Originally Posted by
VinceInSeattle
I thought I'd circle back to this post and tell you what I decided to do. I measured the drop-out with a caliper and it comes to 127.8 mm. Took the bike to a local shop and they let me put in a 130 mm wheel. I honestly didn't like the spreading of the frame - it was fiddly to get it in there and I just didn't like the idea of the stress on the frame. So I asked them to re-space the wheel to 128 mm and re-dish. After struggling on 17 miles of relentless uphill last weekend in Olympic National Park, I decided to trade in my 6-speed 24T freewheel for an 8-speed 32T cassette. But that required a new derailleur and new, longer chain. So it's been an expensive adventure so far, but I expect it will ride easier, brake much better, and be more serviceable. I really like the idea of switching to brifters sometime in the future and a new front wheel would be nice too, but for now, it will be friction downtube shifting for me. The service guy asked me if my riding needs had changed. I told him, "I'm not 28 like when I bought this bike!" (I'll be 60 this year.)
Thanks for the comments, I learned something new every time I re-read this thread, after more research that let me understand it better.
Last fall I was given a wheel, it's a Bontrager something something I don't know but it does use a freewheel. Stuck it aside then decided to use it with a dedicated tire for my wheel-on fluid trainer. Good idea but too wide and I didn't want to spread the frame because the idea was to avoid having to remove the trainer tire from the wheel if I want to ride it on the road not reconfigure my bike. I gave this matter a lot of thought and figured that replacing spacers and trimming the axle should work and cost little money. I had this mental block about putting money into this project.
I was able to swap out some spacers and had the machine shop where I work trim the axle. Once I got it back together even the flexible dust cap fits. It works on a trainer even with the dish out of wack but I did buy a dishing tool because I want to start building wheels because I need a new hobby. So because I was gifted the wheel, had a freewheel in my parts box and all of the labor was free and the spacers I had in my bunker, the thing works but I do now have a $50 Park dishing tool. Once the memory of that purchase fades I'm going to buy a Park Truing stand.TS 2.2.
My kids (adults that is) always ask me what to get me for Christmas so prolly the truing stand this year. Then I will need a few other items but could start with what I have even now but I'm going to wait until next spring to do my first wheel build. Oddly enough while most of my riding is on the road my first wheel build will probably be for my hybrid bike as I have at least two sets of wheels for all three of my road bikes but no extra sets for my hybrid.