80 degrees today in Austin. 34 with snow on the ground back home.
We are in Austin for the 2011 North American Handmade Bicycle Show. Framebuilder Don Walker had the brainstorm for this show and produced the first one in 2005 in Houston, TX. The show has grown over the years but still showcases only those bikes made by hand, in the exhibitor’s shop. Today Dario Pegoretti, Ben Serotta and other icons could be seen helping to build their own booth displays. Still a pretty hands on and down to earth bunch, or so it would seem.
Tim from Shamrock Cycles – “Handbuilt Frames From The Mountains of Indiana” was kind enough to let us use one of his fillet brazed road bikes in the Zimbale booth to help display our products. I saw the bike today and it is sweet. Stay tuned for photos of that bike and maybe some others too!
Most of the day yesterday was spent taking apart Chief and putting him in his box for the trip via FedEx to Austin. Even though the thermometer outside struggled to reach 40 degrees, the garage eventually was comfortable thanks to my upgraded heat system.
Upgrade of the Binford 4000 Series Electric Oil Radiator with the addition of the Binford 3100 Fan.
The tools that I am going to carry on the ride are the same tools I used to disassemble the bike. So I am relatively confident that first, I can put the bike back together, and secondly, I can take care of any mechanical issues that might occur.
The Park multi tool has 4,5 and 6 millimeter hex wrenches and phillips and flat blade screwdrivers. And the three sided socket tool has 8, 9 and 10 mm sockets. Every fastener on the bike can be tightened with these two tools. I also carry a spoke wrench and some extra spokes taped to the left chainstay. And since, according to Murphy’s Law, the drive side spokes on the rear wheel will break if any will, I carry a small cassette lockring tool to remove the cassette. There is a small chain tool and an extra chain connecting link. And, of course, tire levers.
These tools will handle most repairs on a touring bicycle. Two different lengths of spokes will work to replace either front spokes or rear drive side and non drive side spokes.
I stuffed as many bicycle bags and as much clothing and miscellaneous items as I could into the box. Overall the weight was about 60 pounds and it cost about $75 to send it to Austin including insurance for $3000. The box is scheduled to arrive in Austin the day after I do. So far, so good!
Adventure Cycling Southern Tier maps sections 4 and 5
There was new snow on the ground again this morning with more forecast for the rest of the week. I check the forecast for Texas and Louisiana and am pleased to see that temperatures are predicted to be in the 70’s during the day and merely down to the 50’s at night for at least the next week. There is some rain in the forecast and according to the Adventure Cycling map I just got on the mail, Louisiana receives on the average in February and March as much precipitation as this part of Idaho gets in a year. Since my hammock and sleeping pad will travel strapped to the sides of my rear rack I decided I better address the probability of them getting wet.
After brushing the snow off the car we made our way to the Army Navy store where I found some compact and lightweight dry sacks of the perfect size. Since I already have a waterproof compression sack for my sleeping bag, I think I am all set in the riding-in-the-rain department.
The remainder of the afternoon has been spent developing a reasonable schedule so that I could book a hotel room in New Orleans and a flight home. That and reading Sue Gray’s account of her ride on the same part of the Southern Tier earlier this month in some abberantly cold weather. My last two tours have been sort of aggressive from a time allowed standpoint, especially last year, when I did 850 miles in 11 days of riding for an average of 77 miles per day. This year’s route is about 700 miles and I figure I can do it comfortably in 12 days which averages to about 58 miles a day. As an extra cushion I am allowing for one rest day, with zero miles, and one day in New Orleans to get the bike packed and ready to ship back.
We are leaving for Austin on Wednesday. I still need to pack my bike and get it to FedEx tomorrow in order to feel comfortable about it getting there before the end of the week. Stacy flies back home on Tuesday March 1, my first day on the bike.
Dynamo hubs use the rotation of the front wheel to produce electrical current. The bike hermit doesn’t know how they do this. It is an unknowable mystery of the universe. That hasn’t kept him from using Schmidt brand dynamo lighting systems on two of his bikes and one on Sky King’s bike too. When he owned a bike shop he sold and installed many systems also.
Schmidt dynamo hubs and headlights are made in Germany and they are designed to give at least 50,000 trouble free kilometers of service. They are heavier and have more spinning resistance than standard hubs, but the resistance is less than that of other brands of dynamo hubs. The bike hermit requires a reliable source of light that is always available and not dependent on remembering to buy or recharge batteries. Those who know the bike hermit, know why.
The Schmidt E6 halogen primary headlight Chief has carried on previous tours has been joined by a secondary E6. And it looks awesome.
Brace of Schmidt E6 lightsDual Schmidt E6Schmidt E6 headlight dyad
One wire from the primary light is taken off the hub connector and one wire from the secondary replaces it. The two loose ends connect to each other.The excess wire from the secondary is secured out of the way.
According to the information that came with the secondary light, full brightness of both lights will only be reached at speeds of 16 kph and upwards. Then, by rights, there should be twice the light of one alone. At speeds less than 16 kph, switching off the secondary light will result in the best light output. Which is fine because at lower speeds it is less important to see far ahead and at higher speeds the extra illumination will be nice.
Here is a question for the non electrically challenged. This is a 6 volt system. Each light is 3 watts. Assuming the bike is traveling over 16 kph so that the entire 6 volts is present, switching on the secondary 3 watt light will draw 1/2 amp more in current than the primary light was drawing. Does this mean there will be more resistance in the hub? Will the bike hermit be working harder to light two lights than he was when only one was turned on? The bike hermit’s head is hurting.
The rear light is easier. The bike hermit uses a Spanninga battery powered light mounted to the fender. The AAA batteries for this light are easy to carry and they last for an extremely long time. They are deceptively bright and they don’t have the annoying strobelight, flashing feature, since flashing tail lights are not allowed in Germany. Smart people.
I remember riding through downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada on my first self supported bike tour with homemade rear panniers which, when the bike hit a rough patch, bounced around and came un-hooked from the rack. Luckily they didn’t fall completely off because the gang of homeless men accosting me from a vacant lot as I rode past would have been happy to relieve me from my load and probably my bike if I had stopped. Needless to say, since that tour I am a little more finicky about my equipment.
On my up-coming tour I am using front and rear racks made by Nitto in Tokyo, Japan. These are made of nickel plated, tubular Chrome-moly steel with simple and solid attachment hardware.
The Nitto Campee front rack sans the low rider attachments.Highly adjustable aluminum struts allow for a custom fit.The lower leg of the Campee rack has an integral spacer to clear the fork blade.Daruma bolt Daruma bolt attached to rack and strut.
The Nitto Campee front rack comes with detachable low-rider panels for attaching panniers. I have removed those, because I don’t have low rider panniers. The panniers and bags I willbe using are the subject of another post. The aluminum struts attaching the rack to the fork eyelets in these photos are sold as separate accessories. The struts which come with the rack are made to attach to cantilever brake posts.
This seems like as good a time as any to look at a couple different fork blade/eyelet/brake combinations. Eyelets are the small, threaded holes drilled into the sides of the fork or into tabs which are then welded onto the dropout (the piece on the end of the fork blade…where the wheel axle attaches). Some bikes have one eyelet on the fork dropout and some have two. There is only one on each dropout on my bike, so the rack and the fender strut clamps will share the same hole. A bike with two dropout eyelets allows a little more flexibility in attaching racks and fenders.
A fork blade dropout(from a Surly Long Haul Trucker) with two eyelets
Not all bikes have eyelets on the forks. What? How can that be? Well, some people don’t want to carry stuff on their bikes, believe it or not. For the person who actually uses their bike, however, the more eyelets the better. OK so how about the mid-fork eyelets? On most touring bikes these are located to facilitate “low rider” racks such as the Tubus Tara or the Tubus Duo. And on really well designed touring bikes, like Surly’s Long Haul Trucker, there are two mid-fork eyelets on each fork blade…one on the outside and one on the inside. The Tubus Duo was actually made with that bike in mind. On some bikes, like my Rivendell, the eyelets are located higher on the fork, and these will not work with low-rider only racks. Bikes such as Rivendell, with higher fork mount braze-on eyelets seem to work best with the Nitto type hardware and designs.
