Well, I swapped out the old tires and tubes for some nice latex tubes and a set of Continental Grand Prix Classic tires. The tires are 700 x 25 and there's plenty of room left. I wouldn't be surprised if you could fit some true to size 700 x 28 tires on this or maybe at least the VITTORIA OPEN PAVE EVO CG III in 700 x 27. I ran those before and they measure true to size on an old narrow rim. I tried the old pump while messing around with the tires and it works just fine.
Swapped out the "so out of place" saddle and put on a basic black racer saddle I had on hand for now. Let me honestly say that either I'm an idiot or the seatpost is a pain to mount a saddle on. It's a two bolt setup but adjustments are done on the top of the seatpost. Really hard to get at the front bolt if your saddle has any side skirts on it. More reason for the Brooks I guess, LOL!
After that I took it out for what I had planned to be just my normal 5 mile shakedown route I used for all my new rides. But everything seemed to be working great so I just kept going. Wound up doing a mostly leisurely 23 miles on it subjecting it to lots of different road surfaces and one short but steep climb. Oh and I just have to say that in the sunlight this paint takes on a life of it's own. It is so gorgeous when the sun lights up all the metal flake in the paint, Fuji really hit a winner with this.
Now the ride, how to describe it?
Stiff, for sure, and responsive. None of the pedaling effort seemed to be wasted. I would not call it a fast comfortable cruiser by no means. It felt like it wanted to be ridden hard. It chattered and banged over the same rough roads surfaces that some of my other steel bikes would just take with no drama at all. I would not call this a good choice for a long distance bike. This is a pure on race machine I think. More along the like of my Trek 560 than either of the Giordana's or the Circuit. Exactly as I expected though. It did really well on the climb though despite the less than ideal gearing. It seemed like pretty much all the effort I was putting in was directed to get me up the hill. It felt solid when I stood and just seemed to skip along lightly underneath me when I stood and got on it. Felt lighter than it is at times like this.
I only got it to 36 mph on the descent but the bike tracked well and took the high speed turns just fine. The last 3 miles I just kept it at 53/13 and cranked away. Held speeds over 20 mph just fine over the last 3 miles of slightly rolling hills.
The only issues shifting were from me. I've gotten a little soft with the index shifting on most of my bikes, LOL! The brakes, ummm, yeah they are the original pads. Need I say more.
The handlebars are too narrow for my liking but that seems to be the norm with all the bikes from this era. Easy enough to fix.
The fit is a bit off on this one but sort of expected with the aggressive geometry. I would normally have about another inch of setback but it didn't seem to bother me today. This may prevent me from running a Brooks on this though unless I have some crazy long setback seatpost on it.
Anyway the bike was everything I thought it would be and more. So happy with this one.