Using racing bike for touring - Page 3

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:05:02 GMT, Simon Brooke <simon@jasmine.org.uk> may have said:

>... And of course, with saddles, one size notoriously does not fit all.

Now, there's a candidate for understatement of the week!

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail. Yes, I have a killfile. If I
don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy. Words processed in a facility that
contains nuts.

"Arthur Harris" <n2ah@hotmail.com> wrote in message
newsd1wb.14519$Hb.5064645@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...
> "Yvonne" wrote:
> > Has anyone used a racing bike for touring (carrying 15kg/35lbs max)? If you have, what pannier
> > system did you use, and was it succesful or were there any problems? I've been looking at an
> > entry level racing bike for this purpose. It doesn't have braze-ons for panniers and have been
> > advised that a seatpost carrier would be unsuitable for this weight.
>
> It can be done, but it's not a good idea. Carrying 35 pounds on a true racing bike is pushing it.
> Touring bikes have longer seat stays for heel clearance, and will accomodate wider tires.
>
> In general, a touring bike works better for fast recreational riding than
a
> racing bike does for touring. A "sport touring" bike might be a better choice for what you want.

Yep. I gotta agree with you here. Sport touring bikes are what most of us should be riding. Here's
my web page on the topic of sport touring bikes:

http://bsanders.net/sporttouring

I just picked up another good old Japanese sport touring bicycle out of a dumpster recently. It's a
mid 80's Sekai 2400, with Araya rims, sealed bearings, nice brazed lug work and forged dropouts.
Heck, I already have 12 bikes, but this one was too good to feed to the crusher! I bought a can of
gloss black enamel Rustoleum to touch-up the scarred paint. I pulled some good old 27" tires out of
a dumpster (no visible tread wear), and added some discarded MTB handlebars, shifters and a stem
from a box of parts I got for free at a garage sale. I had a silver Esge front fender from another
discarded bike (it was too rusty to save). There's plenty of room for tires up to 700 x 38c. This
bike can take either 27" or 700c wheels just by moving the brake pads on the adjustable-reach
calipers. You gotta love that kind of versatile design. The Sekai 2400 is shaping up to be a great
commuting and touring vehicle. I have a set of Mafac Racer centerpulls (scavenged from a trashed
70's Turin brand Italian road bike) that I could mount on the Sekai to make it a maximally versatile
commuting, touring and cyclocross bike. My total cost so far: $3

You don't have to spend a lot of money to get a versatile, well-built bike.

-=Barry=-

David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> wrote in message
news:<241120031005001535%biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com>...

>
> You can actually put fenders on racing bikes now. I am not sure about the brand name, but the
> buddy of mine who owns an Atlantis bought a pair of carbon fibre fenders. Light and expensive
> as hell, but works with any racing bikes. They are very thin and I think easily breakable if
> you crash.

Huh? The Atlantis is not a racing bike. If anything it is a touring bike. It's more svelte brothers,
the Rambouillet and Romulus, come closer to being racing bikes but they are still quite a ways from
that status. They were all designed by Grant Peterson who is a big advocate of wide tires and
fenders, so it is no surprise that fenders fit. Now put a pair of full fenders on your Trek 5900 and
let me know how it goes.

- rick

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:54:49 GMT, David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> wrote:

>I think it is more of the issue with the length of the chainstays on racing bikes.

>... like the new 2004 Trek 2200 with Third Dimension Technology.

Has anyone noticed the slightly longer chainstays on the new Trek 2300, 2200 and 2100s? They're
41.7cm compared to about 41.0 on the OCLV bikes.

Not much, but it's a little. Maybe the wannabe racers won't notice!

Hooray! At last someone is listening!

Rick Onanian <spamsink@cox.net> wrote in message
news:<m1l4svgv729ri4a8iaqdi6hu01uvjkk1jh@4ax.com>...

>
> I hate to risk starting a war, but I'm interested to know: Have you observed any trends in saddles
> for such riders? As in, what the happy ones already have, and what the unhappy ones buy? What
> commonly feels good on the long-distance butt?

Ya know, it's not about the mileage ;-)

There are a lot more issues with saddles than most folks will admit, and the more you are on one the
more you are likely to find some aspect that is not optimal.

One of the most common mistakes is getting a saddle with too much padding. Soft is better, right?
Allen Larsen who placed 3rd in 2002 and 1st in 2003 in the RAAM solo division can attest to this. In
2002 he used a padded saddle. He was numb in the nether regions for 8 months after the race. In 2004
he switched to Brooks saddles, no padding, and while he had some numbness it was quite brief (I
guess 8+ days in the saddle full time is an extreme case).

