The Street > The Bike Shop

Road touring gear? Touring advice?

<< < (6/7) > >>

hugh.:
Bring spare tubes as well as a patch kit. I would swap the tube out on the side of the road and patch the old tube later when you get to camp.
Bring spare nuts and bolts for your rack, chain oil, wrenches/allen keys/bike tools. I did bring a spare rear derailleur but it depends on your route.

Thomson stuff is pimp. I had their seatpost and stem.

Rusty:
been loosely researching 650b wheel info online and I'm curious on your guys thoughts. I am in love with my fairdales geo but I would love some bigger tire options. 

conversions involving disk breaks just mean changing out rims/spokes, or more?

Thanks

happycatbasket:
Hugh.'s suggestion on spares is spot on. Small rack related bolts and things are nice to have just in case. I've actually had one of my racks loosen and drop a bolt during some riding (all my bad for not tightening) and had to run off course to grab some spare bolts from a bike shop as a result. An extra cable might be nice too as they're super light and you can probably string them up anywhere.

I did the 650b conversion thing with my Trek 520. I have some 2" Schwalbe Big Bens in there and was only able to fit around 40mm tires on my 700c wheels. There are some pretty good deals on discarded stock wheelsets at places randombikeparts if you use googlefu well enough. It's nice to have both the 700c and 650b wheels available, but I haven't actually switched back to the 700c because the bigger tires feel pretty nice and I use my touring bike for nighttime cross-country and fireroad stuffs after work. I used the wider tires on my tour and never had an issue. If you're just buying new rims, you'll need new spokes to match but that's about it.

Low tire pressures feel awesome. However, 40MM to 50mmish isn't that huge of a change so make sure you keep your expectations in check. I only question whether or not my switch was worth it because now I'm building up a road/dirt tourer and ditching this setup to play with 27.5+ tires and those wheels where the reason I couldn't get the, "make them bigger" talk out of my head. That being said, riding what you have, or just doing small upgrades, is the best way to feel out what exactly you want/need so buying separate wheels wasn't exactly a waste (for me) because they still saw plenty of miles.

Rusty:
again, thanks for the proper advice!

So is it just a matter of getting some rims and tires and relacing my hubs? Kind of like what you're saying about having both sets at hand but for what it's worth I think I'd rather have the clearance than anything else. Kind of ride my big bike like its my BMX....

I think before I do anything to the wheels, besides a good service sooner than later, I need to replace core components. Since I got my front rack I've lightly loaded it a few times and the flex is pretty bad. Not sure if it's mostly the alloy stock stem, the fact that the Archer bars I have are uncut and fairly wide, or both. Either way I plan to maybe cut a half inch off each side and upgrade to a shorter Thomson stem, and hopefully a matching post if time/money is right.

Let's talk drive trains. I'm not too savvy with road gear & brands but I don't need anything crazy. I know sram gear is nice....? 

happycatbasket:
one month later...

what sort of rack do you have? my surly nice rack is steel and doesn't flex "that" much, but with bags and basket loaded, it sure as hell feels as though it does. I think it's mostly the bags, but could imagine the rack swaying a slight amount. who knows. in any case, it usually takes me around fifteen minutes to get used to it and then it feels fine.

sram gear is deece. you might have to change out your shifters to get whatever new drivetrain stuff figured out. if you're using friction shifters and aren't snagging a new hub to fit more gears, chances are you'll be able to shift fine in friction mode. if you have more/less gears, then your indexing will be off so friction mode will be the default. In any case, I know more about mountain drivetrains than road. the shimano mountain 11 speed fits on normal mountain cassette hubs, whereas sram stuff does not. also, there is different pull ratios on some of sram's stuff and 11 speed shimano road things, so that's worth noting. If you're on the fairdale archer, then you probably don't use friction anyway so most the stuff above is moot.

if you're thinking about switching to a double/triple ring up front, then you miiiiight need to switch out your cranks. also, front derailleurs are super simple so you don't need to bounce on really expensive ones.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page