Remarkable timing as I just finished up a complete rebuild of an old Univega MTB on Tuesday
& took it out for a long maiden voyage of 5 hours early yesterday.
I also just used parts I had on hand and since I had no preferred barend shifters I went with
the stem shifters in my parts box and they actually did very well shifting the 3 x 6 gear set up.
The cush of those fat tires and road bars has me hooked.
I will be updating my cockpit on this one soon with better brake levers as well as inline / cross levers & perhaps barend shifters.
I had no fresh bar tape so just recycled some used tape since I will be changing cockpit later.
One frustration on this old Univega besides being a heavy tank with only main frame of db tubing is that it takes a 21.1 stem & I want a taller stem. I have this one maxed out. I could not find any 21.1 stems on line that have a 26 clamp for a road bar.
I just happened to have this one I was able to use from an old 77 or so Nishiki road bike.
I did find a bmx stem adaptor online in a 21.1 so I could go with that and perhaps a Velo Orange removable faceplate stem.
Those Shimano Exage levers sucked at taking advantage of the Shimano AT-50 canti's.
I measured those tires at 51mm. Inflated them to 50lbs and cush time on the hot roads around Dallas.
My first real experience at trying this but I did not think those fat tires slowed me down that much
with the slower speeds I mostly ride.
Fun stuff.