Round the world Retro ride trip, bike set-up advice
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Iwasgoodonce
Old School Grand Master
Does anyone have any experience of these?
http://www.cyclestore.co.uk/productDeta ... uctID=6650
Seem a good idea although there are lighter tents.
http://www.cyclestore.co.uk/productDeta ... uctID=6650
Seem a good idea although there are lighter tents.
Iwasgoodonce
Old School Grand Master
Good point. They must be good for security though. If your tent falls down then wake up punching!
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Iwasgoodonce":2om6s2my said:
No tent poles? I think it may be a leasure thing only, I wouldn't want to be in it when its windy! Nice idea though
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Iwasgoodonce":23znshb8 said:
Iwasgoodonce
Old School Grand Master
doctor-bond
Feature Bike
This post's caught some imaginations and stirred up some memories: between 1989 and 1991 my Stumpy was built as a tourer for Europe, Thailand and India. Here's my recollections, in order of importance:
Steel frame of the best quality.
Forget about weight; focus on quality. The longjohns and hands of bananas & bottles of wine and stoves will make the finer points of weight weeniedom superflous.
Contact points:
Saddle: Kaiser is right. Brooks. Break in a B17 or better, buy a sprung one. Suspension seat posts aren't in it. Rear suspension is too cmplex; front suspension won't work properly and will leave you stranded in Botwsana, or Guam, or Streatham (many people can weld; small seals can be tricky to recreate).
Bars: HBars or high positioned drops or bendy bars that you like: Mary's; Nitto etc.
Shifters: Old school: thumbies or bar enders: Suntour ratchet or XT.
Grips: you know what you like best.
Pedals: know how to strip and grease them. Have the right tool. Dont try and rebuild an old campag road pedal with uncaged bearings on a sandy beach.
Power grips tha you can get big boots into.
Wear Points:
Tyres: surprisingly trouble free, but loads to choose from now. I used Tioga Farmer John's Knephews or something: they were cheap and heavy back then. No punctures; continuous road whine; interesting off road when unloaded.
Wheels: 36 hole bomb proof [Mavic M6s?]; DX or XT hubs. A few Spare spokes.
Racks: I only had single braze ons but managed front and rear racks, front low riders, camera bag on the bars. Spend money on good panniers.
Bottle cages: a decent touring bottle cage should hold a standard 75cl bottle of wine.
Gears: Lots: yourbike will be obese. I naively took 28:28 as lowest which was woefully inadequate. Rohloff sound fab but are they fixable?
Bungees & straps. Road test lots of bungees and take your favourites: they become more important than a lot of obvious things.
Brakes: don't know about disks they may be great. My XT canti/ubrake were trouble free over many miles (but watch for any odd tools you need to adjust em: 2mm allen key in a haystack?).
Tools: I was unprepared and lucky. If you really were going around the world then a minimum tool kit would make a thread in itself: decent pliers; multi wrench; odd tools like cone spanners & make-specific pullers etc,
Finally, a friend who was much more intrepid than I cycled from India to Turkey on a Claud Butler :shock: He said his best kit was a tennis racket to deflect dogs and the stones that urchins chuck at you.
Steel frame of the best quality.
Forget about weight; focus on quality. The longjohns and hands of bananas & bottles of wine and stoves will make the finer points of weight weeniedom superflous.
Contact points:
Saddle: Kaiser is right. Brooks. Break in a B17 or better, buy a sprung one. Suspension seat posts aren't in it. Rear suspension is too cmplex; front suspension won't work properly and will leave you stranded in Botwsana, or Guam, or Streatham (many people can weld; small seals can be tricky to recreate).
Bars: HBars or high positioned drops or bendy bars that you like: Mary's; Nitto etc.
Shifters: Old school: thumbies or bar enders: Suntour ratchet or XT.
Grips: you know what you like best.
Pedals: know how to strip and grease them. Have the right tool. Dont try and rebuild an old campag road pedal with uncaged bearings on a sandy beach.
Power grips tha you can get big boots into.Wear Points:
Tyres: surprisingly trouble free, but loads to choose from now. I used Tioga Farmer John's Knephews or something: they were cheap and heavy back then. No punctures; continuous road whine; interesting off road when unloaded.
Wheels: 36 hole bomb proof [Mavic M6s?]; DX or XT hubs. A few Spare spokes.
Racks: I only had single braze ons but managed front and rear racks, front low riders, camera bag on the bars. Spend money on good panniers.
Bottle cages: a decent touring bottle cage should hold a standard 75cl bottle of wine.
Gears: Lots: yourbike will be obese. I naively took 28:28 as lowest which was woefully inadequate. Rohloff sound fab but are they fixable?
Bungees & straps. Road test lots of bungees and take your favourites: they become more important than a lot of obvious things.
Brakes: don't know about disks they may be great. My XT canti/ubrake were trouble free over many miles (but watch for any odd tools you need to adjust em: 2mm allen key in a haystack?).
Tools: I was unprepared and lucky. If you really were going around the world then a minimum tool kit would make a thread in itself: decent pliers; multi wrench; odd tools like cone spanners & make-specific pullers etc,
Finally, a friend who was much more intrepid than I cycled from India to Turkey on a Claud Butler :shock: He said his best kit was a tennis racket to deflect dogs and the stones that urchins chuck at you.
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Thanks Doctor_bond, you make some good points. How did you find your bottom bracket faired while touring? Is it worth taking tools and a spare cartridge?
Tennis racket :shock: never would have though of that hehe
Incidently, while i was musing, i think i could probably rig up some sort of dyno to charge an iPod while riding
Tennis racket :shock:
never would have though of that heheIncidently, while i was musing, i think i could probably rig up some sort of dyno to charge an iPod while riding
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