Choosing bikes

I have invested a lot of time in researching bicycle touring. Some people advocate a very careful and measured approach to selecting gear and routes, while others throw caution to the wind and declare that you can tour on anything, with minimal preparation. My personal approach has been somewhere in the middle. While I would have liked to make big investments across the board, our financial limitations are such that we have had to decide where to spend big, and where to be thrifty. I have noticed that the majority of bicycle touring resources are from the point of view of people who are at a stage in life where they can devote more money to their travels than Averill and I are able to - we work in a Mexican Restaraunt on minimum wage. I hope that the reasoning behind our gear choices will help younger and/or thriftier prospective tourists make their own choices. It will be really interesting to look back on this post as our trip progresses, and see where our money should or shouldn't have been allocated, so be sure to check back here.

Bikes

The consensus among touring cyclists seems to be that fit is the most important quality to select for when choosing a bicycle. Your bike should be properly proportioned to your body, which will keep discomfort and fatigue to a minimum and make riding far more pleasant. Fit trumps all other qualities, and is worth paying a premium for. The last trip that I did was on a Trek MTB that was far too small for me, and as a result (perhaps exacerbated by the fact that I rode with a fully loaded 80 liter backpack) my back was totaled at the end of every day of riding. The emphasis placed by most experienced tourers on bicycle fit heavily influenced our decision to buy our bicycles from a local framebuilder. I was surprised by how cheap it was - our complete bikes cost around $1400AU including mudguards and racks - and I would advise people to take this route wherever possible. Our lugged steel bikes are built according to our needs and should, misadventure notwithstanding, last us many touring miles.

Steel is the material of choice for most touring bikes - it is cheap, strong, shock absorbing and (to a certain extent) repairable. That is not to say that aluminum, titanium or carbon fiber are not equally capable, it just so happens that most bikes available in these materials are not suited to touring by virtue of design. It is difficult to find a frame with the requisite mount points and geometry in the low end of the market that is not steel.

When choosing the componentry that we were looking to put on our bikes, I tried to draw on experience. Riding my bike everywhere, working as a bike courier, taking a number of multi-day bike trips - one would think that I would know a lot about the mechanical parts that keep a bike rolling. Well, I don't. Prior to purchasing my touring bike, my daily ride was a brakeless fixie. The one before that was an abandoned mtb which I converted to a singlespeed when the drivetrain started to act up. The bike I owned before that one had suffered a similar fate. My philosophy has generally been that gears are troublesome and ultimately extraneous - best ignored and replaced with a single cog once the chain starts slipping. However, in order to ride long distances and climb hills with a loaded bike, it is useful to have a range of gearing options open to you. With this in mind, I started reading about the various manufacturers and quality tiers of componentry available. I could waffle on about this, but it's boring and pretty simple:

• As price increases, so does quality and (hopefully) working life. However, this increase is not linear. Somewhere around the middle range, durability starts to plateau, and more of an emphasis is placed on weight, which is pretty insignificant to most tourers. 
• Maintenance has more of an impact on durability than price (once you leave the very low end of the market)
• Generally speaking, road componentry is less suited to touring than MTB gear. 

Another thing you will want to consider is the complexity of your hardware. The more complicated your gear is, the more difficult it is to repair on the side of the road. Non-user servicable components should be evaluated, based on complexity and longevity - i.e. the lauded Rohloff SpeedHub is probably a safe bet, despite its complexity, while Shimano Tourney indexed Shifters are probably a no-go. With this in mind, I decided to opt for barcon (or bar-end) shifters. Also, they look cool. In the end, we decided that Alivio spec components should be sufficiently durable for our needs in relation to their price. However, this might have been a big mistake, so subcribe for (hopefully positive) updates! We also have the opportunity to compare the lifetime of Deore and Alivio rear mechs as Ave has a Deore rear derraileur on her bike, so we will post a wear comparison in a few thousand kms.

Wheels and tires keep you roling, so its a good idea to get the sturdiest you can. Handbuilt wheels are stronger than machine-built wheels, so if you have the money to put down, do it. Having a pair built will cost at least ~$300AU, and the skies the limit (seriously, just take a look at how much a single Phil Woods hub will set you back) but as with components, there is a magic point at which nice wheels don't get nicer, just lighter. We are monetarily impaired, so we decided to invest in a pair of off the rack 36h AlexRim DB19s laced to joytech (read: shite) hubs. It's a good idea to have them stressed by a good mechanic, we had ours done by CheekyMonkey cycles in Newtown, Sydney's best (only?) touring and commuting specific bike shop.

For tires, the gold standard seems to be the Schwalbe Marathon series. They are heavy and hard to get on/off the rim, but they are long-lasting and purportedly puncture-proof, we got ours online from Evan's Cycles for around $35AU each, shipping included. They are so. Bloody. Heavy. Nearly two kilos a pair, but if they live up to their reputation, we should save money on patches tubes and new/spare tires. 

The main points of contact with the bike are handle bars, saddle and pedals. This is another area where experimenting, and spending a little more in the right places can be a good investment. 

