Bike touring stuff
I thought that this might be useful to others planning to ride in India.
MY CYCLiNG DAY
I try and get an early start to use the cool and empty mornings to cover miles so I get up at 6am and am rolling by 6.45am. I don’t eat anything but I do drink about a litre of water. I try to ride for about 3 hours / 30 miles then stop for a short time and eat breakfast. Sometimes it is just water, bananas and biscuits. I then try to ride another 10 miles or so and by then (11am?) the sun is high and progress is more difficult in the heat.
Finding a place to stop in shade is not always possible so I find it best to plod slowly on and reach my destination around lunchtime. This just about works with 50 mile days on good roads or 35 mile days on tracks.
After I find a place to stay (homestay, lodge or hotel) there is the ritual of a shower and washing out my clothing so it has time to dry before the next morning (if it is still damp it gets strapped on top of the rear rack bag: many in India have seen my underwear!). Then lunch, and in the later afternoon as the air cools there is time to look around the area where I am staying.
Looking around by cycle is so much easier than on foot. I take just the rack bag with a cable lock so I can park the bike up and have a little storage for any food I buy. My daily mileages include these extra tourist miles and are taken from the bike’s speedo.
Once back at where I am staying I refill my water bottles with tap water and a steritab ready for the next day. And charge my phone and powerbank.
A real rock n’roll lifestyle!
CLOTHING
I get protection from the sun from my clothing, not from lotions, so I always ride wearing a white hat with a rim and sunglasses. Dark sunglasses in the middle of the day, yellow tined ones in the morning. They are actually safety specs with a good UV protection rating and strong lenses. I usually wear gloves. Summer cycling gloves seem to have mesh on the back of the hand which means sunburn so I use thin leather work gloves with solid fabric over the back of my hands which lets moisture out. I kept wondering about cutting off the finger tips to make them cooler but then I lost them (I rode off with them sitting on top of the panniers). All I could find to replace them were ‘arm sleeves’ with a hole for my thumb. They are designed to give uv protection and to help cooling if soaked in water. They cover the back of my hands and knuckles and seem fine when the sun is behind me but when riding into the sun my fingers are exposed too much. And they give no protection if I fall. A thin pair of mesh backed gloves on top might work well.
A neck tube keeps the sun off my neck and if the sun is on the front of my face I have a fabric facemask to replace the neck tube. Of course all this clobber does not keep me cool!
Shoes - I take flat bottomed cycling shoes that I can walk in and walking sandals that I can cycle in. The bike has plastic toe clips that work with any shoe, no cleats.
I don’t use padded shorts. I think the extra bulk would not be good when cycling in heat, and my Brooks Conquest sprung saddle is comfortable enough.
THE BIKE
I need a bike that is strong, reliable and which will ride on tarmac and unmade tracks. Obviously I need a ‘gravel bike’……
The bike I took on this trip was a MKI Thorn Sherpa from about 2005. It was designed and built before ‘gravel bikes’ existed and at the time Thorn marketed it as a bike that you could tour on anywhere. The Grand Daddy of the modern Gravel Bike?
It has V brakes, 26” wheels, no suspension and derailleur HG 3x9 gears. All a bit dated.
Derailleur gears with an exposed chain are not too bad in the dry but dust can get onto the chain and turns the oil to grinding paste. I used wet oil as a chain lube, I might have been better waxing the chain and using a dry lube. HG 3 x 9 HG transmission is getting outdated and harder to find parts for so in the future I may update to 2 x 9 CUES. With the right chainset and sprockets 2 x 9 should give enough gear range, chain alignment will be slightly straighter (narrower chain) and Shimano claim that CUES component life is better than HG. Lets see, I still have some HG parts on the shelf to use up. After I got back I measured the chain wear - just about spot on 1% - so scrap. At least it meant that I did not have to clean it. Admittedly the crankset and sprockets were not brand new but the chain had only lasted 1000 miles. Which is pretty bad. I met another rider in India who reckoned with CUES he got 2500 miles per chain (also using wet oil).
In dirty conditions I prefer disc brakes (cable operated) that stay grit free, and discs do work better than V brakes. Descending the Western Ghats my V brakes would slow me but on some gradients would not stop me. I know discs would have stopped me and would have required less hand pressure.
I like 26 inch wheels. With a medium sized frame they give more toe room and tyre clearance than larger wheels and spares are available in India so I just took one innertube (and a patching kit). Tyres were Schwarbe Marathons, a Plus on the rear(26x1.5’) and a Standard on the front 26x1.75’). Why the different sizes? My theory is that a larger front tyre will roll more easily over a bump (look at off road motorbike wheel sizes) - and I happened to have these tyres hanging on the garage wall. If they ever wear out I might go up one size at each end. Innertubes have car type schrader valves so if my pump breaks I can use a car footpump.
The bike is 20 years old and I don’t know it’s history. It has a steel frame and steel forks. I would not buy 20 year old alloy or carbon components. I have no experience of carbon but I have had alloy frames strip threads and wear at the dropouts. There is also the chance that a cracked steel frame could be welded up as a bodge to let me complete my trip.
I have Thorn Touring handlbars fitted. These are nicely cranked backwards and do not have bar ends. They have been great for this trip: good leverage, comfortable, and my hands were always near the controls and bell. If I was going to be riding a long way on straight smooth roads then I would prefer slightly lower straight bars with bar ends but Indian roads are not like that.
LUGGAGE
I travel pretty light and like to be able to carry the bike upstairs with all luggage in place. On this trip the bike with luggage was 26kg plus 2kg for water and food. Food was bananas and biscuits.
I had a Carradice clip on/off handlebar bag which has a map window on top that my iphone pushes into. I have cut a hole so a powerlead will go from the phone to a small powerbank in the bag. I do try to keep the weigh in the bag to a minimum as a heavy bag effects the steering.
Two elderly Karrimor panniers clipped to the rear rack and a small bag sat on top for pump, lock, food etc. I can just about carry all 4 bags (the handlebar bag has a neck strap) and if I need to I can squeeze the handlebar bag and rack bag into the panniers. Having just 2 bags to look after made life much easier when on the train.
One of the most useful things I have is a 4m long piece of thin rope. It has been used for many things: as a washing line; to tie the bike to railings to keep it upright on ferrys; to tie my luggage together when on the train to stop it falling off the bunk and to tie the bike box on a taxi roof.
WHAT WOULD I CHANGE?
Not a lot really. Overall the bike and equipment that I took worked well but some improvements are always possible.
- It would be better to use a dry chain wax lube in dusty conditions and I should have wiped down the sides of the chain. Especially important on a longer trip.
- As well as a heavy bike cable lock I also took a padlock and thin wire which I never used. Just one simple lightweight cable lock would have been perfectly adequate.
- Battery powerbank. The one I took was elderly and only rated at 4000mAh so would only half charge my phone. A 10,000mAh one would give me 2 recharges. One that allows through charging of the phone would also be much easier to live with.
- Phone position. I had my ancient iphone SE working as a GPS and kept it inside the plastic map window of my handlebar bag where it was very safe (but could get hot). I could hear it OK but not see it in bright sunshine due to glare from the map window. In towns in particular it would have been very useful to have been able to have seen it as the GPS route often had many short legs which got the audio a bit muddled. I am not sure how to sort this one out as the top of the handlebar bag is the right location for me to be able to easily look at it but if I mount it on top of the plastic window it will be more vulnerable……
- A simple shoulder strap for one pannier would help free up a hand when carrying everything.
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