The silver fenders had to go
I like to think of myself as someone who isn’t pulled by the forces of fashion and who will just put things together that work despite how they might look together, but, alas, when I got the H+Son Archetype rims to replace the worn out Open Sports on the midlifecrisismobile they did bad things to my contempt for looks. First I had to discard my silver SON 28 for a black PV-8 so I could have all black hubs + rims (the SON 28 was not thrown out, though; it’s been set aside so I can lace it into a 650b wheel for the Murray Baja Experience!), then I had to replace the silver seatpost and stem with black ones, then finally I had to pull the silver fenders (which will be rolled to a smaller diameter and put onto the Shiromoto.) Alas, I don’t have any non-battered black fenders lying around, but I do have a pink set and I’ll probably put them onto the bicycle as a temporary stopgap (maybe painted red or black? Let’s see how ridiculous they look first!)
Note one of the side-effects of the low trail fork is that I can get away with putting my big rando bag further forward than I used to be able to put it. The new front rack has a usable 8"×8" platform (compared to the old rack which only had about 6"×6" usable) and until I braze up a new decaleur I’ve got the bag pushed forward so it can be strapped to the front of the rack as well as the sides. The older fork rode increasingly unhappily as I loaded things forward, but this fork doesn’t seem to care very much and I can actually ride the bicycle no-handed with the rando bag shoved way out in front. When my hands are off the handlebars the bicycle tends to wander a little bit, though, so I should try riding no-handed when I’ve got a load in the bag (I don’t use historical reenactment fabrics, so my bag only weighs about 14 oz, so it plus the rack is < 2 pounds, or basically nothing in the load department) to see (a) if I can do it and, of course, (b) if the wandering tendency subsides.