Keep cool. Do skids. Locking the wheel means the brakes don’t generate any heat. Bingo.

Plenty of room for 40c Smart Sams in my Roadrat. 47c is too tight for mud but does fit with the axle at the back of the dropout. That’s on 17mm internal rims.

I put this together a few weeks ago. During my first ride the frame cracked (again).

I have the one set of wheel and swap tyres. It takes 15 minutes to go from knobblies to road tyres. Obviously it would be more work if they were tubeless, but it works fine for me.

I’ve toyed with the idea of 2 bikes (touring bike and xc 29er) and one set of wheels with a Rohloff. It makes sense in my head, but it’s not without issues.

How about 7 speeds, where every sprocket is a 17t. That way you could spread the wear evenly and your cassette would last 7 times as long. You could still call it a single speed because it would only have one gear ratio.

If you have all the old bits kicking around I guess it has some merit, but with new bits it’s still a £50 drivetrain and you can put together a decent 1×10 drivetrain with a 10-42 cassette for under £90.

I was thinking ‘sportback’ meant it was some funky shaped thing, but it seems that’s just Audi speak for family hatchback. You’d easily get 2 bikes and luggage in it with the seats down. Much less hassle than any rack!

I noticed that. They did it on Friday morning. I ordered a few bits from them on Thursday afternoon and on Friday morning I got an email saying they had to cancel my order due to a ‘system error’ and they refunded me.

I run a very similar lowest ratio with 28/40 mtb double and 11-34 rear. A lower gear or 2 would be nice but I haven’t had to get off and push yet.

I’d definitely change to a 24t granny if I was going on a long tour though.

Current model Cotic Roadrat owner here. I love it, lots of character, I like the flexyness! I’ve never towed a trailer but I’m sure it would be fine and it’s perfect for everything else you mention.

Pinnacle Lithium is worth a look too.

Kaffenback is cheap but lacks tyre clearance and isn’t as nicely finished as the Cotic.

Even with the bike on the back the cord is still long enough to reach when parked normally. The driver is a nincompoop.

Montane Minimus is a pretty good bet. Very light and packable. Jacket and smock versions available.

I have a Zephyros 2XL Lite and a Hoolie 4. On trips with a friend with a TN Voyager (The father of the Wild Country Trisar) the Voyager is solid as a rock in winds that knock the Zephyros about, but the Zephyros still holds up and I’ve never had a bad nights sleep in it. The Porch on the Voyager/Trisar is more useful but it’s slower to pitch and inner first. It’s hard to get in and out of the Zephyros without getting the inside wet. But being able to unclip the inner for more space is useful if you are cooking inside.
The Hoolie 4 is obviously too big for bike packing but the design is the same as the smaller ones. In windy conditions you need to get it pitched and guyed perfectly for it to feel secure but once you’ve got the hang of it it’s a tough tent. The shallow angle of the front door makes it a bit awkward reaching for the zip without kneeling in the inevitably muddy doorway. That’s a minor issue though. I’d go for the ETC version next time because you get a lot more space for a small weight penalty.
On both Wild Country tents it’s impossible to get the inner taught, which annoyed me at first but you get used to it. I think the smaller Zephyros tents are better for this.
After a few years of use the Hoolie guylines are getting tatty and one of the pole sleeves has torn. I wouldn’t rate the durability very highly but I think that is reflected in the price. If you want something that will last forever go for something with a silnylon fly like the Terra Nova versions or a Hilleburg.

Alpkit/Love Mud Bombers. Only £25!

https://www.alpkit.com/products/love-mud-bomber

Arkel Randonneur with a tailrider rack.

So many questions!
Are there really 24 gears in that downtube gearbox/hub arrangement? If so, how?
How is it attached to the downtube?
Who machines a custom bracket for 2 brake callipers and then attaches the callipers with thumbscrews and replaces 1 rigid brake arm with 2 compressible gas struts?
It’s such a weird mix of what appears to be intelligent engineering and stupid design.

I found a set of these to be pretty good, if a little odd looking. The flat section has a nice back-sweep and the ends are adjustable/swappable. The foam grips are a bit too soft, but you can easily slip some decent grips on the flat bit and keep the foam on the rest.
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Play around with different grips too. Ergo grips help a lot.

I had a 2012 blue pig. I liked it, build quality was fine but it was a bit too ‘hardcore’ for most of my riding so I sold it. The guy I sold it to raves about it.

My guess is the little shifter bar doo da that the indicator chain threads into inside the hub is bent.

The 40c+ tyres you can run on an adventure bike will make more difference than the frame material.

But the correct answer is steel.

Whichever route you go down,I think a proper custom made frame bag is one of the best investments you can make. My frame bag takes care of water, tools, waterproofs, lock, snacks, phone, keys and wallet with a bit of room to spare.
Then I generally have one bag for clothes/shelter and one for food/cooking. If I’m bivvying I can get all my kit in the frame bag and on the fork legs in Blackburn cargo cages. For longer tours it’s panniers on a front rack.

I’ve searched high and low for one for a couple of years with no luck.

