pull the rear wheel in easily.
Actually, the Silver/Tektro 559 might not work with 700c wheels, unless the reach for 700c on the frameset is longer than 55mm. So you really need to determine the wheel size first before selecting the brakes. Also, unless you can score brakes that uses nut instead of recessed allen, you will have to drill the frameset to use most recess-allen-equipped brake calipers. I tend to use center-pull brakes for these conversions for easy and inexpensive sourcing, as well as better braking power. Franklyn On Thursday, August 28, 2014 5:03:39 PM UTC-7, cbone97 wrote: > > So after selling my Sam (sniff sniff), I scored a 1985 Trek 420 with 27" > wheels. It's a beautiful lugged frame that looks like it was barely ridden > and I can't wait to get my collection of Rivy parts on it: SunRace > thumbshifter (singular, no front der), Dirt Drop stem, fancy drilled Tektro > levers, etc. > > Here's the hard part. I'm a hefty lad and need/want a fatter tire than > the fattest 27"ers made. The Trek has a rear hub spacing of 126mm and I > don't really want to cold set it to 130mm. At 126mm, options seem limited > to freewheel hubs. I'm ok with that, but all the prebuilt 700c 126mm > wheelsets have skinny rims for skinny tires. So it seems I need a custom > rear wheel - 126mm hub with a rim that will accommodate 38-50mm tires. > > If I'm going to have a rear wheel built on a 126mm hub, would it be > preferable to go 650b or 700c? Can I really get that much more air volume > with 650b tires? My rough measurements suggest that with 700c the rear > will fit 38mm tires. With 700c, I might? even fit a 50mm Big Ben on the > front a and a little Ben on the rear. While 650b theoretically will allow > a bigger tire, I'm not sure a 650b Big Ben will fit the rear, which might > put me > > Assuming that the Silvers will work for either size (reach the 650b rims), > which size might be best? I think either would be fine/ok, am I forgetting > anything? Should I REALLY not rule out cold setting to 130mm and going > with a freehub wheel? > > Thanks! > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
