Thorn Cycles Forum
Community => Muppets Threads! (And Anything Else) => Topic started by: jags on November 25, 2012, 04:24:30 PM
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Just getting the table set for the Thanksgiving dinner ;) plents of Americans folks in the family and my sons wife is doing all the cooking today ,Maryann is a Montana girl (heard it's a magic place to tour) and a great cook so its Turkey n ham and loads of spuds thats the irish in us, ;)
wonder whats for desert.
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Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours, jags! Maryann'll do a great job, and Paul's a lucky fellow (as are you all, from the sound of that dinner!). Lots to be thankful for in a nice family like yours. Best to all!
Dan.
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just wrapping up dan she done a great job dinner was lovely, ;) i could just go to bed now i are that much ;D ;D
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Between 1998 and 2004 I went over to my cousins (since died) in LA every year for Thanksgiving. Had some lovely times and got invited to some great family gatherings. Sadly I have no reason to make the trip again.
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jeez i could end up there yet, my eldest son and his family are heading to America next year i have relations in Boston and Maine got an invite to boseman montana so you never know although i doubt it to be honest to bloody far. ;D ;D
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You have an airport just down the road from you with a direct service to Boston. You could then cycle up to Maine and across to Montana, very easy flat cycling. It would be a fabulous experience.
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and a pocket full of money i don't have ;D ;D
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btw welcome to the thorn forum does this mean you bought yourself a proper touring bike ;D
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Thanks for the welcome, I first registered for this forum in 2003 but changing of emails caused a screw up so webmaster sorted it out for me to re-register.
Got a handbuilt frame on order but not a Thorn, I have however been thinking about trying a Rohlof for sometime. I purchased my first Dawes tourer from SJS many years ago.
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across to Montana
Last year I was out for a ride of a few hours. I hardly see other cyclists outside of our little village and when I do they are generally speedsters flashing by. But on this occasion a youngish fellow with panniers all around pulled alongside me slowly. He'd left Boston a few days earlier and was headed out to Montana!
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yeah it sounds fantastic thats for sure jim but a fella would
need a wheelbarrow full with money to do a trip like that ,
and a very understanding wife, not sure which would be the hardest to obtain. ::)
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This guy Brett was using a hammock instead of a tent.
It is a fascinating question for me, a budget for touring. Of course one likely has fixed expenses back home and then one is not likely to be bringing in an income while touring. That is probably the biggest chunk, quite separate from direct expenses on tour.
There is whatever expenses are involved to getting to the tour starting point... plane fare or maybe get a space on a freighter!
Mostly I should think the direct expenses while touring are mostly food and lodging. One can buy food from grocery stores and prepare it oneself, cooking etc., or got to restaurants. That probably spans roughly $10/day up to maybe $60.
Lodging... out in the wild one can camp wherever. Then there are campgrounds, then cheap motels, then nice ones. That's maybe $0 to $120 roughly.
A person could ride out to Montana in a month for sure. Say the total cost range is $20/day to $200/day, so that's $600 to $6000 for the full ride. Maybe $2000 for a nice mix of meals and lodging.
Call it $2000 for fixed expenses back home, $2000 for transport to/from the tour, $2000 for the tour itself, that's $6000. Median income in these parts is maybe $3000/month. So a big tour is about two months of income.
I hope to try one of these before too long... better be before long at my age!... my idea right now is to head up to Quebec's Route Verte, so I can avoid transport costs. I hear the B&B's in the small towns are plentiful and economical.
Yeah, support from the folks at home, that is surely the biggest challenge!
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I have done many tours where I have averaged around £5 a day. A lot depends on how keen you are to go cycle touring. For me I would spend all year on the road if it wasn't for some home commitments.
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Hi Alan,
(Re-)Welcome to the Thorn Cycling Forums! I've long followed you on other forums, and -- as with all of us here online, it is a small world -- I figured we'd get you back again sooner or later. :D
I think you'll find it a pleasant little community here, and you've surely landed in a hotbed of knowledge and experience wrt Rohloff drivetrains. I won't say more about the hubs here (don't want to hijack jags' Thanksgiving thread), but I think you'll find all your questions about them can be answered; we try our best and in good heart.
