[Closed] Touring with mtb

hey bawbag

did a similar trip last september, on a mtb,
harwich to esbjerg(denmark) then to sweden back to denmark, then germany and finally netherlands, the final part in netherlands was with the help of some trains.

anyway i converted my hardtail a giant xtc into a tourer,
just added bar ends, and a rear pannier and changed the tyres, and thats it!
i didnt even change my forks, but they were light manitou R7's and kept the pressures up high, they have a kinda auto lockout as well which helped.
and also because all the weight is on the rear the forks go light anyway.

i had enough storage for all the essentials and more, so a trailer i think is overkill and a bit more harder to handle. and generally manoeuvre when off the bike aswell,
does your chameleon have pannier mounts ???

to be honest i wouldn't take either of those tyres,
neither say they offer any puncture protection, my friend suffered 7 punctures before he bit the bullet and bought some schwalbe marathons in germany.
i took these tyres and didnt suffer any punctures
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/Models.aspx?ModelID=18822
well worth buying!

its super easy touring in germany, netherlans, and denmark it's flattish so relatively easy going 🙂 , headwinds are the killer!

Wicked, cheers for the advice. I know what you're saying about the forks but I'd also like to make my bike less nickable. Did you have to worry about security when you were out there? Currently got some RockShox Revelations on there and reckon they're a bit unnecessary.

No rack mounts to speak of on the chameleon so going to give the trailer a go. Sounds like I'll be heading the opposite direction to you so hopefully I'll get the benefit of those headwinds!

I have ridden from Bergen in Norway to the Hoek of Holland and mainly battled into a head wind so you might be ok.

Holland, northern Germany and Denmark are all flat and very pleasant for touring. Lots of quiet roads and fellow cyclists and cycle tourists.

Denmark was my favourite. A nice place to stay are Nature Camp Sites. These are basic camp grounds with running water and a toilet. You are not allowed to arrive by car. They are much cheaper (15KR/night ~£1.50) and quieter than the crowded caravan parks. A book with all the addresses (there are more than 600) is available from the [url= http://www.dcf.dk/composite-849.htm ]Danish Cycling Federation[/url] who also produce excellent maps.

More about my trip [url= http://www.farm-boy.co.uk/road/ ]here[/url].

security was never a problem to be honest,
was never too far from the bike,
but it felt so much safer than the uk!
i would have liked to have seen someone trying to cycle off in a hurry with my bike fully laden 🙂

if you wanna do cheap camping, rough camp!
that's what we did with absolutely no problem,
just find a quiet field,

whichever direction you go i think you'll always be hitting headwinds,
it feels like it anyway.

denmark was probably the best place we toured, people are super friendly!
people would stop in their cars to help us if we were lost,
and very accommodating, they like to help out,

For the tyres - I'd be tempted to get some Spesh Armadillos & ghetto tubeless them & carry a couple of spare tubes, which you'll probably never need.

A trailer isn't overkill as it doesn't really carry more volume than you'd get into a pair of panniers (infact the trailer bag I use is a smidge smaller than my panniers)

If its a two wheel trailer like a Y frame then you are saving a lot of effort over using panniers, particularly if the trailer hitches at the rear axel (ones that hitch to the seat post aren't so clever). You'll pretty much forget the trailer is there as the weight doesn't influence the bike.

One wheel trailers like the BOBs offer far less benefit in that resect because you are still having to balance the load so you are keeping that cumbersome feel that you get with panniers and pouring a surprising amount of effort into balancing the load too. BOBs are only really of benefit off road.

Two wheel trailers are also easier to handle when you release them from the bike too, such as when you need to man-handle things onto trains etc if you are making connections along your route.

The only changes I made to my hardtail were good road tyres, not slick mountain bike tyres. Not skinny wee things either - I used Schwalbe Big Apples, you can get them in pretty large sizes, up to 2.3 whilst retaining good rolling characteristics and they are designed to provide suspension/comfort so on stiff mountain bike frames they give a bit of relief from the road. They're not light, but you're trucking, not sprinting. We've [u]never[/u] punctured one in three years. Other than that lock the fork out, or switch to rigid if you like. Bar ends perhaps. I use Ergon grips instead. Your chain rings are going to get minced with the distances and the load. Cheap steel ones will give more life than pimpy alloy ones, but if you are on a budget just use whats on there and worry about what to replace them with when they die.

I've found bar bags to be a bit of a pain in the arse. They interfere with your steering a fair bit and they jiggle about a fair bit too. If you are all panniered up then a bar bag is just more weirdness, but If you are using a decent trailer then you'll really notice the influence of the bar bag. But you do want to have a separate bag of some sort so that you can keep valuable to hand whenever you need to leave the bike and luggage somewhere.

