Hermit's WoodshedBike Touring is a big category. Tour by the hour, the day, the weeks, the months. We are here to help you with your Bike Touring
A site about all things bike touring, a term that can mean a number of different things. Is overnight bicycle camping touring? Does riding out to the state park for a picnic qualify as a tour? We think the answer is yes. Stay and look around – Shop, get inspired and maybe learn something new too!
I came across this YouTube channel the other day. Dave is bike touring across the US and documenting it in videos. It’s pretty cool, especially if you have been to some of the same places he travels through.
He’s traveling from west to east on Adventure Cycling’s Southern Tier route with a Bob trailer hooked onto his bike. If you’re thinking about following all or parts of the same route, might want to check it out, because he points out some of the tricky intersections, talks about traffic, and about where he stays and eats. His YouTube channel is called ThreeWheelJourney. He was nice enough to link to my site and my YouTube channel too.
I thought this video journal was highly entertaining, a nice twist on the photo journal. I am going to try to figure out a way for people to share their stories here. Since I’m a rookie at this WordPress thing, any suggestions about how to do that are welcome!
I’ve decided to insert a post to update my previous posts about touring bicycles. From the previous posts in might appear that the choices for bikes with which one can travel is limited to pretty traditional designs. This is far from the case as evidenced by this journal at crazyguyonabike. A mountain bike with an Xtracycle attachment obviously is a viable way to carry gear for self supported touring.
So, even though I have my opinions and preferences, it is not to say that there are no other good options for touring bikes.
Now back to our regularly scheduled program!
In part 1 of this series I hinted at some of the differences between a touring bicycle and a bicycle for racing or performance. Now I will get more specific about what to look for in a touring bicycle.
Let’s use our bicycle frame picture for a reference again.
A touring bicycle will have relatively long chain stays…… for a couple of reasons. First, if the bicycle will be loaded with panniers or saddlebags on either side of a rear rack ,longer chain stays will allow the bags to be placed farther aft, reducing the chance that the riders feet will hit the bags when pedaling.
Longer chain stays will move the rear wheel farther back too. This will allow for more clearance between the tire and the frame. (Good for fat tires and fenders!)
Don’t worry too much about a number for the chainstay length. Just look at the bike with wheels and tires mounted and visually determine if there is room between the tires and the frame for fenders. If you just have a frame with no wheels/tires then measure the chainstay length from the center of the bottom bracket to center of the rear dropout. 17 3/4 to 18 inches ( 45 to 46 centimeters) is what you are looking for.
Look at the fork too. Make sure there is enough clearance for fenders.
A touring bicycle will be ridden steadily for hours at a time. There will be no sprinting or hard echelons. On a comfortable touring bike the top of the handlebars will be within a couple of centimeters, or level with, the top of the saddle. Forget all the mumbo jumbo the bike fitters, who will charge upwards of $200.00 to adjust your saddle and handlebars, spout about performance and “your game”. Your game is all day comfort. To achieve this, many of the best touring bike makers will slope the top tube up a few degrees from the junction with the seat tube. Then they will extend the top of the head tube a few centimeters. Voila, the handlebars are up where they belong for comfort, without resorting to some crazy looking extensions.
Of course, in order to carry things on the bike, you will need some sort of rack system. A good touring bike will have tabs brazed onto the frame near the rear dropouts and on the fork dropouts. These tabs have threaded holes for rack and fender attachment. Look for two “braze ons” on the rear dropout (for fenders as well as racks) and one or two on the fork. Look for bolt holes in the mid section of the front fork as well. These are useful for attaching front or “low rider” racks.
Most bike frames have bolts in the down and seat tubes for water bottle cages. Some will have a place for another cage on the bottom of the down tube near the bottom bracket. On a self supported tour, the more ways to carry water the better.
These are just some of the things to consider in a touring bicycle. In future articles we will get into the details about goodies like racks, fenders, tires, etc.
This is it! After a couple of false starts and lots of wailing and gnashing of teeth, the Bike Touring News site is finally officially off the ground! Just like any tour we have no idea exactly where this will lead or how it will end up but the direction is clear:
Providing inspiration, ideas, practical and technical tips, equipment reviews, reader contributions and comments, and whatever else we can think of to make this site a single source to help people sort out the ever increasing and ever more confusing ways to travel by bicycle.
Bike touring means different things to different people. In the context of this site, there will be a loose interpretation. A “micro-tour” (a term coined by Pondero) might be taking an hour and a half to ride to a secluded spot 4 miles from home, brew some tea, and ride home. A trip out to the local state park with a picnic lunch loaded in the front basket qualifies as a tour. The S24O or sub-24-hour ride is an overnight bike camping routine popularized recently by Rivendell Bicycle Works founder Grant Petersen. The supported, organized tours and charity rides can be a lot of fun. Then, of course, there is the multiple day trip on a fully loaded bike…probably the image that comes to mind most often.
So there is a lot of ground to cover. We’ve planned our route, we’ve done our training, and we have our gear stowed. Now we’re grabbing the handlebars, hitting the road and looking forward to whatever happens!
