Spring and summer bike adventures

Nice one Dale!

I never feel bad about spending money on bikes. I mean, it's a bike after all. Exercise, free transportation, general happiness and quality of life, etc.

I'm looking forward to a long bikepacking trip in a couple months. There is so much cross-over in gear from UL hiking to bikepacking, so it's easy.

Dale –

I can't tell looking at your photo or the Origin8 site…

Is the stem the only thing that grips and stabilizes the front bars/rack/basket, or is there a widget somewhere providing a 2nd support point?

Thanks.

The cross-over in gear is great. My wife a daughter did a quick overnight trip in the San Juan Islands (Lopez). My first insight was that sleeping bags eat pannier space. My front basket is perfect for that with a dry bag. Dry bags with daisy chains are great for strapping onto bikes.

I'm adding a plastc ammo can to the top of the back rack. There are 30cal models that are fairly shallow so I don't have to be a gymnast to get my leg over. That can be locked to keep casual theft, although I would never leave anything really valuable. I had a nice trunk bag but it seems to be permanately mounted on my wife's bike :)

Bikes can absorb cash. You get a bike and there are basics like helmet, lights and locks that can suck up a couple hundred bucks with no effort. Then you can start working on racks and bags. It would be easy to double the cost of a $600 bike when adding all the goodies to make it ready for touring.

I got some cheapie Performance Bike panniers for $5 each in a thrift store :)

Greg asked, "
I can't tell looking at your photo or the Origin8 site…

Is the stem the only thing that grips and stabilizes the front bars/rack/basket, or is there a widget somewhere providing a 2nd support point?"

It is mounted only on the stem. I went to a 4-bolt stem with a 60mm reach. These things need to be used with some basic common sense. One reviewer dumped a watermelon in there. A small bag of groceries is about all I expect of it. The stem and bearings can handle that.

This was my first attempt at raising the bars. It is stronger than it looks, but still kind of kludged.

I swapped out the stock 2-bolt stem with 110mm reach for a 60mm version with a 4-bolt clamp. That brought the bars closer and the Origin8 basket has about a 3" rise. It fits me well.

The Origin8 handlebars have a second mount that can raise the bars another 4". I tired that and used the adjusting rings for my steerer tube at the lowest point. It was too high for me, but it was solid. I prefer the lower center of gravity for stuff in the basket too.

With two small panniers on the back and using UL gear, 10 pounds would be a lot of stuff. I have a silnylon dry bag that is pack liner size and my plan is to put bulky stuff like my sleeping bag up there.

I think it is a good thing to keep the weight down on the front just for easier steering and stability on the kickstand. If I were consistently hauling loads, a two-legged kickstand like the ones used on cargo bikes would be the way to go. At this point, bike racks and walls have sufficed.

This is the mess I had with a rear rack secured on the seat stays with P-clamps and the fender stays artfully bent to work around the disk brake caliper. It was busy! It also jacked the panniers forward, reducing heel clearance, and raised the top of the rack up closer to my seat, so anything on top bumped me in the butt. No bueno.

This what the Toba Roger rack mounting looks like now. Much better! it is rated for 25kg, although I don't plan in anything more than UL backing loads split with the front basket. 10 pounds per side would be a lot in the UL world.

I found a cool bolt-on fender tail light, a Spanninga Pixio Xb. It is very bright, but lacks "blinky modes". Toba needs to step up to the plate and make a rear light for these integrated fended racks, as well as making a matching front fender.

My front fended is a cast off from a Dutch WorkBike. It is aluminum with tubular stays and has a trick mudflap. I got that at Dutch Bikes in Seattle for $15.

The only adaptation needed was to grind out the stay end a bit to fit around the caliper hardware.

Thanks Dale.

I've seen brackets/braces that went back to the head tube, but apparently not here.

Yes, let common sense prevail.

There are lots of baskets that brace to the fork braze-ons or the axle skewer and legions of front racks for cargo or panniers. You still need to keep the weight sensible. A couple panniers could easily end up with a heavier load, but they would have a much lower center of gravity. The weight would be riding on the axle bearings and lower head tube bearing, but not the top head tube. I imagine a big guy smashing around single track would put a lot more stress on the stem and bearings than my little basket of groceries. I'm hardly a performance bike rider! I'm sure you would get plenty of warning if things started to loosen or crack– it is right under my nose and I'm a mechanical sort.

REI has a sweet urban hauler in the Novara Barrow model. I was eying one closely last week. The front basket is attached to the head tube, so it doesn't move with the wheel. They have a nice stretch mesh trampoline to keep stuff in the basket. I should tie up a shock cord cargo net for mine.

A cool step in bike-n-hike setups would be racks and backpacks that live well together. A nice UL pack design with a rack made to fit would be sweet. I'm thinking that a loosely filled frameless pack could be thrown over a rear rack and lashed down. It could be protected with a trash compactor bag or just a big stuff sack. I have a 10 liter tarp fabric dry bag that is great for a rack trunk bag. It has a daisy chain, so securing it is easy.

My Alchemy Goods messenger bag fits the font basket like a glove. I found that the front flap buckles work well for securing it. I tuck the shoulder strap inside so it doesn't end up in the spokes. With the simple top flap, I do not rely on it for complete waterproofness, but seeing that it is made from inner tubes, it is highly water resistant :)

Bike racks are another expense and complication to owning bikes. We've been using a Thule trunk mounted rack that barely holds two bikes. Those strapped on racks scare me, with visions of looking in the rear view mirror to see my bikes doing cartwheels down I-5 at 70mph and creating some huge liability issues. They are hard on the finish and you can't open the trunk lid.

The other day I saw a couple with a massive tandem touring bike on the rood of their Camry. It looked like a crane boom up there! I'm not a fan of roof mounted bike racks.

So I got a Reese under car receiver on the web for $107 and it took me about 15 minutes to bolt it on. I spent more time gathering the tools and changing to my work clothes! It goes right into the nuts welded in place for the tie-down hooks, so there's no drilling or weirdness for the install. I got an Allen 3-bike rack on Craigslist. The top rails fold down so it's not hanging out there all the time and it bolts in place, so there's no sway or rattling. With the 3-bike spacing I can actually get two bikes on without trying to weave the overlapping parts to avoid scratching the bikes up or removing a spoke.

We've been thinking about getting a teardrop trailer or building one– this could be dangerous :)