Author: Bike Hermit®

Categories
Bikepacking

Smoke ‘n’ Fire400 – Bikepacking Endurance Testing

No surprise to our readers but bikepacking, and the bikepacking gear, gadgets and bikes to accommodate such activities, continues to grow in popularity.  As people who like to travel off the beaten path we really appreciate these innovations and continue to bring new items into our store, plus take advantage of them ourselves.

Three years ago, inspired by their participation in Ride the Divide, a group of fellow bike packing addicts launched an Idaho “race” aptly named the Smoke’n’Fire400.  Late summer in Idaho is also fire season, this year’s major fire began way back in mid-July and is still going strong. So strong it’s resulted in a major reroute of the 3rd annual ride.  Regardless, the ride’s popularity has been fabulous.  Bike Touring News has enjoyed working with many of the riders, it’s made for a fun summer and fall.  In addition to Revelate Designs Gear, we added Ortlieb and Apidura to our bag line and are looking forward to some reviews.  Other much needed items on this years 450 mile jaunt are reliable lights.  We think the Busch & Mueller selections we’ve recommended will be stellar.

This years ride kicked off in Hyde Park with an informal gathering.  Sun Ray Pizza and the ride organizers graciously agreed to let Bike Touring News contribute a keg of Highland Hollow Beer ;).  Revelate Designs donated a Sweetroll for our raffle and the crowd was very appreciative.  It’s always good to see how other riders choose to pack and we couldn’t help but snap some photos.  You can follow the progress of the riders on Track Leader as they bounce and maneuver their way along double track, single track and more. Hard to believe some will likely complete this in less than two days. Personally, I look forward to hearing from the “folks like me” who will be taking a slower pace and not hesitating to stop to smell the flowers, get some sleep and eat a real meal.

norbtyson
Masters of organization and planning
apiduraframebag
Apidura Frame Bag
biketouringnewswaterbottleready
Dave’s taking his Bike Touring News Water Bottle – nice!
dynmochargedlight
SON Dynamo Hub – no fail on Fisher Creek
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Revelate Designs Ready
edulux
One of our favorite Lights, the Edulux – great beam pattern
stuffedrevelatesweetroll
How to take advantage of a Revelate Sweetroll (sorry bout the blur)
revelateharnesstangle
Going Lite
ortliebhandlebarbag
Well planned cockpit
img_20160913_175316605
Josh & Valerie’s Sleek Tandem
img_20160913_183800578
locked and loaded
img_20160913_184837380
Count the bikes 🙂

img_20160913_183841109

Categories
Bikepacking Idaho Our Trips

“Diamond A Desert” by Bicycle

“drink muddy water, sleep in a hollow log”
Three of us set out on the bicycles to find Arch Canyon in the Bruneau Jarbidge Rivers Wilderness. On day one we missed our turn and ended up at Dead Horse Spring. The next day we saw a dead horse, got disoriented and lost our way, traveled through the high desert with thunderstorms and were rescued (indirectly) by ATV’s. On the last day we found the road we meant to take the first day. We never made it to Arch Canyon but we found exactly what we were looking for.

bicycle in the desert

canyon road

Bicycle in the canyon

Road out of canyon

Fine stone work

Old Stone Building

desert track

Desert camp

Dead Horse Camp

Light and sky bike packer

river crossing

field of weeds bikepacking

tumbleweeds

rays

thunder clouds

Desert ruins

Sign to Arch Canyon

Desert Spring

Bike Hermit at home

Bikepacker

Canyonlands

P10153031

More weeds. 150 years of cattle grazing will do that.

Pushing Bicycles

canyonlands

So, what did we learn?
On the way back to the vehicle we were wishing we had left trail markers at the various Y’s in the road. The route we had taken on the way in was not always apparent, especially after the rain, and landmarks look different approached from the opposite direction. We didn’t really learn it on this trip but the need to filter water at every opportunity and to seek out water sources was reinforced. We were reminded of how remote this country is and another person might not be seen for days. There is a reason for that; the desert doesn’t want us here. Even the Shoshone abandoned this area. A Spot satellite transmitter would be a good investment in case anything goes wrong. At the very least, one should make sure somebody knows where they are going.