The fork on the left has inner and outer eyelets in the fork blade. The other fork blade has braze-on eyelets mounted higher.
Many touring bikes will also be designed for cantilever style brakes. These brakes are mounted on special posts which are welded on to the fork blades. Some racks like Old Man Mountain brand Cold Springs and Ultimate Low Rider models attach directly to these posts with provided replacement bolts. Others, like some Nitto models attach to these posts with a special, double ended brake bolt or stud.
The fork in the foreground has posts for cantilever style brakes. The brakes on the other fork are center mount, sidepulls. The Nitto Campee rack on a bike with cantilever brakes. The struts would bolt on to a stud (pictured below) which replaces the brake bolt.This is the stud which replaces the cantilever brake bolt.The struts are adjusted to line up with the brake bolt, which would be replaced with the double ended stud.
I got a little carried away and off topic with this post, but it felt like a good time to get into some rack details. Hopefully it might give you, good readers, some things on which to cogitate. In the next post I talk about my dual Schmidt E6 headlight setup, about which I am unnaturally excited.
Back when I used to race (and I use that term loosely) my road bike I made it a rule to never do any maintenance on the bike the day before or the day of the race more involved than putting air in the tires. The reason being I always wanted time to do a shakeout ride before race day to make sure everything was working properly. The same rule applies when I go touring.
The chain on my bike was worn, so I replaced it. How do I know it was worn? Because a new chain has a pitch,or distance between links, of exactly 1/2 inch. A quick measurement showed how much my chain had “stretched”
One end of the old chain...still about 1/2" between pins and the wear is not readily apparent, but.....25 inches away the chain has "stretched" about 1/16"
Of course the chain doesn’t actually stretch, the material on the pins and on the links wears away resulting in a new pitch. Over time the teeth on the rear wheel cogs and on the front chainrings will wear to mesh with the new pitch. Then when a new chain is put on, one with a 1/2 inch pitch, it will not lay evenly on the teeth of those other drivetrain components and those will need to be replaced as well or the chain will jump and skip when pedaling. New chains are relatively cheap so I say when in doubt, whip it out.
I will carry a small chain tool with me as well. Chains seldom break, but if they do it could leave me stranded in the middle of nowhere. I will carry the cut off section of a few links from the new chain along with a spare quick link. I’m sure an internet search will reveal a number of videos on how to repair and replace a chain so I will not duplicate that here.
I decided to replace my rear tire as well and take the old one as a spare. The Panaracer T-Serv tire had over 2000 miles of multi surface riding on it and it still has some life in it. I just would rather start out with a fresh tire on this trip. I will be using the Schwalbe Marathon Supreme, my first experience with Schwalbe tires. I will report on that later.
Panaracer T-Serv with over 2000 hard milesRelatively pristine Panaracer T-Serv with only around 1000 miles on it.
I was a little surprised to see that the Schwalbe tire was a millimeter or so narrower than the Panaracer tires even though both tires are nominally 700 x 32.
Schwalbe Marathon Supreme 700 x 32Panaracer T-Serv 700 x 32
I still need to change my front rack and install the headlights but that’s enough for today.
I leave in one week so I am focusing on those items on the critical path. Items without which the tour cannot be accomplished and which have longer lead times.
Item number one is a box to ship the bike. Rather than a softsided or other airplane friendly case I ordered a re-usable cardboard box like the one I used on the last two tours which is pretty ratty now and besides, I used it to ship a bicycle back to Rivendell last year. I should receive it on Friday. That will leave the weekend to unbuild the bike and pack it so that I can take it to FedEx on Monday. I will send it to the motel in Austin where we are staying. I suppose I could do the same with a conventional, and more durable bicycle case but those all cost more than I want to spend. I can do a dozen tours using 3 or 4 of the cardboard boxes and still be ahead.
