Author: Bike Hermit®

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2011 Oregon Manifest

Oregon Manifest

From the site of the Oregon Manifest:

The two-wheeled revolution won’t come on the saddle of a race bike or a specialty bike. The utility bike is the transportation mode of the future for millions of Americans who want to live healthier, more sustainable lives, but don’t think of themselves as “cyclists.” The key to realizing this future is thoughtful, innovative bike design that fills multiple needs and fits into their lives.

Stronger, lighter, simpler designs for bicycles and bike parts are not always the progeny of racing. In the early part of the last century, trials were held in France which rewarded lightweight designs capable of completing really difficult courses in a self supported way without breaking. The Oregon Manifest is resurrecting that tradition, and that can only lead to good things! Of course, the cynic within the Bike Hermit’s soul expects representatives from companies which shall not be named but whose initials are Trek, Gary Fisher, Specialized and Giant to be there in force to steel and deploy ideas from the best minds in bicycle design. Oh well, it’s not as if it’s a zero sum game. The more utility and transportation bikes the better I say.

Vintage!

The Oregon Manifest Field Test

The moment of truth in the 2011 Challenge will be the mandatory Oregon Manifest Field Test. This rigorous road trial will assess the real function of every bike in the challenge, in real world environments including hills, byways and off-road sections. It will include several on-road check points where mandatory features of each bike will be evaluated. The Field Test requires riders to keep a brisk pace that will stress their bikes to the limit, and demands a well-crafted, expertly assembled entry in order to complete the route in good time. Final evaluation and point tabulation will occur after all bikes have completed the Field Test.

Categories
Touring Bike Accessories

King Cage

We have been using King brand bottle cages on our bikes for years. Ron Andrews is King Cage and he makes a standard style cage in stainless steel and titanium and the “Iris” cage in stainless steel. These cages are the bomb. They are light and strong and, unlike aluminum, they retain their spring so the bottles are always held securely and they won’t mark the bottles like aluminum. What I didn’t know before we saw him at the North American Handmade Bike Show in Austin earlier this year is that he makes every cage by hand, using a jig he designed and built.

The Iris brings style to any bike
Andrews King Cage has the standard water bottle cage look
Categories
Drivetrain Touring Bike Components

One Bike, One Pedal, Many Shoes and Shimano’s A530

I am quite content riding “Sky”, my Rivendell Bleriot .

Sky, after a successful trip to the Saturday Market

In fact my Voodoo, set up with a front shock for more aggressive trail riding is gathering dust in the garage because I have so much fun tooling around on Sky.  I also have my  fair share of shoes and love nothing more than being fashionable while pedaling  efficiently when running errands or meeting friends for dinner and drinks.  On the other hand, I like to wear my Shimano bike shoes with clipless pedals for longer rides, weekend rides and touring.  What I hate is changing pedals.  After breaking my finger, a helmet and giving myself a black eye riding my son’s bike (so I could wear shoes that matched my outfit) the Bike Hermit gave me a set of Shimano A530 Clipless SPD/Platform Road Pedals. One side is platform, the other works with my SPD clipless cleat on my bike shoe.

Shimano A530 dual bike pedal
Problem solved with a SPD/platform pedal

Now it doesn’t matter what shoe I am wearing, I can ride Sky pretty much anywhere at anytime.  The other nice feature on longer rides has been the ability to opt out of my clipless, flip the pedal over and still get a nice grip on my biking shoe.  As I have been battling a tendon issue having the interchangeable option has been terrific.  If we are bike camping or bike touring, at the end of the day, I can easily slip off my bike shoes and  wear my sandals if we chose to go exploring once we have set up camp.

Shimano a530 with a street shoe
Great grip with my tennis shoe on the platform side
SPD side Shimana A530
flip it over and my SPD cleat clips right in.
Clipped in for A Sunday Afternoon Bike ride
Categories
Bags/Panniers/Racks Panniers

Racktime Travel-It

Racktime Travel-It rear pannier
Racktime Travel-It front pannier

(NOTE 10/31/2016: Racktime no longer has a distributor in the USA)

(NOTE 11/12/14:  Since this review, Sky King has used these panniers a several trips and the performance was most excellent.)