Categories
Bottom Brackets and Crank Sets Drivetrain

From Three by Nine to Two by Ten on a Touring Bicycle

A Tale of Chain Suck

bicycle drivetrain
The new drivetrain

By replacing my chain and the middle ring on my triple Sugino touring crankset I thought my problems would be solved. The chain would now drop smoothly from the middle ring to the small ring without hanging up on the bottom of the middle ring, getting dragged around and over the top and getting jammed or “sucked” into the front derailleur. For the technical minded, this article about chain suck is informative. Basically, worn chain rings and/or a worn, dirty chain will contribute to chain suck. But, even with the new chain and middle ring the chain still was reluctant to disengage from the bottom of the middle ring when I wanted to shift to the smaller ring.

triple touring crankset
The old, triple Sugino crankset. 46-36-26

I have never been entirely happy with this crankset for a couple of other reasons:
1.) the arms are 175 millimeters long when I would have preferred 172.5
2.) the Q-Factor has always felt too wide to me.
3.) there are several combinations of chainring/rear cog that are either unusable or redundant.

The mountain biking world has been addressing the inefficiencies of triple cranksets and now so-called 2x and 1x systems using either two chainrings or just one with 10 or 11 speed, wide-range rear cassettes proliferate. When I saw the new “wide compact road double” crankset from Interloc Racing Design (IRD) I decided to take off the curmudgeon hat and put on the practical hat.

IRD crankset
The IRD wide compact double touring crankset. 46-30 172.5mm arms
IRD double
The new double crankset. 46-30

I had to consider a number of things in making the swap;
-First, I obviously want a decent range of gears suitable for a loaded touring bike. I used the Sheldon Gear Calculator as I describe in this blog post and see that a 10 speed cassette with a small cog of 11 teeth and a big cog with 34 teeth will give me the same high end as I have with the triple and a slightly easier low gear, which is a bit of a bonus, and will give me a few more usable gears (less cross-chaining) and fewer redundant gears.

-Second, my front and rear derailleurs need to be able to deal with new rings and cogs and with a ten speed chain. The front triple derailleur, while it does not have the ideal shape for the compact rings moves the chain back and forth quite smoothly. I use a friction downtube shift lever so the 9 speed derailleur works with the narrower 10 speed chain but a 9 speed front derailleur will generally not work with an indexed shifting system made for ten speed. The rear derailleur can handle the chain wrap because there will actually be less chain to tension than with the triple setup. The medium cage Ultegra derailleur has a nominal large cog maximum of 30 teeth though, four teeth smaller than the 34 I am using. When in the big cog I am unable to adjust the derailleur to keep the upper pulley far enough away from the bottom of the cog but if that proves to be a problem, I can get a different derailleur.

rear derailleur pulley
For smooth running, there should be more space between the top of the derailleur pulley and the bottom of the largest cog.

-Third, since I still like an indexed rear shifter I need 10 speed downtube levers. And of course I will need a new, 10 speed cassette and chain.

ten speed cassette
The new rear cassette. 11-34

– My fourth consideration was Q-Factor. IRD recommend a JIS square taper bottom bracket with a 118mm spindle length to achieve the best chainline and, using that suggestion I ended up with an almost perfect chainline. The Q-Factor is now 1 centimeter narrower which I’m hoping will be more comfortable and efficient.

crank arms
Straight arms, Low Q-Factor

chainline
The chainline in the small ring and just left of center on the cog is pretty straight

I feel like simpler is almost always better and I like the simple, clean look of this setup. The IRD crankset has a jewellry-like finish and a muscular appearance, which might be even a little more traditional looking than the Sugino. The real test of the success of the conversion will be taking longer rides and going touring with it.

Categories
Advocacy/Awareness

Adventure Cycling Association’s 40th Anniversary Weekend, 2016

aca Working backwards from July 15 I find that I can make a good case for leaving Boise on the 2nd and riding the bike for about two weeks, ending up in Missoula, MT for Adventure Cycling Association’s 40th Anniversary celebration. In the meantime I can ride with my wife and daughter on the Pioneer Mountains Scenic Byway and attend my sister’s 60th birthday party in Bozeman. Since I always have my bike and bike touring gear ready, when these opportunities appear I am ready. Somebody has to do it.

More about the ride at crazyguyonabike.com 

Adventure Cycling Association World Headquarters is in Missoula, MT because that’s where the four founders lived when they started the Bikecentennial organization, which would later become ACA.

In 1976 bike touring was an extreme sport. Extreme enough that National Geographic would pay for an article written by somebody willing to ride their bicycle from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.   In 2016 that would be an epic bike ride. In 1976 it must have seemed impossible. Four people started the ride they dubbed Hemistour. Two people finished. The other two returned to Missoula to work on what would become Bikecentennial and Adventure Cycling Association. These four are the people whose stories interest me. Two of them spoke at the reception on Friday night and to me this was one of the highlights of the weekend.