Item number next is ordering a map of section 5 of the Southern Tier from Adventure Cycling Association. These maps are so detailed and so refined over the years they have been in use that I get a little nervous when I need to detour from them. It’s also comforting to think of all the other bike tourists who have been along these same routes if only because of the assumption that local motorists might be more aware of bicyclers.
I also plot the route on Google Maps.
View Austin to New Orleans in a larger map
This is not the exact route but for some reason Google Maps would quit letting me make changes after some amount of time or changes.
Since the Southern Tier route only goes to St. Francisville, LA I had to find a way to get through Baton Rouge and into New Orleans. I have been spending some time on the bikeforums.net touring forum and I thought I would put the question to that group. I did a quick search of the forum for routes in New Orleans and was directed to several threads, and I found out about the Mississippi River Trail. From their website:
The Mississippi River Trail, coursing along America’s backbone, the Mississippi River, from its headwaters in Itasca, Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico, offers approximately 3,000 miles of on-road bikeways and pedestrian and bicycle pathways for the recreational enjoyment, health, conservation and tourism development of river communities, river states, and the nation.
I was able to plot a route, which I’m hoping is pretty decent for cycling, from St. Francisville into New Orleans.
So now I can use my maps to figure out the best places to end up each day. Since I want to go as inexpensively as possible I will be looking for KOA campgrounds and state parks with showers, and I am going to register on the warm showers website to see if I can score some free overnight stays.
“…now the sky is gettin’ light
everything will be alright
I think I finally got the knack
just floatin’ and lazin’ on my back
I never really liked that town
think I’ll ride the river down
just movin’ slow and floatin’ free
this river swingin’ under me
wavin’ back to folks on shore
I should have thought of this before
I’m goin’ on down to New Orleans
pick up on some swingin’ scenes
I know I’ll know a better day
goin’ down groovin’ all the way…”
Micky Dolenz, “Goin’ Down”
Yep, the bike hermit is goin’ on down to New Orleans. Since we are going to be in Austin for the North American Handmade Bicycle Show in February, I started to think about ways to take advantage of being in the south while Idaho emerges from the cold, wet winter months. That thinking has evolved into a bicycle tour from Austin to New Orleans. I will load Chief and journey out on section 5 of the Adventure Cycling Association‘s Southern Tier Route, from Navasota, TX to St. Francisville, LA., and from there down to the Big Easy. Since I am self-absorbed and delusional enough to think people I don’t even know might be interested, I have decided to document my daily planning and preparation tasks, the ride, the trip home and any epilogues.
A simple Google search will uncover a plethora of web pages with itemized lists of what other people take on a bicycle tour , and I think those lists are boring. So I won’t be doing that. Some people have created spreadsheets to plan their itineraries and to document the daily mileage, weather, lodging, food and probably bowel movements. I’m not going to do that either. I want to speak in more general terms about the process of conceiving, planning and executing this bike touring trip as I figure it out. About things that I find out and discover as I explore how to get from here to there by bicycle. The whole concept to me is about freedom. I’m free to ride my bike all day if I want. Indeed, I’m free to ride all night if I feel like it. I’m free to stop whenever and wherever I want. I can go as fast or as slow as I want. All this freedom within limits of course. I do need to complete the ride and come home on the designated day. But everything in between getting on the bike in Austin and getting off in New Orleans is going to unfold as it will. I am literally just along for the ride. And the beer.
Wherein the bike hermit compares and contrasts 4 different drop style handlebars for the touring bike. Finding the perfect handlebar for his touring bike has him in a bit of a bother.
Last season I installed the Nitto Dirt Drop bars on Chief. I like the way the drops flair out.
Nitto Dirt Drop
The bars actually have a very slight rise from the clamp area to the ramps. These are the medium width version. There is a version that is narrower and one that is wider. These feel a little too narrow for me when I’m riding on the hoods. Dang, should have got the wider ones. But I like the angled-in aspect of the brakes on the flair of these bars. It feels natural.
On the hoods.
The other nice thing about the drops being wider than the tops ….my wrists don’t hit the tops of the bars when “in the drops”.
