Here is the bike ready to tour. Almost all the weight is over the rear wheel and the centre of gravity is somewhere just in front of the rear axle. Good for downhill braking, bad for uphills and rear wheel fatigue and spoke damage. Also, I couldn't get the peddles off my road bike (after all those miles they are practically welded to the crank now), so looks like I'm stuck with those stock ones until I hit a bike shop in France somewhere.
Duncan wasn't willing to spend as much money, so he's gone for a cheaper bike he got from the local
Poundshop. Also, he likes his home comforts so he's packed a little heavier.
This is the Brooks B17 saddle which I'm a little nervous about. It's brand new, as hard as carved wood and totally unforgiving. Still, the titanium model is a third the weight of the steel one, and also is far more flexible. We didn't go for sprung saddles due to the energy loss as you power down on the peddle, trading speed for comfort. All the research we've done says that this thing will be as comfortable as hell, after a month.
These are our
Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. These cost almost a hundred quid for the complete set, but they are apparently almost totally puncture proof. They have over doubled our spun weight on the bike so they'd better be worth it, or those slow starts at the traffic lights will all be for nothing. They are also wider than the stock tyres, so a lot of tweaking was needed to fit the mud guards around them. They just about spin now, but really we need to get some miles on these things to make them a bit smaller. 700x28C.
Here is the attachment for the handlebar bag. This thing is absolutely solid and the bag fits really well, dead chuffed with this. It'll hold snacks and maps and maybe some pepper spray to deter dogs!
This is my road bike for comparison. The geometry is quite different, the
groupset is a mix of 105's and
Ultegra depending on how important the part is, and it weighs about half as much! Really I should have just fitted a rack to it, but I'd be paranoid about smashing this up. The bike up top is almost disposable for this tour.
Here is the bike ready to tour. Almost all the weight is over the rear wheel and the centre of gravity is somewhere just in front of the rear axle. Good for downhill braking, bad for uphills and rear wheel fatigue and spoke damage. Also, I couldn't get the peddles off my road bike (after all those miles they are practically welded to the crank now), so looks like I'm stuck with those stock ones until I hit a bike shop in France somewhere.
Duncan wasn't willing to spend as much money, so he's gone for a cheaper bike he got from the local Poundshop. Also, he likes his home comforts so he's packed a little heavier.
This is the Brooks B17 saddle which I'm a little nervous about. It's brand new, as hard as carved wood and totally unforgiving. Still, the titanium model is a third the weight of the steel one, and also is far more flexible. We didn't go for sprung saddles due to the energy loss as you power down on the peddle, trading speed for comfort. All the research we've done says that this thing will be as comfortable as hell, after a month.
These are our Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. These cost almost a hundred quid for the complete set, but they are apparently almost totally puncture proof. They have over doubled our spun weight on the bike so they'd better be worth it, or those slow starts at the traffic lights will all be for nothing. They are also wider than the stock tyres, so a lot of tweaking was needed to fit the mud guards around them. They just about spin now, but really we need to get some miles on these things to make them a bit smaller. 700x28C.
Here is the attachment for the handlebar bag. This thing is absolutely solid and the bag fits really well, dead chuffed with this. It'll hold snacks and maps and maybe some pepper spray to deter dogs!
This is my road bike for comparison. The geometry is quite different, the groupset is a mix of 105's and Ultegra depending on how important the part is, and it weighs about half as much! Really I should have just fitted a rack to it, but I'd be paranoid about smashing this up. The bike up top is almost disposable for this tour.
No comments:
Post a Comment