Ebisu freshened up

My Ebisu has a very distinctive grey color, and it worked really well with a pair of red Grand Bois Hetres tires. The ones I had on it were there since when the bike was new and has now 2500 miles on them. They are still in good shape. My Specialized Sequoia needed new tires, so I decided to give Ebisu a new look. I put a pair of low-mileage new-to-me white Hetres that I got in a trade recently, and then re-wrap the handlebar with white Fizik microtex tapes. I pumped the tires up to 45 psi with 26"x 1.25" Q-tube superlight butyl tubes (they have lower listed weight than the Schwalbe 650b SV latex tubes) and rode the Ebisu on the recent SFR DART Populaire. Everything being equal, the white performs about just the same as the red ones. Perhaps the red ones feel slightly plusher because they have been stretched and worn some. I also changed the front derailleur to a 8-speed Shimano 600 one to replace the 10-speed R700. The 8-speed front mech has wider cages and allows me to shift the entire cassette without trimming very much in the front. The next project for this bike, which may be months away, is to build a pair of lightweight event wheels out of Pacenti PL23 rims and Chris King/SON Delux hubs.