Originally Posted by
kroozer
What kind of riding do you want to do with the bike? Your Fuji seems to be a classic sport tourer, best for day excursions and commuting on good roads and streets with a fairly light load. Converting it to smaller diameter wheels can be expensive and complicated, and even then you might not be able to fit wide tires. If you want to do fully-loaded touring, look for a dedicated tourer. Old rigid-frame MTB's also make great heavy-duty tourers, they check off all the boxes: strong frame, good brakes, full braze-on's, comfortable ride, huge tire clearances. And they're dirt cheap.
The impetus for this conversion is for a couple of reasons:
(a) Interestingly enough, the Fuji America is a low trail bike (see photo below). So they designed a frame with low-trail, but used skinnier tires (which at the time, as others have noted) was what was available. Fatter tires improve the handling of low-trail bikes.
(b) Just would make for a plusher ride, especially since my commute often takes me along rougher roads and a concrete bike path, which as we can all attest, such to ride on purely from the bumpety-bump due to uneven segments.
(c) Fender clearance
Fuji America Fork Rake / Trail