Messages

61

Gear Talk / Vargo titanium alcohol stove

« on: December 22, 2013, 09:05:20 pm »

Sorry if this is not news to anyone else, just stumbled upon it while reading VeloOrange's blog. Apparently the stove has been around since 2005, news to me. Looking for reviews took me to Zen Alcohol Stoves, great spot for ultralighters looking for DYI spirit stoves


http://www.velo-orange.blogspot.com/2013/12/riding-for-coffee-coffee-for-riding.html

http://www.vargooutdoors.com/titanium-triad-alcohol-backpacking-stove.html#.UreZgH-9KSM

Zenstoves.net

62

General Discussion / Re: Are you a 'serious' cyclist?

« on: December 20, 2013, 12:04:48 pm »

Funny, thanks for the link.

I've let that kind of stuff go as I've gotten older and wiser and more interested in other things besides miles and gears. These days I tend to appreciate BikeSnobNYC's outlook on cycling, cyclists and the cycling industry.

Warning: Adult language, adult points of view, real world content about cycling in a big city, commuting and racing. He's crass and obscene and outrageous and apologizes to no one for his rants; not for the timid!

http://bikesnobnyc.blogspot.com

63

Rocky Mountain / Re: 2013 Fall Idaho Trip - Weiser River Trail, Magruder, Custer Motorway and More

« on: December 20, 2013, 11:55:28 am »

Tim, many thanks for your contribution to the discourse here on Adventure Cycling. You said "back home to Boise" so I assume Idaho is not new territory for you.

Traveling the backroads of a sparsely populated, fiercely independent and weirdly diverse geographical region is fraught with risk from the first pedal stroke: weather, animals, ignorant motorists, mechanicals, and you may not see another human on some of those primitive roads for several days. But you and your bike may also be intruding. Folks have been exploiting and extracting Idaho for a l-o-n-g time. Hunting, logging and mining are well-established industries and they enjoy protection and favor. The shepherds have been moving their flocks through the Stanley Basin for 100 years. No one blades the old mining and logging roads. Springs vanish in the summer. Severe thunderstorms kick up out of nowhere and, while they rarely last more than a few hours in the mountains, they can really mess stuff up, testing you and your gear. Roads wash out. Trees fall down and landslides can change the courses of streams.

Self-contained mountain bike touring is easily researched and there are a few books available. A few backpacking weekends in the mountains you plan to ride over will prepare you for your bike journey and give you practical experience with your camping equipment. Idaho has many thousands of miles of single track and jeep trails you can ride.

Thanks again, Tim, nice work.

64

Gear Talk / Re: Can we survive the Transamerica with no cyclocomputer?

« on: December 03, 2013, 09:32:09 pm »

[quote author=LongTallEandM link=topic=1214
My daughter and I plan to ride the Transamerica Route in 2014 using Adventure Cycling maps. I'm very map oriented (experienced with reading maps, etc.).   My daughter is good at reading maps and navigating too. Each of us will have an iphone, but we'll probably keep them in airplane mode to save battery unless/until we have a reason to use them (e.g. google maps if we have a question about where we are, etc.)
Thanks in advance for your input.
[/quote]

A young girl with an iPhone? Your main concern will be powering her phone. If you have the phones, invest in (more than one) external power supply and use and enjoy their advanced features. Get an interface for the bike if you like.
But even Google maps can be inaccurate.
Remember that the first cross-continental trips were made without phones, without maps, without GPS, without company, without sponsors. You can survive. Heck, leave the phones at home and see what living in the 20th Century is like.

65

Gear Talk / Re: best touring frames

« on: November 22, 2013, 07:17:09 am »

By what criteria? Comfort? Durability? Resale value? How about comfort? 
Easy Racers' Tour Easy.

66

General Discussion / Re: First Major Tour Advice

« on: November 14, 2013, 10:01:15 pm »

Wild camping can often mean your water supply is a stream or a tank. You might want to carry an active, pump-style water filter, some purification tablets and maybe a gravity filter system. You drink the local water at your peril, not necessarily because of micro-organisms, although there's a huge risk to making life miserable for two or three weeks or your tour very short, but to help remove trace elements your digestive system has never encountered. The tablets will only work on organisms. Boiling water does not remove trace contaminants.

You can research the cleanliness and sanitation level of municipal water supplies on the interwebs, just takes a bit of looking.

67

Gear Talk / Re: Trek 520 poor brakes

« on: November 12, 2013, 09:43:01 pm »

If replacing the brake mechanism did not improve the situation, the fault cannot be in the brakes. That leaves the cable, the jacket, the ferules, the levers and any other pieces/parts that are between the hands and the rim. You have eliminated one element. Now you start with a set of binary tests, changing out only one item at a time. 