Another problem is getting a saddle that is too narrow. This is a common mistake for a lot of folks
moving from a road bike to a touring bike. As you move to a more upright posture the hips rotate and
the 'sit bones' tend to be a bit further apart. So a nice racing saddle that feels good with 3" of
handlebar drop starts to feel like an **** hatchet on the touring bike with bars near level with the
saddle. I can attest to this one; love the Terry Fly on the racing bike, but on my sport tourer and
commute bikes I feel like I am being violated if I use that saddle. I did ~400 miles in one week
last month on the sport tourer using a brand new, not broken in Brooks B-17. Zero saddle issues. It
was not broken in as I did a last minute switch from a Terry Fly (since sold on E-Bay) that was
giving me issues even on relatively short rides. Higher and wider :-)

Of course, Jobst will complain about the Brooks, but his old favorite Avocet model is not longer
available, and the O2 only comes close to wide enough if you get the womens model ;-)

- rick

In article <bc2b2f85.0311241651.7d055906@posting.google.com>, Rick Warner
<rickwarner@earthlink.net> wrote:

> David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> wrote in message
> news:<241120031005001535%biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com>...
>
> >
> > You can actually put fenders on racing bikes now. I am not sure about the brand name, but the
> > buddy of mine who owns an Atlantis bought a pair of carbon fibre fenders. Light and expensive as
> > hell, but works with any racing bikes. They are very thin and I think easily breakable if you
> > crash.
>
>
> Huh? The Atlantis is not a racing bike. If anything it is a touring bike.

Is it?? I am not a Rivendell expert, so I said what was told to me by the owner. The brakes on his
bike are the side pulls ones and not your typical cantilevers or V-brakes type, so I thought it was
a racing bike. I don't usually pay a lot of attention to special bikes in general as nice bikes like
those are nice to look at, but I can't afford them..

> It's more svelte brothers, the Rambouillet and Romulus, come closer to being racing bikes but they
> are still quite a ways from that status. They were all designed by Grant Peterson who is a big
> advocate of wide tires and fenders, so it is no surprise that fenders fit. Now put a pair of full
> fenders on your Trek 5900 and let me know how it goes.
>
> - rick

I wish I have a Trek 5900, but unfortunately it belongs to a friend of mine who is in our bike club.
I will let you know if he figures out a way to put them on..

In article <0cb5svg9b9hnpnincmvec6agip9o2bbv7i@4ax.com>, dianne_1234 <dianne_1234@yahoo.com> wrote:

> On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 17:54:49 GMT, David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> wrote:
>
> >I think it is more of the issue with the length of the chainstays on racing bikes.
>
> >... like the new 2004 Trek 2200 with Third Dimension Technology.
>
> Has anyone noticed the slightly longer chainstays on the new Trek 2300, 2200 and 2100s? They're
> 41.7cm compared to about 41.0 on the OCLV bikes.
>
> Not much, but it's a little. Maybe the wannabe racers won't notice!
>
> Hooray! At last someone is listening!

The new 22xx Treks sure are nice. Anyhow, I never noticed the slightly extended chainstays. I don't
pay a lot of attention on these bikes other than to drool over them on the website, but my suspicion
is probably to accommodate the bonded rear carbon seatstays in the overall design?? I am not sure if
that's logical, but I think the Trek experts we have here would be more technically inclined to
enlighten us with the details?

On Mon, 24 Nov 2003 20:05:02 GMT, Simon Brooke <simon@jasmine.org.uk> wrote:
>Rick Onanian <spamsink@cox.net> writes:
>> what the happy ones already have, and what the unhappy ones buy? What commonly feels good on the
>> long-distance butt?
>
>There's a potential for a fallacy here. What the happy ones already have are certainly good long
>distance saddles, but what the unhappy ones buy may only appear to be good long distance
>saddles, and they may (for all we know) arrive at another LBS another week down the trail still
>more unhappy.

Indeed, I had that very same concern, which is how I thought to ask what the happy ones
already have.

>And of course, with saddles, one size notoriously does not fit all.

