So I've got a steel-framed Bacchetta Corsa. The puppy comes with 650c (26-inch, MTB standard) diameter wheels, but a 130mm wide (road-bike standard) rear hub. In order to use anything but fly-weight racing wheels, I'll either have to custom build, or shoehorn in the 135mm wide hubs of a rear MTB wheel.

Since the frame is steel, is it feasible to "cold-set" (a euphamism for "brute-force-and-awkwardness bend") the rear stays to accept the wider hub? This is routinely done on older, steel-frame road bikes, but they have light-gauge seat and chain stays and the recumbent has single, heavy-gauge stays. I'm concerned that if I go bending, I may get the stays "out of horizontal."

What do y'all recommend?

You could ask the guys in the "mechanics" forum, but I don't know why not.

650c is NOT the same as a mountain bike wheel. 650c is actually a bead seat diameter of 571, and is used in time trial bikes. You are right though, that only skinny tires are available for that rim, with the fattest tires to fit it about an inch (25mm.) Mountain bike wheels have a bead seat diameter of 559, and 25mm represents the skinniest tires available for it.

I seem to vaguely remember that the Bacchetta dropouts were actually 132.5mm, so that you could go either way? But I recommend contacting Bacchetta to find out what they recommend.

It would take a pretty stout pull to spring the bacchetta rear fork 5mm. Doubt it would do any damage but the tubing diameter is a whole lot more than DF. You would probably have to use expander type car jack. Bacchetta has a forum on their website www.bacchettabikes.com and
www.bentrideronline.com also has a forum where such ? can be posted with liklihood of an authoritative answer. It might help to get and accurate measurement of the inside fork spacing also, shouldn't be hard to do. "Steel is real" would apply here. I know that springing my CP Ti frame takes both hands, and springing my PX10 steel frame takes two hands and a foot, both forces much less than needed to cold set the frames.
Steve

*GASP*

Who would do such a thing to that beautiful bike?? You should feel ashamed of yourself. I think it would be smarter to have a wheel custom built instead.

And look at my experience with "heavy-duty custom wheels" -

https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mechanics/201510-catastrophic-wheel-failure-why.html

Wow, first time I've seen that happen. It was probably a defective rim, or it was poorly laced. In any case, a failure like this is certainly not typical!

I agree that a failure like mine isn't typical. However, having had such a failure, I'm profoundly eager to keep another from happening. I now have two complete wheel sets with the same spokes, same rims, and from the same builder. I'm confident that the builder did no wrong in this affair, but I'm less confident about Mavic's rims. Another poster or two have commented that Mavic's quality control is seriously slipping these days. If I'm riding "Mavic time bombs," I don't want to find out the hard way.

I was lucky to survive the first failure - I may not be so lucky next time. I'm strongly looking into other options (different brand of rims, possibly cast wheels) to avoid another failure. If the hubs are sound from the first pair of wheels (the set that the rear wheel failed on), then I'll have the wheels rebuilt with differently branded and heavier duty rims. For my 'bent, I'm thinking of going with MTB 26" cast wheels.

The majority of posters in the Mechanics forum seem to think that I'm overreacting like crazy, but it isn't their butts that are still too sore to sit on (even two weeks after the accident). Also, nobody can offer anything but personal opinions about cast vs. spoked wheels - there seems to be no data about relative strengths of the two technologies.

I'm turning over the task of making my cast MTB wheels fit the Bacchetta frame to my LBS. They not only do good work but also are competent and resourceful. I'll post photos when the deed is done.