I opted for an Ortleib hip pack. Waterproof enough to protect everything and comfortable enough to wear on stop-start days. Also better for use as hand luggage for days off the bike than a bar bag or pannier would be. On longer stretches I'd simply strap the hip pack around the trailer bag, so again all the important stuff was closest to hand, and you and the bike are unfettered.

The only other thing I started using is a tiny little topeak bag that sits on top of the top tube, just behind the stem. It holds a compact camera, keeping it close to hand for snaps, although its easy to forget about and leave the camera on the bike. Its not fantastically waterproof either. But without it I found myself not bothering to take pictures as digging the camera out was too much of an interuption.

I'm doing the danish stretch of the north sea cycle route on a full suss (my only bike) this september. Taking an extrawheel trailer and the other half will have panniers. We plan to stay in sleeping shelters where possible.

Here's how I approached touring the South Island of NZ about 10 years ago, would only have changed back to flats and bar ends. maybe got a softer saddle if I was doing it nowadays
[img] [/img]

you may fnd bits of interest on our old blog
http://pompinos.blogspot.com/
[img] [/img]
kit stuff is at the beginning.
Whilst some might say we toook lightweight touring quite far (not as far as map man though), I think we got it spot on.

Mapmans trip - great archived website
http://web.archive.org/web/20041211045554/http://www.koopmann.lightup.net/crane/

Equipment for Survival or Everyday Use

* Chopped-down chopsticks (one pair each).
* Plastic teaspoon (5 ml hospital), holes drilled in handle (one each).
* Compass (one only). Smallest Silva lightweight supplied by Black's. We fiicked off the retaining band and carried only the oil-filled centre. Thus we could find north and from there estimate other angles. Carried in Dick's breast pocket.
* Needle (one only), carried in the back of Nick's diary. Four feet of cotton wrapped around the sawn-off spoke-key.
* Smallest Swiss Army penknife (one only). Two tiny blades.
* Plastic digital watch (one only). Strap removed, carried on string attached to Nick's lapel, positioned in Nick's breast pocket. lt wasn't much use because it wasn't luminous and the alarm was not audible. Nor did it keep time. In practice a watch was not much use because we could tell the time roughly by the sun, we rose at dawn and went to bed at dusk. If accurate times were needed then it was because we were in a town or hotel and in these places someone else always has the time.

Done the Danish coast going north and the headwinds killed us, to the extent that we bailed inland after 4 days. The place is bizzarely safe, the only crime we suffered was a fox nicking shoes from our tent.

Thanks very much for the tips everyone. I have a single wheel trailer like this [img] [/img] so I guess stability won't be great but will try to keep the weight low and evenly spread.

I'll look into tyres and some sort of bag either for the frame or a small one for the handlebars. Will go and read all these blogs now!

Also thinking about water carrying. There are two locations for bottle cages, one either side of the down tube, would it be worth using both of these? The lower one doesn't seem very accessible.

use both with 750ml bottles.
when the easy to get to one is empty, swap them over.
Just check for dog-egg splatter before using it ...

750ml X 2 can be filled from a 1.5l bottle from a shop if you cant find a public tap.

yup most definitely use both bottle cages,
you can always swap the bottles over.

also make sure you get some decent maps,
stanfords are good for maps, and can order stuff in as well
we had a couple of maps of denmark, but then bought maps in sweden and germany.
having a map reader on your handle-bars in pretty essential,
but if you get a bar bag look for an integrated one

definitely recommend a bar bag. The altura clic-fix system works well.

Make sure the bag has a shoulder strap so that its easy to take with you (man bag style) when you leave the bike and use it for valuables/essentials.

Ours had maps, compass, camera, phone, a small towel, notebook/pencil, deck of cards, novel... 🙂

Agree with Stoner - last long tour I did with Mrs GDRS I towed the 'off road' trailer (BOB) and used the altura clic-fix as my essential stuff holder - real easy to unclip and carry (or use the supplied strap) for cafe stops and food shopping stops.

If you have risers not sure you will get the click fix on.

A side thought - Mrs GDRS had paniers (pain the rear) - the joy of the bob was being able to see all your stuff and to be able to get at it quickly. The down side was if you needed to catch a train and the platforms were up lots of stairs......Bomb scare in Toulouse as a result of BOB trailer being left for a few moments in a platform underpass is a stressfull moment in time that will live with me few a few more years yet....

click fix will go on risers OK, but not on Mary bars.

Great tips, thanks everyone! Getting quite excited about this now. I've ordered a couple of the Bikeline guides from Amazon and an Altura handlebar bag so once they get here then I should be good to go.

I've got a handlebar gps so will have all the relevant metroguide maps and waypoints installed. Also found a great download of all campsites in Europe from here - http://www.archiescampings.eu/eng1/

Also reading [url= http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=3Tzut&page_id=73127&v=7f ]this [/url] account has got me itching to go.