Hi All,
A few of you have asked me for my riding impressions, now I've owned Sherpa awhile.
While I have yet to take a lengthy loaded tour on him, he has handled very well with the same loads in day-ride tests on a variety of surfaces. Compared to my previous Miayata 1000LT exped bike, he is far less prone to frame shimmy under load (seeing the top tube go a centimeter to each side was a...revelation...on the fully-loaded Miyata). I am sure there are limits and, as with any bike, the handling is less affected by less weight and I prefer to carry as little as possible. Certainly, a week's tour with ready resupply of food and water will see us carrying less than a month's solo, self-supported tenure in the desert with 16l of water and a lot of food.
On my day rides, the bike has proven ideal for poking along on dirt and bad-gravel tracks with only a rack-pack or handlebar bag. The handling is lively but predictable, with a noticeable penchant for handlebar flop only when the bike is standing alone. Not a problem in practice. I love not having to worry about my toes overlapping the front wheel/fender; in this way, he is just like my other bikes. No-overlap has long been my preference since I took some really bad falls on my first "10-speed" as a kid. It had a wicked amount of toe/fender/wheel overlap that seemed to catch with the slightest twitch of the 'bars. It might never have been a problem when riding flat roads and cornering by leaning, but grinding up 20%+ grades in low gears or picking my way along goat tracks and deer trails with a lot of steering, it was.
Although he takes longer to accelerate to speed than my other bikes, he is easy to maintain at speed once there. I put this down to the greater weight of his wheels, tires, and tubes compared to my other bikes. This poor acceleration hasn't been noticeable in my steady-state rides, but might be annoying when commuting with frequent stoplights, where there would be many more starts-from-stops. A lighter wheelset or simply lighter tubes and tires would likely help but at the expense of off-road versatility. I'll likely be staying with the 2.0 Duremes, changing to the folding versions when the wire-bead rigid models wear out.
Sherpa is proving to be a capable road bike as well, and I find myself riding in the same flat-paved-road 17-21mph/27/34kph window as on my other road/rando/touring bikes, despite his greater weight and wider tires. The one area I'm really having a hard time adjusting is the gearing and it is my problem, not his. I'm a high-rev spinner rather than a masher, and I have always adjusted my gearing in fine increments to keep a high, constant cadence. Now, I am having to adjust my road and pedaling speed to accommodate the gearing and Sherpa doesn't feel as fast in that way. He uses a standard 44/32/22 chainset and 11-34 9-sp cassette. I chose the 11-34 because it gave my favorite, most-used cruising gears with minimal chain deflection and a lower low, but the number of duplicate gears, gaps in spacing, and awkward shift sequence has me pining for the old half-step-and-granny gearing scheme of my other bikes. I will adjust, and Sherpa's coarser gearing is more ideally suited for loaded touring, which is his primary intended purpose. I could fit gearing of 44/42/22 and have a pretty ideal half-step setup with my present 11-34 cassette, but -- alas! -- there don't seem to be any front derailleurs available to handle the two-tooth chainring difference; all presently available models would snag the teeth on the middle 'ring on their way to the large chainring. I'm disciplined enough to not use the little-little ("naughty") gearing combos, but there just isn't anything currently available to make it possible.
Related to the gearing, my Q-factor is noticeably greater, but not objectionably so. It is more akin to what I have on my tandem, and has been fine on that bike. I will keep my low-Q setups on my other bikes for as long as I can get parts. Part of my choice to get a new bike was precisely to have something contemporary for easy parts availability, and Sherpa has that with his current drivetrain. I like the advancements compared to my older rides -- external BB, threadless steerer, indexed bar-cons (the friction option is nice in the event of damage).
Braking with the Tektro main and interrupter levers and Deore v-brakes is excellent. Rim wear was rapid on initial test rides, thanks to the Shimano pads. Replacing them with "rim-friendly" Kool-stop salmons greatly reduced wear and improved feel comparable to my other bikes that run them. I apparently don't brake much compared to other riders, so I expect to get good life from the non-CSS Andra rims with these pads.
I seem to become more barrel-chested and wider-shouldered by the year, as with my ancestors, and am happy with my choice of 44cm handlebars. I feel like my chest is opened up for breathing a bit more, and they do add what feels like more leverage with a heavy front touring load. I probably would not have chosen the Zoom anatomic 'bars on my own (preferring traditional randonneur-bends), but now I have them, I like them and won't be changing. The long steerer lets me duplicate my position on my other upswept rando bar-top corners, and the Zoom's shape allows for as many as 6 distinct hand positions . Nice. The threadless steerer is much stiffer than my old quill stems, even when they were buttressed by extended headset top-nuts. This makes the entire front of the bike feel more solid in comparison.
One difference I have noticed with Sherpa is cornering. My other bikes -- even the 26"-wheeled touring tandem -- love to lean into corners, and that is how I ride them. In contrast, Sherpa likes to be steered, akin to a bus. I can't pinpoint the cause, since so many variables are different -- tire and wheel size, bottom bracket height, wheelbase, geometry, etc. It isn't that I can't lean into corners...it just isn't necessary. I have ridden some bikes that tried to bob up like a cork in a tub and just would not lean, but that isn't the case here. He's made plain he will if I want, but it isn't a requirement. Probably a good thing in rough conditions with low-hanging bags.
I'm pleased with Sherpa's matte-black finish and it should prove helpful when wild/stealth camping and to look inconspicuous. It does appear it may "wear-shiny" with abrasion from clothing, but it will still be black, and that's fine. I might have chosen the red if my tandem were not already that exact color. I wanted a change to something completely different and am happy.
Sorry no pics from yesterday's ride for the gallery; my camera battery was down and I have yet to rig a charger patch cord for it to mate with the Tout Terrain The Plug 2. I did plug in my MP3 player with a dead battery (to see how it charged, I never use it while riding) and found its Li-Po battery was a third charged in 7 mi/11km and topped-up to full by the 14mi/22km mark. I was getting full USB output from The Plug by 8mph/13kph. I need to set about making charging patch cords for the phone, GPS, camera battery charger, AA/AAA chargers (for Steri-Pen and my wearable LED headlight, LED blinkys), and electric shaver. The ability to recharge on the road is beginning to sway my buying habits toward USB-rechargeable devices. Next up will be a suitable buffer battery and netbook for on-road dispatches and updates.
The SON28 is proving to be a wonder, but I can say I do notice the drag when it is charging batteries or powering lights. Nothing overwhelming, but the difference when I turn it off or unplug the charger is noticeable. It is light-years away from the drag of even my Sanyo bottom-bracket generator, and feels close to the drag of my Dutch friend's LightSpin. When not charging or powering the lights, it feels no different than my other, non-dyno hubs.
I wish I could finally get the wobbles out of the Duremes, but have reconciled myself to some remaining, despite my careful and repeated remounting. The bead-tape is within fractional millimeters of true to the rims, but it is the tread that seems to be off, and at least one overlapping of the belts at the sidewalls. It seems to be only a matter of appearance, as I truly cannot tell any difference in riding.
The bike rides completely silently, without any objectionable chain or drivetrain noise, and there are no rattles.
More updates and pics to follow in time.
Best,
Dan.