On my recumbent, the front brake is almost worthless. But I have a very nice unit from Paul. The rear is where all the action is and it's just a regular ol' Avid linear brake. The cable is quite long, tandem-length, so I'm careful about the jacketing and ferule placements. And I use pink or salmon pads. Most of the time. And I keep the rims very clean.

68

General Discussion / Re: National Bicycle Tourism Conference

« on: November 03, 2013, 09:01:40 am »

Thanks for the links! Looks like it will be fun and educational if you're in the industry but probably a total snoozer if you're just a bike touring client, like me.

Hope you have a good time and learn tons of new stuff that will help you create excellent touring experiences for your future clients. Looking at your blog, though, maybe you're more of a rider, perhaps aspiring to lead others. I only do supported tours these days.

I see on the agenda that the driving force behind Ride Idaho, Earl Grief, is handling the Rest Stop discussion. If you attend that session, please give him my regards.

69

Gear Talk / Re: Bike purchasing advice needed

« on: October 29, 2013, 09:50:57 am »

Hi all!  I am new to bike touring and will take my first tour this spring.  I need suggestions on where to look for a touring bike with upright handlebars.  I get plenty of suggestions for bikes with drop down bars, but a back problem requires me to sit as upright as possible when riding.  I am female and 5'7' tall.  I would like to stay under $1500.
Any help would be appreciated.

One word, couple o'three syllables:recumbent. A used bike can be acquired and outfitted for that budget. Touring on a recumbent is fabulous but that experience is easily researched and I won't try to convince you. Unfortunately, there are dozens of wildly different bent bikes , including touring trikes, and making a decision is difficult if you don't have a chance to test many of them.

Hope you find a bike you like, can train into the event, and that your journey takes you to interesting places..

70

General Discussion / Re: 1896 Cycling Road Map of California

« on: October 27, 2013, 12:06:10 am »

Many thanks for the link, never would have found it myself.

71

Gear Talk / Re: Old battery systems, convert to USB?

« on: October 26, 2013, 10:38:49 pm »

Cool. Thank you for the link!
I'd still need the pin-outs for the NR cables, of course, and a way to obtain and solder on a NiteRider proprietary plug. But that's simpler than building the whole thing, for sure.

72

Gear Talk / Re: Old battery systems, convert to USB?

« on: October 26, 2013, 10:34:30 pm »

i bought a battery the size of a deck of cards.  It will charge an iPhone 3X or almost charge an iPad.  $70 on Amazon.  Just dispose of your NightRider batteries in an environmentally responsible way.

See my other thread on the $70 NewTrent 120 battery with dual USB OUTS. Recharged my iPhone 4S from 20-39% to 100% more than seven times.

73

Gear Talk / Re: Old battery systems, convert to USB?

« on: October 23, 2013, 08:27:55 am »

A simple interweb search revealed literally hundreds of DIY projects that end with an iPhone-specific USB charger. Many are, as I expected, based on the hobbyist's ubiquitous Altoids mint box form factor. There are simple one-trick circuits, solar and generator augmentation and complex switchable or automated systems that offer multiple ins and outs by way of off-the-shelf Arduino blocks.
So, you put as much effort into this as you want to or need to.
I don't know if I'll get around to it. These days I'm more comfortable with the gross movements wrenching my bike than assembling electronics with tiny tools and a soldering iron.

74

Gear Talk / Old battery systems, convert to USB?

« on: October 22, 2013, 10:34:11 pm »

I recently acquired some new NiteRider LED lighting systems. They're very cool and insanely bright and they have self-contained batts that charge from USB. But these new systems (obtained serendipitously at deep discount) replace perfectly serviceable NiteRider 6V halogen and 12V HID systems. The older batts use NiteRider's 4-wire 6-12V cables. There must be a way to buy or build a box that will accept the old NR batts at the input end and provide a USB output.
Any clues where I'd start looking besides NiteRider? It's a product they don't make so I'll probably be soldering up an Altoids box-based unit after obtaining pin-outs from NR.

75

Gear Talk / Re: Briefly: NewTrent 120R extreme battery pack

« on: October 20, 2013, 10:03:44 pm »

sorry, I've got no clue how the device being charged knows the amperage of the USB circuit. But I know that there are two USB ports on the NewTrent battery, 1A and 2A, and, if you hook, say a power hog like the iPad4 Retina to the 1A side, it will not even see or acknowledge the power source; the charging indicator does not light up. If you hook, say, a little iPhone up to the 2A port, the phone will charge twice as fast.

If there are apps that will let a user examine the charging cycle and battery circuitry on Apple devices, I have not explored them. Interesting question, sorry I cannot be of more help.