^ who you calling a crank? ;)

I figured it out as I was falling asleep last night. Thanks all.

Here's my stupid question:
Can a 26mm diameter bar fit into a 25.4mm clamp size stem?

heh. I just tried this. Nope. Didn't go. I ended up having to use a 31.8 stem (which, I had) and a shim (and, yeah, I had to get a 26.0 specific shim. The 25.4 to 31.8 shim I had just didn't fit right.

Ok. I have two more stupid questions:

1) I was reading about freehub body transplants and according to Sheldon's article an 8 HG body can be fitted in place of a 7 HG or UG body and the wheel has to be re-dished. I was looking at my hub and there's about 3mm washer between the cone and the locknut on the non drive side. Can I just remove / change the washer?

2) is it possible to finagle an 135mm spaced hub to 130mm?

" I was reading about freehub body transplants and according to Sheldon's article an 8 HG body can be fitted in place of a 7 HG or UG body and the wheel has to be re-dished. I was looking at my hub and there's about 3mm washer between the cone and the locknut on the non drive side. Can I just remove / change the washer?"

Removing the washer would increase the hub offset (dish) even further, that's why the 8-speed hubs got wider, so the dish would stay within limits.

I don't think you could switch the freehub body to 8sp without added wheel dish unless you added spacers to the left end of the axle and accepted a further increase in width to close to 135mm.

Any time you switch a freehub body yu'll want to take all of the right-hand axle hardware with it, otherwise the sealing system may not work and the locknut will not extend the right distance from the sprocket face.

And not all Shimano freehub bodies work on all their hubshells, some will have the splines at totally the wrong distance from the spokes, something I have encountered more than once, and no tinkering with washers can fix that.

I usually limit any forcing of wider wheels into narrower dropouts to a 3mm difference, but that's mostly for keeping the wheel installation simple. You could go wider if you had too, but then sometimes the quick release feels springy as the dropouts tend to splay out of parallel.

Oh, I thought I wrote that I already answered my own first question about rear wheels: for some reason I keep thinking about things backwards.

But my 2nd question was respacing 135 to 130.

Resurrecting this thread for my own stupid question. Is it possible to use a thumb shifter at the end of drop or mustache handlebars as a sort of poor man's bar end shifter? I realize that you'd have to give up an inch or so at the end of the handlebars, and cable routing may be an issue. Do these issues make it impossible? Anyone tried or seen something like this?

Not "may be" - WILL BE an issue - a huge one - like the huge bump under your bar wrap :eek:. (-And even worse than that, it would force you to wrap your bars from the bottom-up, which everyone knows is a no-no. ;) )

^ See, I knew it was a stupid question. ;)

But why could't you do it? it would't be pretty but I think it could be done.

Are your bearings sound?

The cable stands proud to the bar ~ 1" .
If you were to wrap over it, it would look hideous (as cited)
If you were to wrap under it, the cable would impede normal gripping and thus impair actuation of the brake levers.

Oh, that so calls out for a bad pun or three.