Messages

1

Gear Talk / Locks/ theft

« on: April 11, 2008, 01:03:42 am »

If someone is really determined to steal your bike, he will no matter what lock you got.

My personal choice has been cable lock for some time. In my opinion, U-lock is faster and more simple to cut with bolt cutters, but if youre going to cut cable lock, you need quality pair of cable cutters (which I think are more rare) or quality side cutters (and with side cutters you have to spend more time). Cable locks are also lighter.

Also park the bike in open place where people can see it.

I have had many bikes stolen that were locked with Kryptonite u-locks, but since I started to use strong cable locks, I have only one cable lock that was partially cutted but the thief did not manage to steal the bike.

2

Gear Talk / does anyone use a rolhoff speedhub on their tourer

« on: January 06, 2007, 02:25:34 pm »

Again, strongly off topic, but since we started to discuss about custom made touring frames, I could not resist to post this one up. Simply amazing:



You can find some pictures of it from MTBR forums etc. with Google. It is called Moots Snoots. Full titanium... :8|:

This message was edited by Raine on 1-6-07 @ 12:26 PM

3

Gear Talk / does anyone use a rolhoff speedhub on their tourer

« on: January 05, 2007, 01:30:09 pm »

Sorry to be a bit off topic, but I would love to see pictures of your coming "Excpedition Touring" frame, Art.

Do you have any pics of it yet? What kind of specs are you having there?

Cheers,
Raine

This message was edited by Raine on 1-5-07 @ 11:30 AM

4

Gear Talk / Touring computer

« on: December 28, 2006, 03:48:25 am »

I've noticed that most cyclocomputer brands have several models available, with very little (5-20$) price diffrences between them.

I did the mistake taking the cheapest one, which records only speed and overall distance, but it does not have trip distance (very useful when touring) and I would also have liked to see maximum speed.

5

Gear Talk / Novara Randonee and REI vs. Volpe

« on: December 28, 2006, 03:36:31 am »

Actually, my Randonee is blue / silver. I would have preferred more earth-toned colors such as the newer brown one.

6

Gear Talk / Novara Randonee and REI vs. Volpe

« on: December 26, 2006, 07:39:45 am »

I bought Novara Randonnee in december 2003. The bike was 2004 model if I remember correctly. REI set up the bike with fenders, Blackburn rear rack, lights and bike computer as I requested, all in one evening. Nothing else to complain here, just that the computer wasn't set up correctly (wrong wheel size).

I've ridden the bike since without any problems and like it very much. Novara might not be as high profile brand such as Cannondale & Trek etc. but I don't have anything negative to say about the bike at all. I changed the saddle to another one because the original got damaged, but thats all.

I'm going to get it repainted full black this winter to please my eye more and to look more ie a tool. Also getting Brooks B17 saddle.

7

GPS Discussion / Geocaching?

« on: October 05, 2003, 07:50:11 pm »

I´m planning to ride the Southern Tier route, and I´m propably taking a GPS with me.

I´ve been doing some geocaching here in Finland, and I´m interested to search out some Geocaches during my ride as well. It would be interesting to find some, and to spice up my journey.

Any ideas for good caches along the route? Or is this such a rare "sport" that no one around here is interested or hear about this before?

Check out www.geocaching.com for more info.

8

Routes / Southern Tier in January - February

« on: October 10, 2003, 06:55:23 pm »

Hello!

Here are few links I´ve found to be useful:

Southern Tier travelogues:
http://www.santasrevenge.com/Biketrip/default.htm

http://bicycletouring.liquidwebproductions.com/SanDiegoMain.htm

Bicycle touring related links:
http://mikebentley.com/bike/touring.htm

One of my favorities, not really related to touring in the US, but I´ve found these pages very inspiring:
http://www3.utsidan.se/corax-e/

As I mentioned earlier, I will be riding Southern Tier from west to east, so it would be very nice to meet up on the route! If you do the route at the time you described, we will pass each other somewhere in the middle of it all, most likely very close by.

As I´ll be traveling alone, I would love to meet anyone sharing the same kind of trip. Maybe we could head out for a dinner and beer together if our paths cross!

I´m also interested on any information and tips about the route and anything related! It was nice to lear that I´m not the only one heading there that time!

Please keep me posted about your trip!

Raine

This message was edited by Raine on 9-8-04 @ 2:49 AM

9

Routes / Southern Tier in January - February

« on: October 05, 2003, 07:44:47 pm »

Hello everyone!

I´m going to ride Southern Tier starting 28th of Dec by first riding from Los Angeles to San Diego.

After (hopefully) arriving to st Augustine, I´m planning to ride to Orlando and after visiting Disney etc I´ll take a train via Washington to New York from where my flight leaves 14th of Feb back to Finland.

As now I haven´t anything special to ask, I´m hoping to get some conversation about Southern Tier route itself, and maybe find some links to ST travelogues!

Cheers,
Raine

10

General Discussion / A Wacky Idea

« on: December 29, 2006, 11:19:56 am »

I live in Finland, and I recently saw a tv-document about finnish homeless guys football club, which was put together in cooperation with some rehab center. The people attending were propably between 25-40 years of age and certainly no sportsmen - atleast not any more at this point of their lives.

They started to train for "football world cup for homeless people" which was held in some where in South America if I remember correctly. I didn't see the whole document so I'm not aware  how they ended up, but I see similarity in this and your idea.

As I see it, you try to establish somekind of attainable and interesting goals for people who, for many years haven't had any reasonable or interesting goals to strive in their lives.

While I think your idea is great, I would suggest to build a training program where you would do few smaller trips such as RusselSeaton suggested above. I think that when your group would succeed in such smaller trips first, they would gather confidence and experience needed for multi-week journeys.

Best of luck to you!