David- I had great success with my conversion of a Riv Road Standard <http://s1060.photobucket.com/user/Tim_Gavin/media/Rivendell/IMG_00421_zps6vuvmevf.jpg.html>, which has an 80 mm BB drop. The stays and fork are narrow, limiting me to a 650 x 38b tire.
My crank is LOW. But fine. The bike rides noticeably lower than it did with 700x28 tires. The ride is *very* comfortable and it's easier to mount (I can almost flat-foot). A 170 mm crank provides welcome clearance, but even then I've scraped the pedal edges a couple times in corners before I just stopped trying to pedal through. My Shimano PD-M324 pedals are assuredly thicker than your Gripsters, so you have more clearance there. You have more tire clearance to begin with, so 42 mm tires should fit. That gives you 4 mm more height off the ground, plus the 3 mm less BB drop in your frame, plus a couple mm of pedal thickness. Before I installed fenders, I was able to swap back and forth by changing wheels and brakes. But 700x28 with no fenders is not nearly as nice as 650x38 with fenders, so I've never swapped back after the first test fit attempts. The 700c rims were worn out anyway, so I rebuilt the original Phil hubs into Synergy 650b rims. Give it a try! Just be careful in corners. Tim Gavin Cedar Rapids, IA On Thu, May 28, 2015 at 12:57 PM, David Banzer <daban...@gmail.com> wrote: > After pondering how to get a decent 650b road bike built up to ride, the > most obvious solution evaded me all week until last night I realized I > should convert my Redwood to 650b and try and fit 42mm tires and fenders. > I think what's kept me from doing this is the 77mm drop, though I did just > fine with a Trek conversion with 72mm drop and traditional pedals. If I run > VP-001s (Thin Gripsters) that's basically makes up for the difference in > drop and eases concerns about pedal strike. > I've checked archives here and there was at least a couple conversions of > a Ram. > I have long reach Tektros, Koolstop thinline brakes, and have no issue > filing brake slots if need be. I believe I have all the necessary parts > needed and it really (hopefully!) will just be an easy swap of brakes and > wheels. > Anyone else converted a Rambouillet/Romulus/Redwood to 650b? Impressions? > Advice? > David > Chicago > > -- > 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. > -- 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.