Nitto Dirt Drop touring handlebars,"in the drops"
On Norm, my everyday bike, I have the On One Midge handlebar. Perhaps my favorite bar of all time.
On One brand Midge handlebar
This handlebar might look a little crazy…. in fact I have been labeled “crazy bar guy” on group rides…but the ergonomics are fantastic. These have a super wide, flat top section so there are multiple positions available on the top of the bars alone. As the top of the bar bends to begin the drop portion it also flairs out at a dramatic angle.
On One Midge.....Wide tops, crazy bends
The other thing that happens when the bend from the tops is so gradual is that the brake levers get mounted at an even more extreme angle. But if I raise my arms out in front of my body, in a relaxed way, my fingers do not naturally line up perpendicular to the ground. They are more like 30 to 40 degrees from vertical. An angle very similar to the angle of the the brake levers on the Midge bar:
Natural angle to the brake hoods
I like to install these handlebars with the ramps level. This provides a great platform and plenty of support for the hands.
Notice the ramps, the portion of the bar behind the levers, are basically level.Another position I use a lot with the Midge bars.Nice platform for the hands
The most notable thing in this view is the distance the ends of the bars extend toward the rider. This should allow for riding comfortably in the drops without reaching. The picture below shows the rise from the center up to the ramp portion.
The Grand Randonneur rises from the center to the rampA view of the upward rise from the center, the slight flair of the drops, and the angle of the brake levers.
The handlebar I am itching to try on my touring bike is the Nitto Noodle.
I guess I know why they are called "Noodle"
These bars intrigue me because of the slight rearward bend of the top portion. Again, if I examine the shape of my palm, curled into a gripping shape, I find that it is at a slight angle, from inside to outside. Corresponding to the shape of the Noodle bar.
They don’t have any flair to the drops though. The ramps are basically parallel to the drops. These would be really cool if they had the backward bend plus a flair like the Midge bars! Then they would be the Pretzel bar.
No flair to the drops and subsequently.... to the brake levers
So, there you have four options for drop style handlebars for touring. If you are thinking about changing handlebars keep in mind that there are three standard diameters for handlebars where they clamp to the stem: 25.4 mm, 26mm, and 31.8mm. Stems are made for all those diameters too. A stem with a clamp for 25.4 will not work with a 26 or 31.8 handlebar, but a smaller diameter handlebar can be made to work with a larger clamp diameter stem by means of handy dandy shims made for that purpose!
After looking at these pictures I think I need to write a post about handlebar tape and how to change it.
I wonder if my experience is that much different from other bicyclers’. Some of the time, or most of the time, after I have been out on my bicycle for a while, and usually when I am by myself, I will have an insight or a solution to a particular problem or situation which I am not even specifically thinking about at the time, but which I have been working on in everyday life. I recently came across a description of how this “eureka” moment comes about.
The Most Powerful Idea In The World is a book written by William Rosen and ostensibly about the Industrial Revolution, and the steam engine, but it’s just as much about invention and creativity and how insights to a problem can suddenly occur when the creator is not even “working” on the problem.
According to Rosen, people who study this sort of thing sometimes use “chaos theory to describe how neurons fire together. When a single neuron chemically fires it’s electrical charge, and causes it’s neighbors to do the same, the random electrical activity that is always present in the human brain can result in a “neuronal avalanche” within the brain”.
Mostof this activity takes place in a part of the brain to which the blood flow is inhibited by most “normal” brain activity, i.e. the type of activity associated with everyday tasks such as (at least in modern day life) paying the power bill, going to the grocery store, and holding down a job. In short, survival. Likewise, early Homo Sapiens would not have had the luxury of being able to spend a lot of time daydreaming about new ways to start a fire.
Therefore, the human brain still does it’s best creative thinking when there is a sense of security or safety and relaxation. That might be why the Greek dude who ran down the street naked shouting “eureka” was relaxing in the bathtub when he had his insight.
I thought this was an interesting description of a phenomenon I have always noticed to some degree when I’m riding my bike. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I will go do just that! (ride my bike that is..not run down the street naked)
