We're drifting pretty far from a discussion about saddle angles now, fwiw.
I don't know if I'd say misfit, but the America is/was an intriguing bike. Issue #1 was it wasn't a touring frame, it was a road-sport frame, but Fuji either didn't see it that way, or didn't care and called it a touring bike because it was the closest thing they had and people wanted touring bikes. That's mostly a corporate/marketing issue. Issue #2, the trail, does strike me as a little strange. But there were other contemporary non-touring, road-sport bikes in Fuji's line with low trail, and like I said, a bunch of Treks, too. I wonder why they spec'd low trail, but didn't follow through with recommending front loads. If anything, low trail designs are worse with heavy rear loads,especially loaded high.
And to drift even further, I don't know if you've checked recently, but I don't think you're going to find any 650c tires much wider than 25-26mm. I know of two, the Terry Tellus, which is labeled 28 but is undersized. And there's a Panaracer Pasela that's labeled 28, not sure if actually gets that wide. And I think that's only available from Rodriguez Cycles in Seattle.
The other thing is a 650c wheel, especially with a fairly narrow tire, will lower your bike/bb substantially, to the point where you might have issues with pedal strike on corners. I'm seeing a tensioning device under your bags, so I'm assuming you're running a single freewheel and not a fixed gear? So you don't have to pedal through corners, but if you forget and do, you might send up some sparks. You're going from 622>571, so you're lowering the bb almost 26mm, and you're not gaining back some height by using significantly wider tires, because there aren't significantly wider tires in 650c.
You might want to check out your tire options and bb height issues before you dive too deep into 650c.
Oh, and check brake reach, too. You'll need mighty long calipers to reach those 650c rims.
650b conversions on Americas seem to work out nicely. You can get nice 32-584 tires from Grand Bois, and Hutchinson still makes the Confriere d'650b, also 32mm. I'm not sure an America would fit a 38mm, but 32s would get you lots of fender clearance. Google around, here's one thread without final answers, but pointing in the right direction, from right here:
Fuji America Tire/Fender Clearance
Originally Posted by
Het Volk
BTW - thanks so much for such a deep dive on the America and its history. It is really kind of an misfit in bike design because as you noted, not really a touring bike, not a racing bike. It was if you took a race bike frame, with French touring geometry. However, I am going to circumvent this somewhat, as I found some NOS 650C Mavic rims that I am building, to then allow for better tire & fender clearance, with a dynamo hub on the front for power (yes - I know, 650B is the rage, but for this frame, 650C makes more sense in terms of clearance. 650B are actually larger size, and the larger tired available would not fit within this frame regardless.