tested a Fuji Touring today
 

This bike is very comfortable! anyone have one? anyone swap the stem with a slightly taller one? anyone take it on 50 or 100 mile joyrides?

Yes, no and yes.

I love mine. I did switch out the stem but for a shorter one (shorter, front to back, not top to bottom).

I rode my first century on it, in October and rode 80 miles last Tuesday. It's the most comfy bike in my stable. If I had it to do over again, I'd still buy it.

LOL! Sweet testimonial. THANKS

I've had mine a little over a year. Changed stem to taller and shorter (front rear), changed seat to a little harder seat (sorry ... butt has gotten use to road bike seats and original seemed a tad soft).
I heard an occasional bad story about the Fuji hub cups failing or something ... and did a preemptive wheel hub change. Good excuse to practice wheel building anyway.

I was use to my TREK 100 but wanted something that was better built to carry my fat body. The TREK was squirrely at high speed (down hill obviously). The Touring went down the hill like it was on rails. Fear of big hills turned in to excitement!!

TREK is now relegated to a training stand and the Touring is the "road" bike.

Yes, PO did, PO has rode it thousands of miles. I have not had a chance yet.


Count the spokes on the factory rear wheel. :lol:

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...7&d=1245558276

thats a 63cm frame BTW and I had to lower the seat and I can flat foot the stand over. Guy that had this bike had to be about 6'6". I hvave lowered the stem as well. Rides like a dream.

^
That is a beautiful bike. I am no longer happy with my Surly. JK ;) But that is a beautiful bike.

Looks better in the picture then it is. Mechanically in pretty good shape. Paint is in pretty bad shape but for a $8.00 garage sale find...I'm not complaining :lol:

I am going to repaint it like a Touring V. Deep Metallic green with a Cream or Metallic gold head tube and seat tube stripe. I just dig that factory it came with a 48 spoke tandem rear wheel.

I bought one earlier this year and have been very happy with it. I did have an issue with the wheels, which were warranty replaced and the new ones seem to be fine. I have done a few 50 mile rides on it and found it very comfortable. Mine was a left over '08 that I picked up on closeout.

I was all set to take one home, but the one I test rode had a "rapid rise"(?) rear derailleur. When you hit the sti shifter to the left, it went to harder gears not easier gears like all my other bikes. The shop owner was off that weekend, and it took him till the next Thursday to get back to me about swapping the derailleur. By that time I had found a Jamis Aurora that I liked as well, and had taken the Jamis home.

I found those two bikes to be remarkably similar in ride. Anyone else have a Fuji with a rapid rise derailleur?

Mine does. This is my only bike with brifters so I didn't have to readjust to how a regular-type derailleur works. My MTB has trigger shifters and my other geared bikes have friction shifters.

It seems kind of intuitive, though: moving inner paddles = lower gears while moving outer levers = higher gears.

Although, if you've gotten used to it working the other way, I can see how it might be difficult to relearn it.

Huh. I just thought I tested a wierd one. For me, being able to swing the gears over three clicks in one movement to an easier gear made more sense. When would I be in a hurry to get three gears over? When the dang hill just got too steep for me! For harder gears, I can just drop them in one at a time. But yeah, also having two other bikes with regular STI set up made me unwilling to have one bike being the opposite.

That makes sense. One of my friction-shifting bikes has a rapid rise on it and I will occasionally mis-shift, when I first get on it.

Well the rear wheel, which had been warranty replaced due to spoke breakage issues, has started to also break spokes. This from non-loaded street and trail riding, along paths that I did over 2500 miles on with 15 year old mountain and road bikes and never had any wheel related problems. I am not a heavy guy and yesterday's discovery of the breakage means that I am going to take the bike back for a refund.

While I find the bike to be comfortable, this is the 4th issue I have had between the original and the replacement wheels. I could drop a few hundred on a better set of wheels, but that seems unreasonable for a new bike. I know a $1000 MSRP bike is not going to have the best wheels, but I expect something that will work at least as good as a 15 year old set of wheels with a few thousand miles on them.

Bummer. I've broken a few spokes as well. I just figured the pot holes and moderately loaded riding were taking their toll. Fuji needs to address this.

I had a FUJI America way back in the day, it was the first nice bike I ever had, wish I never got rid of it. It was all day comfortable and looked awesome with the chrome chain stays and forks.

I went through lots of wheel issues this spring. I eventually boought some fairly inexpensive wheels from a cracker jack guy who tensioned them before I left the store. one had to be tweaked again but the other is holding firm. I think having someone tension the spokes and true the wheel before riding it and checking after a hundred miles is the way to go. it was recommended to me and it's good advice. I was surprised that he tensioned them as they were new - but I'll always ask for that from now on.