Quote Originally Posted by DebW View Post
What about the tires, in terms of suppleness, weight, etc? Could you swap wheels between this bike and another one of your bikes and see if that makes it feel any different? There would be a noticable difference, for instance, between 2 wheelsets of the same overall weight but with different weight distributions between hub and rim.
Tires are currently brand new Schwalbe Blizzard Sports. The skins in the photo are Kendas. The Kenda's have a more 'square~ish' profile (bigger footprint on the road); thinking that might be a cause, I switched to the Schwalbes (more rounded profile, higher pressure, smaller footprint). Neither made much diff.
Wheelsets are more of a problem, since I'm short of spare ones. None of the wheels from my other bike have the right spacing; if I get desperate I can fix that and make 'em fit.
Triskeliongirl wondered about the cassette: it's a 14-28 6-speed Shimano 600 road cassette. I do have a few spare cassettes...I'll play around with them and see what happens.
Why did they make such a short wheelbase? Who knows? It's a killer hill-climbing bike, great for sprints and great on the local velodrome. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be a long-haul bike?