If you've read anything about touring on the net, you will have heard of the Brooks B17. I was initially skeptical as to the true quality of these saddles, feeling that it was more of a knee-jerk response akin to the Ortlieb fetishism endemic to touring forums. I have had a number of saddles in my life, three of which stand out. The first was a san marco rolls which I picked up off ebay to put on my nice fixed gear. This turned out to be a pretty good saddle, but it was stolen. After going through a few more, I took to a Specialized saddle which came stock on a RockHopper which I rode for a while. I was going to take that saddle on tour until I bought Averill a B17, and decided I wanted one. Good move. They are very popular for a reason, and I don't regret this purchase. However, they are expensive, and if your budget is restricted, there are perfectly serviceable seats available for cheaper. Try to steer clear of heavily padded models, as they have a tendency to cause chafing (in my experience) and are known to compress and deform over time. 

I chose drop bars because I like drop bars. They offer a number of hand positions but I chose them for their range of lower back positions. I like being able to change between sitting up and leaning forward. Your mileage will vary. There are so many options, go with what makes sense to you.

Toe clips don't really tickle my fancy. Clipless restricts your choice of footwear and is expensive. I rep a pair of fluoro green BMX platforms. Easier to mount and dismount, cheaper. To be fair, I've never ridden with SPDs, but they don't offer any advantages that offset their price and the fact that you can't ride barefoot or in thongs. 

In summary, here's the factors that I took into account when purchasing our bikes, in order of relevance:

1. Fit - Self explanatory really
2. Price - Does the bike fit into my budget? Are there going to be additional expenses (Upgrades, tires, saddle, pedals etc)
3. Durability - Is the frame well built and are the components of good quality?
4. Functionality - Does this bike do the things I want it to? Geometry, mount points and so forth.
5. Everything else - Colour, brand, how attractive the salesperson is.

Fit trumps all, as I've mentioned elsewhere. Price and durabilty are of great importance, I just can't afford to throw a few hundred dollars away unless I am getting tangible benefits in return, and I can't afford to have to replace or repair parts regularly. I placed functionality at the bottom of the list, as I feel that most problems with functionality could be resolved by changing my setup. If braze-ons are lacking, mudguards can be clipped on, and a trailer can replace the more common pannier/rack setup. If the geometry is a little too relaxed or aggressive (but not enough to compromise the fit of the bike) components can be swapped out to improve rider posture. 

No matter how young or old, rich or poor you are, it shouldn't be prohibitively expensive to get into bike touring. Make the right choices, and you can get a bike that does everything you want to, for a reasonable price.

I hope this post has been of use to you, and if you have anything that you feel should be added to the article or needs expanding, I would be happy to oblige. 

See also:

Newbies guide to touring bikes - BikeForums.net
Ultralight Cycling - A different perspective on touring. A little hardcore, but some great ideas for cutting weight.
Which touring bike? - From Tom's Bike Trip. Take a look around his blog, it's a goldmine of info.

So he suggested a bike trip...

So when my boyfriend Jake suggested we cycle around Australia I agreed to it in the same sense that I agreed to take Spanish classes, join the gym or become passionate about politics - it was another of his obsessive phases that would eventually pass. At the time I had never owned a bike and other than riding around playgrounds when I was less than a metre high, I've never really ridden a bike either. Eventually Jake convinced me to buy my first bike - a purple Europa road racer! Riding it for me was one of the scariest things I've never done and taught me that the phrase 'It's just like riding a bike' is not necessarily literal. 

So eventually our cash started disappearing on more and more gear until now we have both bikes (Jake's is a gigantic green bike and mine a smaller purple bike), with all the gear (had to learn the word pan-ni-er) and some extra luxuries (couldn't resist purple pedals or purple bar tape) ready to go with the biggest speed bump being the last three subjects of my degree. 

I hope the biggest contribution I can add to this blog is one of a non-rider. Give you a real description of how tough or easy it is and the challenges that us normal non bicycle obsessed folk have to deal with. 

I second Jake's welcome for anyone to contact us with advice or even more so a leg or two to give us someone else to chat to!

Countdown

My girlfriend Averill and I have been working shit-kicking jobs for the past year with the aim of going on a big trip. Plans went through a few iterations; backpacking S.E. Asia, hitchhiking around Australia, hitchhiking around Australia with folding bicycles, until I decided to drop the pretense and convince her to do a fully-fledged continental bicycle tour. Surprisingly, Ave took little convincing - she's an adventurous little girl.

And now we're close to leaving. We have bicycles and camping gear, a bit of money and, in two weeks time, nowhere to live. Our lease expires on the September 14. We have organised to stay with Averill's parents until we leave. Our leave date will be determined by Averill's exam timetable, but it should fall somewhere between October 20 and November 4. 

This blog will chronicle (sounds a bit epic, no?) our trip. Until we leave, I'm going to post some info regarding our plans and so forth, so if you happen to have any experience to offer us, please feel free to comment or send an email our way. Also, if you're planning a similar trip, or your trip overlaps somehow with our's, we would love to hear from you! Maybe we could meet up and maybe ride together for a stretch.