Wonderful and rare bike. Nice find. The sport touring geometry would make a nice randonneur. You should be able to fit a 6 or 7 speed freewheel in there, but not sure how it'll work with the 1/2 step rings up front. Friction shifting is a piece of cake. The 9 speed bar ends will work fine in friction mode.
WNG, if the rear spacing is 126, will I need to do anything special to upgrade to a 7 spd freewheel?
Thanks for the replies and feedback. I'm leaning towards installing friction bar-ends on the Sequoia and keeping my Bianchi in indexed bar-end mode. I enjoy bar ends -- hey they were good enough for Jose Manuel Fuente and Rik Van Looy.
This is my first vintage restoration (I've cleaned up a couple of ones I flipped, but I fully intend on riding this one for a long time).