This is not really a review- I have not had a chance to actually use the Racktime Travel-It panniers yet- more like my impressions.

Racktime is an offshoot of Ortlieb/Tubus, the go to brands for many bike tourists. The products are distributed in the USA by Ortlieb-USA so my confidence in the products and service is high.

The first thing that attracts me to these bags is the external pockets. The rear pannier boasts two pockets on the top cover, one large mesh pocket on the side and a zippered, bellows type pocket on the trailing edge. In my experience, external pockets make it easier to find whatever one might be looking for…easier than with panniers which only have one large compartment.

The aggressive elastic binding the top cover should make sure the contents are secure, especially since there is a nylon shroud with a drawstring inside the main compartment. but it also interferes with the lid opening completely, making accessing the main compartment a tad fussy.

Racktime Travel-It rear pannier main compartment. Notice the nylon shroud with drawstring.
Front mesh pocket on Racktime Travel-It
Front pannier top pocket
The attached rain cover goes in this pocket with room left over for gloves and a cap
The large rear bellows type pocket on the Travel-It rear pannier
QL1 mounting system on front Travel-It. Rack is the Tara from Tubus

The mounting system is the tried and true QL1 system from Ortlieb. This is one of the most secure and simple to use designs I have seen. When the pannier is lifted by the handle, the two hooks on the reverse side are opened. Then the pannier can be hooked into the rack. Once you let go of the handle, the two hooks close around the rack tube.

The Ortlieb QL1 mounting system

Fixation of the lower section of the pannier is just as important as mounting in the top section in order to prevent the pannier from sliding and pivoting. The lower fixing hook serves for this purpose; it fixes the pannier to a vertical tube of the rack and secures it in the lower pannier area. The hooks may be adjusted easily to the distance required and tightened in position with allen key size 3
The QL1 hook system is adjustable using various inserts allowing compatible mounting on standard racks with an outside diameter of 8 -16 mm. The upper QL1 hooks can be reduced in size by inserting reduction parts into the hooks for 8mm or 11mm. The hook then closes perfectly around the rack tube and securely holds the pannier in its position.

Reduction spacers can be clipped into the top hooks of the Ortlieb QL1 mounting system to adapt to different rack tube diameters.

My Surly Cross Check doesn’t have chainstays as long as those on most touring bikes, but even so when mounted on the Racktime Tour-It rack these panniers had adequate heel clearance.

Surly Cross Check, Racktime Tour-It rack and Racktime Travel-It rear panniers

Overall I’m quite impressed with the design and construction of these bags and they look like a great value. The rear panniers should fit on almost any rear rack including Racktime’s. Racktime doesn’t have a low rider rack currently for the front panniers but they fit nicely as shown on the Tubus low rider racks.

Categories
Advocacy/Awareness

Bike “Industry”

The bike “industry” has designed mental baggage for us to carry with us on our bike rides. The baggage of  lightweight-extreme-beat-up -your -buddy-ism. The baggage that weighs down that latest, lightest, most expensive gear with the fear that, without said gear, other people might look down on us as if we are beginners.  Can’t really blame the bike industry though, the  big companies need to sell more stuff and tweaking and repackaging last year’s products and giving them rad new names is easier than real innovation, and selling the latest “toys” to the enthusiast is easier than bringing new people into bicycling. Now there is a plethora of smaller companies and frame builders and bloggers focusing more on the practical aspects of cycling and you see the big companies copying them. Which is not necessarily a bad thing except when the copies are cheap imitations that don’t really work that well.

Don't forget to smile!

Their is a tacit, maybe even an unknowing attempt to pigeonhole everybody who is on a bike into some category. There are 4 main ones. Road racer, gnarly mountain biker, fixed gear hipster, and everbody else. The last category includes people going to the bar on cruisers, homeless people on department store bikes, bikes that will live on the rear end of a motor home or in a garage and never be ridden and cyclo tourists.

Ever notice how in every publication or ad for bicycling the road rider is togged out and standing up on the pedals as if sprinting in the Roubaix velodrome and mountain bikers are always out of the saddle on a fast downhill track with the dust flying? In my neck of the woods, everybody seems to have guzzled that Kool-Aid.