Today, Adventure Cycling Association has 50,000 members and has catalogued over 45,000 miles of bicycle routes in the USA. They have 6 cartographers on staff and the maps of the ACA routes are the best available for bike touring. 100 supported and self-supported guided bike trips are offered by ACA and they publish Adventure Cyclist magazine. Advocacy for cycling and bike touring, how-to resources and the Bike Overnights website round out the most prolific bicycle related not for profit organization I am aware of.

My informal interviews and observations of the attendees over the weekend pointed to two demographics at this event; those who participated in all or part of Bikecentennial in 1976 and those who were not born or were very young in 1976. From this “data” I might interpolate the broader population of bike tourists in the US to be from one or the other of these same demographics.

I wonder if the younger demographic of people traveling by bike nowadays is the same group that rode Bikecentennial 40 years ago. By that I mean what Dan Burden called in his speech, “children of the 60’s” who wanted change. Rebels with no credentials for bike touring or building an organization other than a belief in what they are doing. I want to think they are learning humility and how to suffer. Learning that they are not entitled to anything. Learning patience and how to go slow. Learning how to work together to solve problems.

At least, that idea gives me hope.

 

Categories
Lights and Electronics Touring Bike Accessories

Minoura Phone Grip Smart Phone Holder

smart phone holder fo bicycle
The Minoura Phone Grip Smart Phone Holder (iH-520-STD) is the best handlebar mount phone holder I have found. The metal bar clamp is hinged and comes with rubber shims to fit various diameter bars. There are two versions, the only difference between the two being the size of the bar clamp. Over Size fits bars 27.2-35mm in diameter and the Standard Size fits bars 22.2-28.6mm in diameter.

A solid handlebar mounted phone holder keeps the phone within easy reach when touring and is nice when using the GPS or map apps. If one has a dynamo hub and converter, it’s a simple matter to plug the phone in while going down the road. Even when not using or charging the phone it is nice to have a secure place to keep it.

A base plate bolts onto the bar clamp and the phone holder itself bolts onto the base plate. The disc shaped base plate and the phone holder interface with each other by means of radial grooves allowing the phone holder to rotate in 9 degree increments for adjustment of the phones angle.

Solid clamp and adjustable base.
Solid clamp and adjustable base.

The side wings grip the phone tightly and release by pulling the red lever on the bottom of the base. Pressing the red lever all the way in locks the wings in place. The holder ships with two sets of interchangeable side wings for different phone thicknesses. The tall wings fit my Droid phone with Otter Box case.
Minoura side wings

phone in holder
Width to spare with the Droid phone and Otter Box case

Adjustable upper and lower arm brackets can be locked in place once adjusted to the phone being used to keep it from slipping up or down. For iPhone 6 a longer lower bracket is included. A silicone band is attached to the bottom of the case and can be used as extra insurance that the phone won’t accidentally fall off.

Standard upper and lower arm brackets
Standard upper and lower arm brackets

The extended lower arm for iPhone 6
The extended lower arm for iPhone 6

This gets the Bike Hermit® approval for a solid and secure attachment of the phone to the bars. This phone holder also has a lower profile than some of the other ones I have seen and is less prone to getting snagged on something and broken. It will fit phones from 55mm to 85mm in width and between 6mm and 18mm thick.

Categories
Adventure Cycling Association 40th Advocacy/Awareness Event Coverage

Somewhere in the Middle of Montana

The 40th anniversary of Adventure Cycling Association.
I will be riding my bike from Bozeman to Missoula, MT for the 40th Anniversary of Adventure Cycling Association, which happens July 15-17, 2016. As it turns out I will be following the route of my very first bike tour. I didn’t know it at the time but as I was doing my first tour Greg and June Siple were halfway through their bike trip from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, a little jaunt they called Hemistour. When they were done with that they went back to Missoula and started working for a concern they helped start called Bikecentennial, which later became Adventure Cycling Association.
ideale leather saddle
Back in those days it was hard to find bicycle touring gear, or any bicycle gear for that matter. I think my sister or my mom made my panniers from a Frostline Kit. My Peugeot bicycle came with sew-up tires. I ordered an Ideale leather saddle from an actual paper catalog and it eventually appeared in the mail. Plastic bike helmets didn’t exist, and LYCRA was not yet being used for shorts. There were no cell phones and “internet” was not a word. I would stop at a pay phone when I could to call home and let them know where I was and that I was OK. That puts Hemistour in perspective and squarely in the category of extreme sport.

