Rear wheel swap

[Dickey]

Been a while since I've had something worth posting. I've had my bike a year and done some tinkering on it but the reason for the post is for the project I'm about to do.

This is the bike when I got it:


This is how it sits at the moment:


New handlebars, bar end mirrors and an MT90h16 white wall tire up front. There is a new tire in the rear but it is exactly like the one I replaced.


Since last April, I've learned how to change tires and fab my own handlebars. The next step is to learn how to lace a wheel. I decided to do this because I think the white wall of the front tire looks very good on the bike and there is not a whitewall tire made for a 15" rim that is narrow enough to really suit our bikes. To get a white wall, I could go hardtail and use a 150/90-15, which has been done, but the tire is close enough to the chain that I decided against it. Besides, the bikes that I think look cool have identical front and rear tires.

So for $130 I got another set of wheels for the gz delivered from ebay this morning. My goal is to lace the front rim to the rear hub and allow me an MT90h-16 tire on the rear of my bike as well. I did some math and this will introduce a little less mechanical reduction as moving to a 16 tooth front sprocket. As best I can tell, the 16t update drops the rpms to around 94 percent of what they were and this should put me just under 96 perecent.

I'm not sure yet if there will be significant any interference with the fender. Likely there won't be unless I hit a nasty bump or something. The stock wheel diameter is 24.2" and the new diameter will be 25.3"...which only puts the top of the tire a half inch closer than it was. The width should be nearly the same as the 130/90 tire so my chain concerns are addressed.

Anyway, thought I'd post up as a way of saying hello and to see if you guys had any thoughts regarding my plans.



//also, I have not forgotten the exhaust I intended to make last year. I did learn that the kickstand interferes with my plans though and the project will require an update to the kickstand as well before I can move forward on it. Likely to be like those old style ones that pick up the rear wheel but time being as scarce as it can be, I've not looked into it much more than to say "dang, that's in the way".