Part of the problem (is there a problem, or is it just in my own head?) may be semantics. By calling bicycling a sport and bicycle riders “cyclists” there is some sort of elitism implied. And calling bicycles toys, as many people with very expensive bicycles do, relegates them to  special, occasional uses, at least mentally, and it becomes an event and a production to go on a simple bike ride. I like Ant Bike Mike’s tag line “Not sport…transport.” Sums it up nicely methinks. If we think of bicycles as tools…tools for traveling…tools for running errands and getting to work…and tools for exercising and having fun, maybe we will have a lighter load to carry?

Categories
Bags/Panniers/Racks Rear Racks

Racktime Tour-It

We just received the  Tour-It rack and the Travel-It front and Travel-It rear panniers from Racktime for the Bike Touring News Store. Ortlieb, Tubus and Racktime  all come from the same company with the Racktime products intended for those who don’t want to pay Ortlieb and Tubus prices.

Racktime Tour-It rear rack

Naturally, as with any new gear, I had to fiddle around with it and I mounted the rack on Norm, my Surly Cross Check bike and installed one of  the rear panniers. I wanted to see what the hardware was like and how well the bags mounted and also I was eager to see how the bags differ from the Ortieb back and front rollers.

The Racktime racks are made of aluminum as opposed to the tubular chrome moly or stainless steel of the Tubus offerings. This rack actually weighed a few ounces more than the Tubus Cosmo stainless steel rack even though the two have nearly identical configurations.  Overall the mounting of the rack was simple and straight forward. Screws attach through a hole in the welded plate on the bottom of either side of the rack and into the dropout eyelets on the bike. The spacing was perfect for the 135mm rear blades on the Surly and I didn’t need any shims and there was no prying or spreading of the rack legs either.

The braces which secure the upper platform to the bike are meant to be attached to eyelets on the seat stays, but could be attached to clamps if no eyelets are provided. The other end of the braces then thread through an eyebolt which in turn is bolted to the rack platform. Even though this is a versatile setup, if I was going to make this a permanent attachment I would bend the struts in order to achieve a better alignment. Or else I would cut them shorter. As it was, the vertical sides of the rack interfered and I was unable to tighten things down completely.

All the hardware needed for the Racktime Tour-It rear rack. Standard bolts, eyebolts, and two stays.
The stays or braces bolt to the seat stays and thread through the eyebolts. For a permanent installation, I would either cut them shorter of bend them so they didn't hit the vertical leg of the rack.

I like theminimal hardware on this rack since the fewer pieces and bolts to come loose the better when on the road. The top platform is wide enough to actually be used to carry a sleeping bag or tent and the lower set of rails allow for the attachment of panniers in such a way that they won’t interfere with a load on the top platform. The little pump pegs on the left leg of the rack are a cool idea, but I am unaware of any pumps that will fit on them. I was told that this rack is made as original equipment on some bikes for the European market, and they have their own proprietary pumps. The rack also will work with the Racktime SNAPit components. The rack is rated to carry up to 30 kilograms and the suggested retail is about $65.00.

Categories
Planning Resources

Bike Touring, Keeping It Simple

Carry what you need and no more.

Like any good hermit, the Bike Hermit is constantly attempting to simplify.  And why go on a bike tour if not, at least in part, to enjoy being unencumbered by unnecessary external superficialities, and by too much gear?
The Italian impressionist Carlotti said“Beauty is a summation of the parts working together in such a way that nothing is needed to be added, taken away or altered”.
Architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe adopted the motto “Less is more” to describe his aesthetic tactic of arranging the numerous necessary components of a building to create an impression of extreme simplicity.

When traveling on the bike the kit can be pared down to the basics required for survival and comfort. And if it is possible to travel for two weeks with a certain amount of bike touring gear then, unless traveling in a more remote region, the cyclo tourist should be able to exist in relative comfort for longer periods carrying the same provisions.

The bike hermit offers this outline of what can be taken on a two week or longer self-supported bike tour. While not an exhaustive, or even a very detailed list, it includes the core considerations for the bicycle traveler and can be modified by the individual according to their desire. Overall weight should not be a driving force behind the decision making process in what to take, but at the same time carrying more than is needed is senseless. The given weights include the weight of the luggage/bags/panniers if indicated.