Now I know what ‘Road plus’ is (650bx47c), yes it will fit a Roadrat and Escapade.
WTB’s compatible bikes list.

I’m not sure why you’d bother changing wheel size when you can already fit a 700x47c slick, though. I know I said 47c Smart Sams didn’t fit- they did ‘fit’ but there was no mud clearance at all. Running the axle further back in the dropouts would help.

I didn’t realise ‘road plus’ was a thing!

Who is walking around carrying cable cutters though?

The thin cable locks are fine. You can’t break them with your hands and they will easily withstand normal pliers, such as those found on a Leatherman. That accounts for opportunists, which is all you really need.

If somebody is out to steal bikes ‘professionally’ they will probably be carrying something more substantial than a pair of pliers, but then again they aren’t going to start hacking away at bikes outside a busy cafe expecting not to be noticed. They’ll be hiding in dark alleyways.

I like my BRgreen one. It’s sort of greeny. The orange writing looks good. But I peeled the Cotic sticker off the downtube and then covered it in camo/penguin Duck tape.

Plus wheels wouldn’t fit a Road rat. …. would they?

No chance. Cotic say 29×1.75 (47c) fits but Scwalbe Smart Sams didn’t fit in mine so I’ve had to go 42c on the back.
I suppose you might fit a 27.5×2.0 but nothing bigger.

Bear in mind that the bottom of a pannier on low riders is still a couple of inches higher than the bottom of your pedal stroke, so you’ll suffer pedal strike before it is an issue.

I see the Pelago on the Vaya. It looks like it will work then! The horizontal rail looked too narrow for the pannier hooks to me.

In order to have the necessary connections, etc, for a removable battery, the memory card, the removable parts of the case, etc, something has to give, either the phone has to be bigger or the battery has to be smaller, plus the phone is much more vulnerable to damage if dropped.

I’m not sure what you base that on, when several other manufacturers have offered a waterproof phone with removable memory, some of them for several years now, none of which are any less tough than an iPhone. They all have headphone jacks too.
My 2 year old Z1 comapact has a micro sd card, USB port, headphone jack and a 2,300mah battery (significantly bigger than an iPhone 6s). I have used it to take photos underwater in a swimming pool. It has survived 2 years in my farm/forestry worker/fabricator pockets with no case on. I’d say that answers all the points you mention.

Also how many times have people complained about loss of data from a card that’s gone on the fritz, something that almost never happens with in-built storage, combined with cloud storage of photos, etc.

Never. I don’t believe it’s a common problem at all. How many times have people had to factory reset their deivces and lost everything on the built in storage? I imagine that is much more common. The cloud is only any good when you have good network coverage. No good for me and many others who live in rural areas.

I predict that in 2 years time Apple will ‘invent’ the worlds first waterproof phone (minus headphone jack, usb/charging port and with a new sim card standard obviously) and Apple fans will all wet themselves with excitement. They will form long queues and part with a mere £1000 to be the first to behold this great leap in mobile phone technology.

Meanwhile, the other phone manufacturers will continue to innovate.

@Jerrys What are your concerns about having the panniers low? The only time I’ve had an issue with lowriders being too low was when we took a wrong turn down a rutted green lane and the panniers were grounding out. With the Blackburn Cargo I was able to lift them up a few inches to the next rail and carry on pushing!

The Pelago racks don’t look particularly suitable for front panniers. You could always buy one of the cheap lowrider racks to give it a try?
ETC £16.99 lowrider rack

How about a frame bag (with a bladder in it) and then a simple map holder on the bars if you need it?

One other thing about front-pannier-only setups: If you have a non touring-specific frame but want to go touring, it’s much easier to replace the front fork with something more suitable and fit a decent lowrider rack than it is to cobble a rack onto the back, putting stresses on the frame it isn’t designed for and deal with the inevitable heal clearance problems.

The top rack on the outpost can be unbolted so you could easily fashion up a longer version or light mount etc.

is that an outpost front rack busta ?

Yes it is. I’m very pleased with it. Fitted using p-clips rather than a mid-fork eyelet but still very sturdy. Rear panniers clip straight on and you can have them low or high (handy lifting them up for rutted tracks etc). It’s very adaptable too- would easily fit over 29+ tyres.

Regards front panniers only: I prefer the handling with more weight on the front wheel. It weights the steering nicely and is more stable for corners and climbs (compared to just having rear panniers). It’s also easier when pushing the bike (no rear pannier to hit against).

And I think it looks cool.

Charge cooker 1 (or cooker 0, or 2,3,4,5….)

My old Specialized Tricross:

My current Cotic Roadrat:

Apples persistence to not offer any kind of memory expansion is marketing genius but I can’t believe people still go along with it!
The basic phone might be competitively priced, but paying an extra £80 for enough storage to make it useful stings a bit, especially when most android phones now support 128+gb memory cards.

Very tidy! There’s nothing wrong with touring on a hybrid.

This is my hybrid flat bar gravel adventure ATB. Apart from the wheel diameter and brakes, it’s probably quite comparable with a 20 year old mtb.

I also have a beard and a few singlespeeds.

The first step to running a successful returns based scam would surely be to avoid ‘no returns’ listings?