Trip planned in the himalayas, on road although most of it will be wash board dirt. Lots of climbing no need for downhill heroics. Will need to carry light luggage via rack if fittings or back pack and frame centre sack. What bike and tyres would you reccomend?
What's the budget?
Tout-Terrain make some real tourerpron!
surly lht, schwalbe marathon plus tyres. tough as heck.
+1 for LHT. Thorn Raven is also worth a look.
Steel, v brakes, schwalbes, ortlieb
Nuff said
Titanium, or steel for comfort. Something you can ride in comfort for long hours at low speed. Most of the 5000m+ passes I did, took upto ten hours to ride up at 3mph in the smallest gear on my mtb because of the altitude.
Tyres, something with a good volume which rolls OK at lower pressures to give some comfort over the ripples. They are a real killer and sap any momentum, especially with a pounding headache from altitude sickness. Note its not all gravelly tracks - a lot of the time these are covered in upto 6 inches of dust which is worse than riding in sand. When a truck passes you can get lost in the dust cloud for minutes (always keep a buff round your neck to pull over mouth & nose for this). I fell off the edge of the road once in a truck dust storm.
I did it on a titanium inbred.
A friend of mine, Peter Quaife, (used to be a regular on here as PQ) does a lot of touring. He did a solo ride in Tibet and wrote about it on the Crazy Guy on a Bike website.
[url= http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=1&page_id=65310&v=3t ]Here[/url] is where he describes his bike. The rest of the article is worth a read too, as are his other rides.
Roberts Roughstuff. Big Schwalbe tyres, Tubus racks.
I fancy a tour like that someday, but would like to try the Great Divide route first.
http://www.adventurecycling.org/routes/greatdivide.cfm
EDIT BigJohn, I was just reading that blog last night. It looks a great trip!
Thanks everyone for your thoughts will check out the surly as i have the single speed as its tough as old nails
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I think he'll want a triple, so the croix de fer is out. I've got a surly disctrucker on order, not planning a himalayan tour anytime soon but I think it would be up to the job.
If you do any touring outside of Europe and N America then 700cc wheels are out of the question as you won't get spare parts so that Genesis is out.
A friend of mine is touring arond Thailand/Laos/Vietnam at the moment with intention of riding up to the Himalayas later in the year. Him and his gf bought top of the line Tout Terrain tourers for the trip and if their experience is to go by the company are run by a bunch of muppets. The latest saga of the an extremely long list is that they are currently stuck as the pannier holder on the forks of his bíke has snapped (a design fault that TT have changed for this year) with the company refusing to pay for the post of sending it to Thailand. No they want my friend to send it to the LBS in Germany first then on to them for them to check it before sending the new forks back to the LBS and on to Thailand (basically no bike for about 6 weeks). A direct post would cost about 40 euros and all this 'service' for a bike that cost well over 4 grand and is advertised as a bike to ride around the world!
Great bike that CDF...but disc brakes for long hauls?
Steel frame 26inch wheels steel pannier racks so its repairable anywhere cable brakes ,thumb shifters that work on friction in case things get bent.Keep it simple really if you are going remote