Hennessy Hammock Super Shelter and rain pants in dry-bag                                  1lb   10.4 oz

Hennessy Hammock Ultralight Backpacker                                                                    2lb     6.8 oz

Front left pannier: Stove/ cook kit                                                                                      3lb       .8 oz

Front right pannier: toiletries, camp towels, sun screen, etc.                                    3 lb       .4 oz

Front handlebar bag: food, fuel canister, spare tube, patch kit, cell phone            7lb  11.8  oz

Spare tire                                                                                                                            12.4 oz

Small leather handlebar bag: pepper spray, knife, multi-tool, headlamp               1lb    5.6 oz

18 Liter Saddlebag: Clothes, chain lube, spare parts.                                                     9lb    5.8 oz

Sleeping bag                                                                                                                            3lb    2.8 oz

3, 24 oz water bottles- full                                                                                                      4lb     12 oz

Total weight comes to a little over 37 pounds. No need to go crazy about this stuff. Relax, be happy.

Categories
Hermit's Workshop

Maintenance Tips/ Post Tour

If you ship your bike home from the end point of your tour, you will probably have removed you seat post and saddle in order to fit the bike into whatever case you used. When you get home and are putting the bike back together you will want to end up with the saddle at the same height relative to the pedals as it was when you took it off. A simple way to ensure that is, before you remove it, to wrap a piece of tape (electrical tape works best) around the seat post where it enters the frame. Then, when you put it back, just insert the post to the same spot.

Mark the seat post before removing it.

An aluminum seat post inserted into a steel frame will result in galvanic corrosion between the two metals. If not removed and cleaned and re-lubed periodically the seat post will become well and truly stuck and may need to be cut out. Removing it for a period of time will also allow any moisture which might be in the frame tubes to evaporate. Applying grease to the inside of the seat tube rather than to the seat post results in less of the goop squished out onto exposed bits and ending up on your clothes.
Applying grease inside the seat tube before inserting seat post.

Don’t use grease on a carbon post or with a carbon frame. Use a special paste made for this purpose. The paste won’t damage the carbon and it has a little bit of grit to it that will help hold the post in place without over tightening.

Categories
Hermit's Workshop

Bike Preventive Maintenance

I was pinned down in Orberlin, LA by thunderstorms on my recent Austin to New Orleans Tour. Luckily I had a nice dry and warm storage shed at the fire station in which to store my gear. (I ended up sleeping there too, but that’s for another story) So I took the opportunity to do a little preventive maintenance. It’s much easier to fix a loose bolt or other potential problem when you have the time and the the place than it is to repair a failed part along the road when it’s getting dark.

Take any opportunity for preventive maintenance

Removing all the luggage makes it easier to inspect bike and accessories. After checking the tightness of all the rack attachment bolts and fender mounts, I also go through the bike and tighten the stem bolts, seatpost bolt, brake lever and brake caliper bolts, derailleur attachment bolts and chainring bolts. Then I lube the chain. I turn the bike upside down and place it on the floor resting on the handlebars and saddle. Then I can visually inspect the tires for cuts or abrasions, and spin the wheels to check alignment. Like the man said,”an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure“.

Categories
Nutrition for the Bike Tourist

Paleo Diet, Gary Taubes and Cavepersons

The so-called paleo diet or caveman diet is a low carb high protein diet claimed by some to be a good way to lose weight. It has some proponents in the bicycling world too. One needs to be careful when considering extreme changes in their diet or just extremes in general. Bike touring is very demanding and your body is another piece of equipment you need to depend on. I was reading this thread on Bike Forums this morning. Try to ignore the name calling from the original poster and read the rest of the posts. Interesting stuff.

Gary Taubes is the latest proponent of a high protein low carb diet. From his blog: “My message and the message of Why We Get Fat was not that we should all be eating nothing but animal products–…… but that carbohydrate-rich foods are inherently fattening, some more so than others, and that those of us predisposed to put on fat do so because of the carbs in the diet“. (emphasis added). Mostly he is talking to obese or overweight people or people with that metabolic tendency  and it might be easy to see him as a person feeding on people’s desire for a quick and easy way to lose weight.

I wonder if anyone has personal experience with a high protein low carb diet and bike touring? We’d love to hear about it!

Wilma!!!!