Best,
Dan.
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I have done many tours where I have averaged around £5 a day.
Please do sketch in a bit more detail. What countries were you riding through, how did you get food, where did you sleep?
Even just in the USA I expect there is a huge variation, e.g. in attitudes about sleeping arrangements. Some places might look kindly on people setting up tents in public places, other places not so much. Food can be pretty inexpensive... I'm not so sure about meeting nutritional requirement on a long tour... e.g. white rice is almost universally available, brown rice much less so.
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Hi Jim,
I'm looking forward to Alan's response as well, but I can readily say I make do on as little as USD$5-$10/day when touring, which is pretty close to Alan's £5 after exchange rates (£1=USD$8.01 at the moment).
I stealth camp the vast majority of the time, so have no lodging costs. I may do a motel once a week less, but they are usually the budget ones in small towns, and they run as little as $35-$45/night and include the bed (of varying quality...to the point where I sometimes still sleep on my pad on the floor, and in my silk bag liner to avoid bedbugs which can be present even in high-end places), a hot shower, wall outlets for mains charging to top-off my chargeable gadgets, running water, heat/cold to some degree other than what's outdoors, a TV -- usually with cable or satellite reception -- and a landline telephone with secure bike/gear storage (locked in the room) while I walk to the store for resupply of food and goods and haul it back in one of those little ping-pong ball-sized folding shopping bags Walmart offer for USD$2 apiece, complete with mini-carabiner to clip it to my HB bag loops for carrying when empty.
I leave from home with a couple weeks' supply of food, but beyond that, my on-road food costs are pretty minimal to near zero during that time frame (trip-food costs offset what I would pay at home, and I take it with me). I'm big on water, so that saves on soda costs; tea or similar makes it different when served hot at breakfast or dinner.
Longer trips are more costly, 'cos I will have run through my supplies past a couple weeks. I shop at outlet/bulk/discount grocery stores when I can if I pass them on the road. Farmer's markets yield a good spread, as does windfall fruit from trees and orchards (not trespassing into fields, but on the road shoulder and within reach from there). I'm not shy about checking out the dumpsters behind stores, in the cool of the morning, when bruised fruits are culled from the shop displays and are freshly discarded. My food costs dip precipitously on these trips 'cos I find I just don't eat as much, nor do I desire to. I do lose an even pound a day, on average.
As for daily foods, I like the Nile brand of cup-soups, though similar are available at about the same price. I throw away the foil top and paper cup and repackage them for freezer-bag cooking in a Reflectix cozy. They usually cost 88¢ apiece and make a meal if fortified with other stuff, like some shreds of beef or turkey jerky or a handful of dried veggies. Three of those a day make my base meals.
Don't forget fast-food places have ultralight plastic dinnerware and packets of salt, pepper, ketchup (America's version of tomato chutney), mustard, pickle relish, or red and green taco sauce in the lobby for free to tart things up, and they foil packets are temperature tolerant and need no refrigeration. I've bought enough of their regular food in the past without condiments to not feel any worse about picking up the occasional packet than I do about using their restrooms. Add in a scoop of powdered or loose tea for morning or evening, or a packet of hot cocoa, and I'm pretty well set.
In-between, I get a big bag of trail mix from warehouse food stores' bulk food bins -- like GORP (Good Old Raisins and Peanuts) with dried pineapple, apricots, almonds and such. A large sack costs about USD$5 and lasts me over the course of a week or so. Heavy, but a good staple in-between. I will sometimes buy a jar of Gatorade powder and use that in a mix instead of buying the expensive bottles of the stuff (why pay for the water that makes up the bulk of it?). Little alu cans of mandarin oranges, mushrooms, or vienna sausages (potted meats) cost about 50-75¢ apiece, and tinned tuna or chicken isn't too bad, but is protein. Day-old bread ("dead bread" in Danneauxspeak) never killed anybody, and that with a jar of peanut butter goes quite a long ways. When the loaf starts to go bad, I lay a few slices out to dry in the hot sun (remember, air temps are often 125°F/52°C where I go and ground temps are over 140°F/60°C, so it doesn't take long to dry bread on a rock. It doesn't exactly toast, but it stops it going stale as fast, and keeps mold in check (dry climate and the dried toast has less moisture to support a mold colony).