Indeed. If, however, there was something that _commonly_ feels good to the long-distance butt, then
it might be a good starting point for many people to begin their decision process.
--
Rick Onanian

Rick Warner <rickwarner@earthlink.net> wrote:
: Another problem is getting a saddle that is too narrow. This is a common mistake for a lot of
: folks moving from a road bike to a touring bike. As you move to a more upright posture the hips
: rotate and the 'sit bones' tend to be a bit further apart. So a nice racing saddle that feels good
: with 3" of handlebar drop starts to feel like an **** hatchet on the touring bike with bars near
: level with the saddle.

this is decidedly not the case for me. i've always used a plain vanilla selle italia ti flite (no
padding, not gel .. the original) which is a fairly narrow saddle. i used it on a 5400 67 day
tour with absolutely no numbness at all. i have experimented with other saddles and always come
back to this one & i really do believe there is something to consistency (i broke my, ahem, ****
into this saddle).

if it works on long rides i wouldn't change it for touring.

& yea, this is very much a what works for you topic. i don't really believe there are many rules of
thumb. a wide saddle hurts me like hell, for instance. i won't go near padded .. that one is
probably true for nearly everyone.
--
david reuteler reuteler@visi.com

David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> writes:

> In article <bc2b2f85.0311241651.7d055906@posting.google.com>, Rick Warner
> <rickwarner@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > David <biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com> wrote in message
> > news:<241120031005001535%biker780@dsafds.dsafdsa.yahoo.dsafds.com>...
> >
> > >
> > > You can actually put fenders on racing bikes now. I am not sure about the brand name, but the
> > > buddy of mine who owns an Atlantis bought a pair of carbon fibre fenders. Light and expensive
> > > as hell, but works with any racing bikes. They are very thin and I think easily breakable if
> > > you crash.
> >
> >
> > Huh? The Atlantis is not a racing bike. If anything it is a touring bike.
>
> Is it?? I am not a Rivendell expert, so I said what was told to me by the owner. The brakes on his
> bike are the side pulls ones and not your typical cantilevers or V-brakes type, so I thought it
> was a racing bike.

If it's got sidepulls, it's not an Atlantis. It's either a Rambouillet, a Romulus or a Redwood (or a
Rivendell custom). All of them look more or less like racing bikes, but they have clearance for
wider tires and fenders unlike most modern "race" bikes.

http://www.rivendellbicycles.com

...if pics of me from the 70's weren't worse!

"Robert Canon" <rcanon@mail.utexas.edu> wrote in message news:<bq0hop$so$1@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>...
> ...if pics of me from the 70's weren't worse!

. . . if I still had hair from the 70's, had ridden where he's ridden, had written the book that
he's written, knew enough to write the FAQ's that he writes, could corner downhill like he
corners, spoke the languages that he speaks, understood a tenth of what he understands about
trains, and could suffer fools like me as well as he does.

So instead I comfort myself that I can hold my own in the funny-looking Teutonic-name department.

Carl Fogel

Carl Fogel <carlfogel@comcast.net> wrote:
: . . . if I still
...
: could suffer fools like me as well as he does.

ummm, carl, that's one thing he most decidedly doesn't do well.
--
david reuteler reuteler@visi.com

On 26 Nov 2003 05:37:02 GMT, David Reuteler <reuteler@visi.com> may have said:

>Carl Fogel <carlfogel@comcast.net> wrote:
>: . . . if I still
>...
>: could suffer fools like me as well as he does.
>
>ummm, carl, that's one thing he most decidedly doesn't do well.

Are we having a competition for understatements this week? (Not that I blame him, in many cases;
some fools carry their status on a campaign banner.)

--
My email address is antispammed; pull WEEDS if replying via e-mail. Yes, I have a killfile. If I
don't respond to something, it's also possible that I'm busy. Words processed in a facility that
contains nuts.

Werehatrack <rault00@earthWEEDSlink.net> writes:

> On 26 Nov 2003 05:37:02 GMT, David Reuteler <reuteler@visi.com> may have said:
>
> >Carl Fogel <carlfogel@comcast.net> wrote:
> >: . . . if I still
> >...
> >: could suffer fools like me as well as he does.
> >
> >ummm, carl, that's one thing he most decidedly doesn't do well.
>
> Are we having a competition for understatements this week? (Not that I blame him, in many cases;
> some fools carry their status on a campaign banner.)

Heh. Sometimes Jobst seems to suffer the fools OK, it's the grievous eejits he doesn't seem to
tolerate (those waving the flag of ignorance proudly). He also doesn't tolerate those who seem not
to learn and carry on with silly statements.