I used to love #bicycle touring, but after years of doing routes most riding wouldn't even consider, having various kinds of "type 2 fun" times, and then COVID hit, I just can't get myself to do it. That even applies to supported tours like #BikeSTP! Being a "sitting duck" in a sea of drivers of all personalities scares the everliving shit out of me. :blobfoxscared:
During the pandemic and motivated by the psychological pressures of quarantine, I learned how to ride a #motorcycle, and went through various scooters and larger bikes to get to where I am now. I spent so much time riding street (really rural highways to or through natural landmarks) that I got bored of that, too, so I bought a dual-sport so I could, well, honestly ride gravel roads to places farther off that allow OHV and/or larger use. That dual-sport was a CRF450RL and was sprung custom for a much heavier guy than me, which made it super tall for me. :blobfoxsweating: As you can guess, I traded it in for a #Tenere 700, which I will be riding this weekend on a rural gravel highway that I've ridden before on a much heavier street bike. :blobfoxhappy:
I’ve been running 38mm Panaracer GravelKing tires tubeless on my Soma Stanyan for years, but the front tire I just put on has enough wobble to rub in one spot on every rotation. (The wheel itself is true.)
Two shops told me that the tire wasn’t seated right, but I checked and remounted multiple times and it’s seating fine. Even used some rubbing alcohol to lubricate the tire where it seated, but it always mounts up perfectly fine. The tire is the problem.
The second shop gave the real answer after chatting with the folks there for a bit: I should go down a size. It’s a real bummer, but even the Soma website says it can do up to 35mm. :blobfoxsad:
The only other realistic alternative is a new frameset, or at least a new fork, but that will have to wait for a while. :blobfoxgooglycry:
@nik After years of struggling because I was afraid to raise my saddle after tearing a quad in 2013 (?), I started raising it some, then noticed that I was able to pedal in smooth and quick circles instead of by mashing down. That circular pedaling is what good technique is. :blobfox: I also had to move my saddle forward quite a bit because my legs would drag me forward with their circular pedaling otherwise.
As far as handlebar position goes, that resolved itself once my core was strong enough. :geblobcatshrug: If you don't try to hold onto the bars for dear life and just let your hands fall where they will, that'll tell you where to move the bars to.
Isn’t it nice to know that you can take your bike into any bike shop and get it fixed? Even if you’re in Mexico, France, Italy, Montana, or even India? If they don’t have the part to fix your bike, they can easily order it and have it fixed in a day or two. Well, it wasn’t always that way. You see, in the 1970’s the International Standards Organization (ISO) spent years of painstaking work involving over 30 nations to develop standard sizes, thread pitches and specifications for common bicycle parts like bottom brackets, hubs, freewheels, head sets, etc…
Before the ISO endorsements were made, each country had its own standards. Even within a country, you could find different standards for different manufacturers. A bicycle made in France used different parts all around than a bicycle made in Italy or the United States. This made life difficult for both the bicycle dealer trying to help a customer, and also for the customer who had purchased a bicycle with standards not common in their area.
While rifling through my 1970’s Bicycling magazines, I found an article on this while the standards were still in development, and it brought to mind many situations that are occurring now in our industry today.
While we have always tried very hard to manufacture our bicycles using standard size parts and specifications to make things easy for our customers, many manufacturers are now veering far from the ISO standards in an effort to create what’s called ‘proprietary’ parts. These are parts designed specifically for that particular frame. It can be something as small as the part that holds the rear derailleur to a carbon frame, or something major like a specific bottom bracket that’s only available from that manufacturer.
I think people should be aware of proprietary parts as they can make life difficult for the customer, as well as the bike shops trying to help that customer. This is especially true for the cyclist touring foreign countries.
Replaceable derailleur hangers and the problems they can pose
Replaceable derailleur hangers Several years ago, I wrote an article called ‘Chaos, the new standard‘. That article holds so much truth even today that I thought a follow up was in order. So, here it goes. A company that’s been around for 51 years, as we have, will tell you the importance of standards. This is a short article detailing one such detour that we took in the 1980’s.
What are standards, and why should you care? If you are a person who wants to buy a bicycle that you will ride for 20 years plus, then standards mean a lot to you. For instance, I ride a Rodriguez road bike the we built here in 1999, and I’m still riding it today. I consider myself a Forever Bike person. I will still be able to buy parts for this bike in 20 years too. Any part that needs replacing we will have in stock. That’s because it’s built around ISO standards (International Standards Organization). ISO standards were settled upon by the bicycle industry in the 1970’s in an attempt to make sure that people could get their bicycle fixed in just about any country, and well into the future. It’s worked miraculously….until recently.
In all my years of #cycling, I've never found a great solution for cold weather. If I bundle up so I'm not chilled, then I soak everything with sweat in short order. If I wear less, then I freeze. I've tried Merino wool, synthetics (Gore, Event, etc.), and so on, but nothing works well enough for me.
Sadly, that means I don't do anything exciting on the #bicycle during the coldest part of the year. Just my daily local loop. :blobfoxsad:
I have very long legs and a short torso, so "normal" bicycle frames never fit me very well. I always end up with a lot of seatpost height and a short stem, even though I'm leaned forward comfortably and with plenty of power in my pedal stroke.
Kind of annoyed with White Industries at the moment. The original press-fit bearings in my Stanyan’s MI5 rear hub needed replacement a long while ago, so I had my local bike shop order them (which took forever to be shipped by Enduro) and swap them out. Unfortunately, the same amount of play persisted after the bearing swap despite said shop following White Industries’s directions to the T multiple times. My shop has called White Industries multiple times only to not be given any recourse.
I’ve been out that Stanyan for several weeks now and I don’t know if I should just get a different hub put in the wheel or something at this point. :blobfoxannoyed:
Also, I just discovered a broken spoken on my other bike's rear wheel that was just handbuilt at the shop a few months back (and also trued after a couple weeks of riding back then to be safe). :blobfoxgooglycry: