Tour De Treader

And on to 2012. Tour de Treader is going International. Setting off at the end of July, cycling to Plymouth, ferreting to Santander, Espain and then treaderising back through France. Would guesstimate at about 1200miles ish but will know for sure when the route is sorted. As usual it will be a mixture of tiddly back roads, canal paths, old railway lions, tracks and whatever else looks loike fun. Will be camping (rough where possible) for the whole trip. Not sure what is going to motivate me to actually make it now no Spongey to "encourage" me along the way. That was sufficient fuel to make me drag the treader around last year if I had to.

Stu asked about boike changes.

Since the first tour the only real change has been new wheels as the old rims had worn thin enough to flex and allow the tyres to slip on the rims.

A non bike change has been the Goal Zero Solar charger. http://www.goalzero....Mobile-Kit/1:1/ Marvelous bit of kit. I strap it onto the rack and run a cable to the bars where I charge whatever, camera battery, phone battery, bike light battery and once thats all done I charge 2 smaller solar chargers that hold power to use in the eves.

A few peeps I met last year commented on how the boike was wayyy too small for me, unsuitable and not a good choice for touring. Since looking more at bike touring sites, the frame is def too small (but there are ways around this) but the early 90's mountain bikes are used by alot of full time tourers as the frames are very strong, good quality components and still had the brazed luggage mounts. One of the difficulties as I'm finding out at the mo is trying to obtain parts!!!

So the planned changes for this time:

Not Yet Fitted:

New Thor handlebars: http://www.sjscycles...rsize/12228.jpg with 65mm rise and 18degree back sweep: Thorn make alot of very high quality touring bikes and ...stuff. Would love to git a Thorn Raven with the weird Rohloff Geared Hubs.....no derailleur or oubt and therefore no overlap of gears! But then part of the challenge is doing it on an old treader. Ahhemm anyways my old bars are way too low compared to seat height for touring. Which means leaning forward and down ALOT, on the last tour I spent alot of time leaning up and back alot to rest my back and arms. There is about a 6" difference at the mo and a good touring position is going to be about level. The handlebar stem cannae be raised very much as its an old quill/stem arrangement and the stem also houses a guide for the front brakes, so changing the stem would involve newer style brakes/levers and all that stuff. These new bars should get me a tad nearer to a sensible position.

New tyres: I have Specialized "The Captain" tyres on at the mo which are great for on/off road but are not meant for big distances, after the last Tour De Treader they are looking very worn. These peeps: http://www.schwalbe.co.uk/tour/ seem to be the choice of many tourers so I plan on trying a set, just not sure which type yet. Probably Marathon Mondial or Plus Tour. Need to be able to cope with alot of offroad too. Some of them have a neat feature of reflective sidewall strips, though not planning on much after dark touring!

New Headset: I replaced the headset (thats head bearings to us boikers) a few years ago but not happy with how they feel. Also wanted something that would be easy to change out and about without ball bearings flying everywhere. Again not easy to find these parts for old style quill/stem bike but managed to find an old Shimano cartridge style bearing, there are no ball races just press fit holders for the bearing cartridges, when they wear out ya lob out the old cartridge and lob in a new wan. No worn races, whacking and pressing required.

New Pedals: Shimano PD-M324 SPD MTB/Touring Pedals. These are reversible so you can use cleats with em but if you break a cleat or summat, just flip the pedal over and its a normal stylee on t'other side. Piccy ear: http://cgi.ebay.co.u...em=270854904308 Old pedals need new bearings after 20 years but will be going bacon after Tour de Treader for commuting duties.

New Rack: Was using a rack borrowed from R'kid, it was a bit flimsy and not mine, so oi bought a Blackburn EX-2. Loike dis: http://www.planet-x-...ar_pannier_rack have heard good reports form the touring sites but can't say the single sided welding looks very impressive. Comes with lifetime guarantee so we will see how it goes, especially with a high proportion of offroad.

New Pan-Ears: Was using panniers borrowed from R'kid, they were a bit flimsy and not mine and the bloody things bounced off the rack every 5 mins which when you are cycling decent distances every day can get a little tedious (especially when combined with taking the tyres off/on the rim every 10miles to relocate slipped innner tubes). So the new ones are from UK manufacturer Carradice: http://www.carradice...urarearpanniers. E21's are fine on the TDM so these are C20's will be fine. Each Tour I leave behind more and more uselss crapola that is not really needed. These cost me £50, you can get very cheap wans off ebay and very very expensive ones for hundreds of pounds, which definitely would not suit me or the boike. Tramp is a good look when cycle touring.

The crankshaft..err I mean crankset is 20 years old and has zero play in it still!!! Think I regreased it in about 2001 but has otherwise been untouched. One of the pedal arms is worn and the pedal works itself loose every few hundred miles and creaks. Not easy to replace the pedal arms (they probably have a proper name) as newer ones have a different number of spokey cog holding thingies to mine so all the cogs and the whole shebang would need to be replace. Its going to be some shim steel and see how it goes job, though the local boike shop find my bike amusing and happily dig through their archives to find me spares and chuckle at my persistence to keep it running. They donated me a new pedal arm so may fit it or carry it as a spare just for a laugh!

The rear derailleur is mechanically fine (again 20 years old) but the bush around the mounting bolt is worn and it flaps a touch. Noticed this on the last tour. Need to read up about these as I guess different number of gears means different types. Would like to just replace the bushing but doubt its removeable.
Recently Fitted:

New Brooks B17 Champion Standard: http://www.brookseng...g/B17 Standard/ These are supposed to be very very comfortable once yer Angus has bedded em in. Have heard some peeps saying that will take 600 miles. Fitted mine but only done about 30miles so far, guess its all relatice as its already comfier than the crossbow.

New grips....the old'uns had worn through to the bars.

RAM mount for GPS. Its huge but certinaly aint going to drop me satnav.

Old style hooter with a difference. I went to Spongeys local bike shop on the last tour de treader as I was fed up of making peeps jump as I came past and needed a bell. Whilst Spongey (after insulting the Harley rider outside) was talking to his amigo who owns the shop I went over to select a bell. As with most things when Sponge was around I based selection on how much it irritated him. First a Barbie bell (ding ding)...no response. followed by various other dingy/honky/pingy devices...no response. Then on to the plastic kiddies hooter "QUACK QUACKKKKK"....spongey turns around....... your not fookin having that one. Big smile...over to the counter, done deal. Enjoyed the ride back to his place as he was on his lecky bike trying to escape from the QUACKING eeejit chasing him. Reminds me of the ole boy every time I quack.

Ahh nearly forgot about the rape alarms. I got chased daily on my commute by the same 2 dogs, one was just a chaser but his mate really meant it. This had also happened on the last Tour de Treader. Seeing as I loike dogs and its inconvenient to stop and guard yourself with the boike I needed a non violent solution to this. So I acquired some rape alarms, some free and some from the bay and carry them on the boike. Next commute the angry dog chased me I pulled the pin and threw an alarm on the road. They work and he don't chase me anymore.

Best get to work fitting some of this stuff I guess.

If you haven't done anything about the bars / headset yet , you can get an adapter to use new-style stems and bars, like this

Yeah I have been on a mission to investigate this today as my new bars do not fit on my stem as it is not a front loading clamp type and the bend in the bars won't feed through . So I could just replace the stem right.....errmm no because the brakes are old styllee and require a straight pull via a brake cable stop and 90 degree cable run brazed to the stem. Now obsolete and the ones I can find with cable guides will give me the same problem with attaching the bars. The local bike shop had anudder good chuckle today. Suggested replacing the front brakes...cabling which would then allow me to replace the stem and fit the bars. I rohnt rink roh...just not sure of the solution yet.

using some suitably fireproof tool

Yeah I have been on a mission to investigate this today as my new bars do not fit on my stem as it is not a front loading clamp type and the bend in the bars won't feed through . So I could just replace the stem right.....errmm no because the brakes are old styllee and require a straight pull via a brake cable stop and 90 degree cable run brazed to the stem. Now obsolete and the ones I can find with cable guides will give me the same problem with attaching the bars. The local bike shop had anudder good chuckle today. Suggested replacing the front brakes...cabling which would then allow me to replace the stem and fit the bars. I rohnt rink roh...just not sure of the solution yet.

The local bike shop had anudder good chuckle today. Suggested replacing the front brakes...cabling which would then allow me to replace the stem and fit the bars. I rohnt rink roh...just not sure of the solution yet.

Hows the new roadie amarko?

What boike ya got stu?

Jeebus you is both fast arses. Oil average aboot 11 or 12 MPH and probably less wid luggage. But then I only have OLD (one leg drive).

Agrozzle stu for fitness it really dont matter mush what yer on. Have you tried the gel overlays for the saddle? I got one mid tour and it made a big difference to me mate angus.

That road boike looks loike a serious bit o kit.