Messages

1

Gear Talk / Re: Tour Bike Build

« on: August 13, 2024, 09:57:45 am »

So, anyway, one thing that I know I want to change is the saddle to a Brooks leather saddle. Does anyone have a preference between the B17 & the B17 special?
Apparently the special has recessed rivets? Any thoughts appreciated.

I've had a number of Brooks.  On a couple of them, after 10's of thousands of miles, have had a rivet get tilted; it'll then start rubbing even through a good pair of shorts.  It's possible, but difficult, to hammer it back flush.

The big rivets on the specials are easier to correct.  The copper is softer than the standard steel rivets, and it's got a larger head, so you can bend the edge of the rivet over rather than the saddle frame on the standard.  Plus, they look really cool.

So you pays your money and you takes your choice.

Make sure you have an Aardvark saddle cover or two to keep the saddle from soaking on a long, hot, sweaty ride, or a ride through a downpour.  And have something (fender or plastic bag under the saddle) to protect the saddle dry from tire spray.

2

General Discussion / Re: Bike 'friendliness' of US hotels?

« on: July 31, 2024, 04:16:43 pm »

I don't ask anymore; I assume they'll let me wheel my bike right through the lobby.

I was asked to lock it up outside once at a small "historic" hotel in eastern Colorado, and a B&B let me store a bike in their barn.

If you're in an outdoorsy area (lots of hikers, hunters, fishermen), ask if they have an old towel to clean it up before you roll the bike inside.  That's after a towel was a room towel, a pool towel, and finally a cleaning towel.  Most places are happy to provide you with one.

3

Routes / Re: TransAm Alternate Routes You Would Recommend

« on: July 16, 2024, 09:28:49 am »

Has anyone ridden thru Varney, MT instead of Ennis, MT?   It would be a shortcut, but my real interest is possibly being more fun (less traffic) than 287 thru Ennis.  It is entirely gravel, so not sure how tough it would be, but google thinks it is a good bike route (and google is often conservative on gravel, but sometimes wrong).  No services, although I have had good luck (tour + restroom + water fountain) visiting fish hatcheries in other states.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/47532082

Your shortcut may be shorter in distance, but I'm not sure how it would compare time-wise.  Both the U.S. and the state 287s are well paved, and flying down from the top of the ridge to Virginia City was a high-speed (for a loaded tourist) blast.

4

Routes / Re: Eads CO to Sugar City

« on: June 17, 2024, 08:36:50 am »

I think this is the situation 2 L foldable water pouches were made for.  Fill up one or two in the morning, stuff them into the middle of some clothes in a pannier, and pedal off with the sunrise.

Some people advocate reusing 1 L water bottles or even coke bottles.  That's doable, but the foldable pouches are easier to store.

5

General Discussion / Re: Is GDMBR worth it if one has done 14K+ moutains and passes in S. America

« on: June 05, 2024, 09:53:38 am »

The answer to almost any "is it worth it?" question is another question.  Is it worth it to you?

What are you looking for?  What excites you?  Can you afford it?  Would it be worth a couple months of your time to add "rode the GDMBR" to your bragging rights?

6

General Discussion / Re: What difference can the weather cause on a long ride?

« on: April 17, 2024, 09:33:05 am »

As a friendly FYI, it is highly recommended you do NOT seek shelter under a bridge during a tornado, especially up near the top of the retaining slope.  Over the years, I can think of a small handful of times I have heard of deaths from people doing exactly that.  I don't understand why (I still think it would be safer) but the weather people usually remind us not to do that here in tornado country.  Best to lay in a depression or culvert.

I think there was a video (from early in the video days) of a couple who parked underneath an overpass and survived.  But the boffins say an overpass can funnel the wind so it's faster and harder under a bridge than in open territory.

Of course, the closest I got to a tornado, a cop stopped us all underneath the overpass near home and wouldn't let us go until the storm had passed.  Guess he hadn't seen the (years old) update.

7

Classifieds / Re: touring bike

« on: April 02, 2024, 08:45:25 am »

Good bike (I rode the TransAm on one in 2009).  You might add the size to your description to help interested parties.

8

Temporary ACA Route Road Closures / Re: Pacific Coast Section 4, Harris Grade Road, 2024

« on: March 26, 2024, 10:08:02 am »

I get chicken when a road is sliding off the hill and there may be heavy construction equipment.

CA 1 is a 4-5 lane road with light traffic except around rush hour (and an extra hill) up to the Vandenberg gate and back down.  IMHO it's a reasonable detour.

9

Routes / Re: Southern Tier (El Paso - Las Cruces)

« on: March 25, 2024, 09:48:27 am »

Note that part of the road is parallel to I-10.  It's usually the case that when an interstate is built parallel to another road, the interstate gets the lion's share of the traffic.  NM-28, though I haven't ridden or driven it, likely has local traffic only.  Just avoid rush hours, including the end of school.

10

Routes / Re: Tucson to Grand Canyon

« on: January 30, 2024, 09:19:42 am »

I've driven Tucson to Apache Junction.  As far as Pikacho Peak, you're always close to I-10 on the frontage road; the scenery is boring (look up, you're now a quarter mile closer to Pikacho!) and the road noise is loud.  Services are pretty limited from   Casa Grande was a nice 30 minute diversion.  I didn't zoom in on your route around Phoenix, but there are some fairly decent bike paths and canal roads on your way north.

