1saxman

Last year I bought a 'Motobecane Jubilee 8' on Bikes Direct; aluminum frame, shock fork, 27.5 wheels, Shimano juice disc brakes, spring seatpost and wide saddle. The thing about this bike is it has a Shimano 8-spd hub in it. Don't ask me why i thought this was a good idea but I bought it. I did not take to it. I rode it on the trail I had been riding (paved trail, doing about 20 miles on it, 10 out, 10 back) and it felt really heavy and the low gear was not low enough. So I went back to riding my Trek (1992) 930 Singletrack that is okay for this trail but the trail has a few washboards and plank bridges on it and I did enjoy the shock fork on the Motobecane. I tried to get rid of it to no avail, so last week for some reason I decided to see what i could do with it without spending much. I had been looking at another padded saddle but without the springs and shaped like a road saddle, so I got that, along with a set of 27.5x1.5" tires to replace the 2.1s. That went well and I had a one hour ride this morning that went great. The only other thing I did was to set the seat post higher than before with a little rise on the saddle nose. The bike is a little bit lighter and the reduced tire height gives me a slightly smaller wheel, which effectively gives me a very slightly lower gear. Plus, the higher tire pressure makes for less rolling resistance. The total effect, although these are minor changes, was just enough to turn the clodhopper into a fairly crisp ride. I could tell right away that I was using the gears above '4' a lot more than before but it still has some very long legs - I plan to get the rear sprocket that has two more teeth (20 to 22) and see how that goes. I don't want to have to screw with the chainring because I don't know if anything else will fit it, and the chainring is riveted to the spider, which is part of the crank arm.
Strangely, the thing that got me motivated to do something with it was simply realizing how this bike has some things in common with my favorite bike as a kid 60 years ago. I had a Roadmaster with spring fork. I had stripped it down and had a rear wheel made up with a Bendix Automatic 2-speed coaster brake. I've always had a thing for geared hubs. I realized if I had been able to have the bike I have today as a kid, it would have been epic. So, I just kind of relaxed and decided to see if i could get it to the point that i would ride it frequently and not be afraid to take it on the 20-mile rides. That was successful, so here it is - notice how close the front tire is to the fork cross-tie with the fat tires and how you can see the difference with the skinny ones - that much difference can be felt.