Okay. I checked the wheels front to back with a straight edge. Sure enough, one side of the front tire won't line up, the other side shows a 1/4" or so gap between the straight edge and front tire with the tool flat on the rear tire. (I used to do work like this for aligning industrial belt drives) Swapped the front tire 180* as per Maelochs. A test spin later and the bike rides normal again. Curious as to why this is. The front axle was seated in the forks, both axle ends nutted the same with 2 threads showing on each side. As far as I can tell it was centered. Could it be the way the wheel was built to run with the rear wheel on a 3 speed hub?