Getting up to Oracle is a tedious ride with traffic and stop lights every 1/4-1/2 mile, and no bike path or shoulder when I drove it.  OTOH, it's a multi-lane road, so if you leave Tucson after a leisurely breakfast, traffic shouldn't be a problem.  Either way, there's approximately zero services from the outskirts of Oracle Junction to either Florence (missing Pikacho) or Globe, so take plenty of water.

Scenery is much more varied going to Glove, there's a serious climb going up to Globe, and the Gila River makes a nice change in desert vegetation and scenery half-way there.  No shoulders and traffic is close to none, so it doesn't matter.  Maybe one of the pickup trucks will stop to offer you some water?

11

Gear Talk / Re: Anybody run Redshift Shockstop suspension stem and seatpost?

« on: January 16, 2024, 09:07:41 am »

You may come to appreciate the "suspension" aspects of the RS (and perhaps the Thudbuster) as you cross miles of roads with expansion joints from Missouri, through Kansas, to eastern Colorado.  Rough roads everywhere else are just bad pavement.  :/

12

General Discussion / Re: Documenting my maiden TransAm voyage - Suggestions?

« on: January 16, 2024, 09:03:41 am »

O.P., you're setting yourself a high bar.  I'm going to suggest backing off a step for daily updates; as John and John note, it took me about an hour a day to maintain a journal with (usually) daily updates.

If you plan to meet your high professional standards, I'm guessing it'll take four hours a day with overnights in B&Bs or motels.  You might try an S24O (sub-24 hour overnight) trip with all the bells and whistles to see how close my guess comes to your experience.

Please, please, please, do not post 24 pictures and 3 videos per day with zero text!  Nobody but the poster knows why you took most of those, and you'll forget in a few years.  A good journal/blog needs at least a couple sentences, preferably a paragraph, to set the context for each picture.

IMHO, a trip journal is about the traveler's experience.  If you normally observe things from 25-100 off the ground, take a drone.

To limit your load, I'd suggest one reasonably good camera and maybe one video device (like a GoPro).  Some people do much more, like the people 30 years ago who took two 35 mm SLRs and five lenses.  Have you thought where to put all your clothes, rain gear, spare parts, food, and cooking gear?

If you want to make more of a production, perhaps you might consider keeping a simple journal while on tour; where you went, a two minute highlight with half a dozen pictures and a video with captions and explanatory paragraphs every day, for instance.  Go ahead and take lots more pictures and videos, archive and index them, and spend a few weeks when you get home making that professional production.

And for the sake of your own sanity, accept that you're going to miss some highlights.  I didn't take my camera to the city water park in eastern Colorado where we scampered about for 15 minutes at the end of a scorcher (the camera wasn't waterproof!).  Nor did I catch the bald eagle which came out of nowhere and dived into the river beside the road, flying off with a fish before I could even stop my bike to grab a camera.  Those are just etched into my soft tissue memory -- and I'm happy to have experienced them.

13

General Discussion / Re: Average Weight Loss/Gain on Cross Country Tour

« on: December 21, 2023, 08:50:59 am »

Me, in a convenience store, looking at a Hostess fruit pie:
At home:  300 calories! I can't eat this!
On the road: hmmm... 300 calories.  I wonder if I can get a dozen of these in my bags?

Yup.  Near the end of my longest tour I looked at the nutrition information on a snack outside the convenience store and blurted, "This is 1,050 calories I'm eating!"  My daughter swallowed and replied, "You're going to burn it off." 
The tough part is to stop eating like that when the tour is over.

14

Routes / Re: Ride with GPS elevation errors

« on: December 14, 2023, 08:53:41 am »

Not unique to rwgps.  You know the saying, "All generalities are false?"  That goes double for elevation on digital maps.  It's all too easy for a digital mapping tool to shortcut over a ridge, especially if the map database doesn't account for a narrow railroad cut.  Whatever you're using, treat the elevation gains with a grain of salt.

And if you have a good granny gear, you'll appreciate it at more points than you might expect on a cross-country ride.

15

General Discussion / Re: Advice on likely my last bike

« on: November 15, 2023, 09:41:56 am »

A few random thoughts (since I can't make your decision for you!):

Don't sell the Coda until you're sure the new bike is The One for you.  It's possible you'll spend the next few months reading all about bikes, and riding, and pick the absolute best bike on paper, and find you like the Coda better.

I wouldn't write off drop bars until you've tried some that have the bars about the same height as the saddle (like a touring bike).  If you like cycling and keep at it until you're doing some longer rides, it's possible you'll want the drops when you face a stiff headwind coming home.

Some people have found that the typical drop bar position is more comfortable than a straight/mountain bike bar.  If your torso is around 45 degrees, there's some flex at your hips you don't have if you're sitting upright.  Any bump that makes it past your tires and bike suspension (if your bike has it) goes straight into your lower back if you're upright.

Think of this as your next bike, not necessarily as your last bike.  That gives you some mental agility down the road.  If you need some exercise and perhaps a way to take off some weight, that's a lifetime goal.  Even if you find and buy that perfect bike this year, in 10 years things may change so you need something else to keep on riding.  A recumbent trike may be big, heavy, and unwieldy this year; but in 10 years your balance may decline, and that's just what you'll need then.

Final recommendation (for now): start planning ahead.  Touring bikes and frames are usually made in a small batch every year.  They'll likely hit the stores around March, and be gone by June.  So contact bike shops in your area, see if they're willing to order something in your size, and you can test ride them next spring.