TOSRV West
The Tour of the Swan River Valley, or TOSRV West is a 220 mile, fully supported, two day bike ride that begins in Missoula, goes through Seeley Lake and Swan Lake to Big Fork and returns along Flathead Lake back to Missoula. Two other Hemistour riders, Dan and Lys Burden, were inspired by the Tour of the Scioto River Valley in Ohio and they organized the first TOSRV West in 1971. In the late 1970’s and early 80’s riding TOSRV West was a chance to see some exotic, for the time, bicycles. Of course the high end bikes were all lugged steel with full Campagnolo or Zeus kits. There was even a custom builder in Missoula at the time; Dennis Sparrow, who drove along the route with a van full of tools and worked as the mechanic for the riders. If memory serves, Sparrow was not built like a sparrow. I also remember that he smoked cigarettes which did, and does, seem like an anomaly. Then again Dario Pegoretti wouldn’t strike one as a builder of exquisite bike frames either.

These are some of the memories I will be taking with me to Missoula next month. There is a contingent of riders from Idaho who will be converging on Missoula the middle of July. I’m sure they all have there own reasons for going and will have their own stories and memories from the trip. I intend to collect some of those stories over beers in one of Missoula’s brew pubs. Also looking forward to getting a chance to talk to Greg, June, Dan and Lys.

Categories
Crossroads Music

Don Van Vliet aka Captain Beefheart (1941-2010)

Portrait of Don Van Vliet

neon plants swim like green seaweed to a deep rhythm of blues

I listen to the music and try to figure out the structure or the time signature and soon realize it doesn’t matter. What matters is the feeling. The music. It throbs and pulses; staggers and careens; stumbles but doesn’t fall; and is completely original. The poetry too puts words together in certain unexpected ways to create a jagged rhythm and to paint a picture.

you hardly know a day goes by in the cardboard cutout sundown 

A young Don Van Vliet used to sit in his mother’s basement with a young Frank Zappa listening to music and, I imagine, getting weird. Zappa later formed the Mothers of Invention and becomes, arguably, a better known musician.  I think his was a self conscious almost contrived weirdness that gets in the way of the music. Van Vliet was truly, innocently weird and was a demanding bandleader. The lineup of his Magic Band fluctuated but all the musicians were virtuosos who could play the sounds Van Vliet heard in his head. Some players, like Ry Cooder, thought he was too difficult to work for and so they left. Others stayed and continued to play together as the Magic Band after Van Vliet’s death.

Painting by Don V an Vliet

the past sure is tense 

Van Vliet’s creativity came through because he refused to grow up. Like Monk, he was able to maintain a child like simplicity in order to only write or play or paint what was necessary and no more. Monk had Nellie and Pannonica to take care of him and handle the tasks of everyday living. I don’t know who Van Vliet had, if anybody. Also like Monk, he eventually quit playing music entirely. He spent his time painting his impressions of the crows and Joshua Trees and the critters, real and mythical, of the Mojave Desert. Now his paintings are exhibited in galleries all over the world.
His music is not for everybody and neither is his art probably, but I love this man. I love to hear sounds that I’ve heard before sent to me in a new way, in a way that would have never occurred to me. It makes me feel all jangly and adds spice to the bland stew in my brain. Or else it’s the coffee.

Categories
Bike Touring Tips Oregon Our Trips

Crazy Guy on a Bike

Here’s a tip; go to Neil Gunton’s crazyguyonabike.com, “a free, independent website for hosting bicycle touring journals, forums and resources”, and read everything you could possibly want to know about bike touring. Our most recent journal is this one about riding the Old West Scenic Bikeway. I suppose everyone who enjoys reading these journals has a favorite writer. One of mine is Leo Woodland. If you go to the CGOAB site, you may get sidetracked from whatever else it was you were doing. You have been warned.

Categories
Bike Touring Tips

A Few Bike Touring Hacks

garbage bag bellows
The DIY air mattress bellows pump: light, cheap, effective and recyclable

D.I.Y. Garbage Bag Bellows Air Pump
The outdoor gear maker Big Agnes makes a combination stuff sack/sleeping pad pump called the Pumphouse. It sells for $19.95 on their website. A quick Google search reveals several videos detailing how to make one out of a plastic garbage bag, an empty plastic bottle and a garden hose rubber washer. Conveniently, the outside diameter of the input valve on many back packing and bikepacking sleeping pads is 5/8″ or so; the same as the inside diameter of a garden hose washer. So the rubber washer will just fit snugly when slipped over the valve. Here’s how to make the bellows:
– The plastic bottle cap to be used needs to have a diameter of around 1″. Drill a hole through the center of the bottle cap just a little bit larger than 5/8″. (drilling this hole is easier with the cap still on the bottle).
– Cut the neck of the bottle off just below the cap and below the little drip ridge on the bottle. Use sandpaper to clean up all the rough edges.
– Cut off a small corner of the garbage sack to make a golf ball sized hole.
– Take the lid off the short section of the bottle neck and poke the corner of the garbage bag with the hole in it up through the neck. Fold an inch or so of the bag down around the threads and screw the cap back on. Now the cap with the hole in it should slip over the valve on the sleeping pad and the rubber washer will create a decently air-tight seal.
– Open up the top of the bag to trap air inside it and quickly fold and twist the top together to make a big balloon. Then squeeze the air out and into the sleeping pad.
Besides being quite a bit easier than blowing up your pad by mouth, this system has the added advantage of not introducing a bunch of moisture into the pad, which reduces the thermal insulation properties.

A Visual (and relative) Way to Gauge Tire Pressure
Our camp the previous night was in national forest about a mile down an unpaved road. After rolling on the asphalt for about an hour in the morning we took a break and I noticed that there was a black stripe around our tires, contrasted against the dust left on the casing and sidewalls of the tires. These stripes defined the width of the contact patch between the asphalt and the tires as the tire deformed under the weight of bike and rider. The stripe on the rear tire of my bike appeared to be a little bit wider than the stripe on the front tire. For handling and tire wear I prefer to have roughly the same amount of deformation and resultant tire contact patch width on both tires. On a loaded bike with more weight on the back tire, that tire will need more air. I put a few pumps into the rear tire to equalize things a bit.

tire wear
Front tire contact patch. You can see the black stripe of the asphalt against the dust from the gravel road on the sidewalls
tire wear considerations
The contact patch of the rear tire as indicated by the black stripe is a little bit wider than that on the front tire.

Riding a Loaded Bike on a Long Descent
At the top of our first summit G. asked if I had any tips for descending at speed on a loaded bike. The only one I could think of was to gain speed slowly to see how the bike was going to handle. If there was any shimmy in the front wheel I suggested he move his hands to different positions on the bars and/or to move his butt on the saddle to redistribute his weight. No gyrations were required on his part however because his Soma Saga touring bike was designed for this type of use and was solid and predictable at all speeds. At the bottom I asked if he had any insights about descending now that he was a pro. He did say he felt like he had more control when riding with his hands on the brake hoods (he uses drop bars). Riding with the hands on the hoods also makes it easy to reach the brake levers quickly in an emergency. Some people recommend this position because the rider is able to sit up higher and create a little bit of a sail effect with the upper body to help scrub speed. And speaking of shimmy; if the bike feels unstable or squirrely at speed it could be a tire pressure issue. A few more PSI or a few less in the front or rear or both tires might cure it. On really long descents in high temperatures rim brakes can heat the wheel rims to the point where the tires will overheat and a blowout could result. This would be bad, but there is not much to be done except to be aware of the possibility and take it easy.

SPD Bottle Opener

pedal as bottle opener

Thanks for reading. Add your own bike touring hacks in the comments.

Categories
Hermit's Workshop The Touring Bicycle Wheel

When To Replace a Worn Wheel Rim

It’s early morning in Moab, Utah when the still air is violated by the sound of a small explosion and the clang of scraping metal. My friend’s rear wheel has come apart and is a twisted jumble of aluminum rim, steel spokes and rubber. For the first time, I realize that soft rubber brake pads can wear through metal. Sand and other grit in a slurry with oil and who knows what other chemicals get embedded in the pads and act like a grinding disc to wear away at the relatively soft aluminum braking surface of the rim. Once the braking surface becomes too thin to provide structure to the rim, the forces of the tire bead can blow it apart. Here is a visual example of what I am talking about.

The braking surface on a new rim is flat, if not a little concave.
The braking surface on a new rim is flat, if not a little concave.

A worn rim braking surface.
A worn rim braking surface.

The concavity of the worn rim is visually apparent, but it can also be felt by the fingertips. Lots of times this is just a judgment call. Some rim makers machine a groove in the circumference of the rim’s braking surface and others create three or four small dots or indented holes at intervals around the rim. Once these indicators are no longer visible it is time to replace the rim.

Check your rim brake bicycle’s rims. If the braking surface feels like it has a little concavity to it, replace it before you go on the next long tour.