What's an ideal Danneaux dinner while touring on-the-cheap?
Some of the Nile Chicken (flavor) dried vegetable soup with a small tin of chicken breast and a handful of wasabi-flavored peas all boiled/steeped together in a freezer bag/Reflectic cozy gives me a meal fit for a king on only 8oz/.23l of water, 4 minute's fuel (to boil it) and 5 minutes' time after (to steep in the sack) with no dishes to wash (I eat out of the bag, propping it in my little anodized alu bowl). A handful of my trail mix for dessert, and I'm set till morning.
I usually awaken at 4:50AM, have broken camp and am on the bike by 5:30AM, and put in a good 20 miles or so to warm up before breakfast. Breakfast is usually a handful of oatmeal in another sack/cozy meal, with some of the trail mix mixed in and steeped in the bag with dehydrated milk to top it. The occasional energy bar makes up the rest of the mid-day foodie needs.
Jim, ongoing tour costs can be very minimal if approached in this way, even in America. If I was doing this in France, Belgium, or The Netherlands, I would hit the Aldi and Lidl markets and cobble-together something similar, as I did in 2008.
Hope this helps.
All the best,
Dan.
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Thanks, Dan! This kind of nuts and bolts data is very useful!
I can well imagine doing fine on $8/day of food. I think though that stealth camping is very dependent on location. Here in the Catskills or even more so up in the Adirondacks... it isn't quite so remote as Southeast Oregon, but still I think stealth camping should be very easy. But say a person were riding through northern Ohio and northern Indiana - I think it could be much more difficult. Not too many trees to hide behind! It's pretty much corn and soybeans as far as the eye can see!
I really am hoping to keep expanding my horizons and do some longer range camping trips here in upstate NY though. Lots of beautiful country, small towns, etc.!
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Jim,
Here in more/extremely rural Oregon, it is very difficult to get past the signs, guns, and dogs to ask a farmer for permission to stay on his land. However, I have found it very easy in more populous areas, especially in small towns. Good spots to ask are at the grocery, at the local churches, whle eating lunch (especially at a roadside diner), at schools (closed in summertime), and -- my favorite! -- at fire houses. The fire-fighters will often *ask* you to stay, and they *always* have fresh, cool water in summer and are happy to offer it.
It really adds a lot to interact with people in this way, and if one has to give a "dog-and-pony show" to pay for their lodging, that's fine! People like to hear "tales from the road" and it helps if one is reasonably well-groomed (hence the reason for my dynohub/USB-rechargeable electric shaver). It often works out that asking for a remote corner of their property to pitch a tent soon grows into dinner invitations, offers of the indoor bathroom or shower, etc. The downside is, if you really want rest/sleep or need to get off quickly and make time...the social aspects can work against that because the offers often extend to meeting the relatives or being given a tour of the area. I think if these as Bonuses, but it can work against a schedule.
It helps to hand out postcards from home, or make "calling cards" with your photo and contact info. on them. I do, and hand them out freely. Mine have the same photo as my Thorn Forums profile pic so people remember me. It was a little uncanny to return to Adel, Fort Rock, or Christmas Valley, Oregon, and see my mug on one of my cards, taped to the cash register or pinned to the wall behind it. People really do remember these things, and -- amazingly! -- treasure and hang onto them if the contact was a pleasant one. I take real pains to be a good and proper guest, and helping out as I did growing-up is always welcomed (i.e. drying the dishes or offering to do a chore like clothes-folding after the wash is done goes a long, long ways), and I truly enjoy these contacts, especially where I travel alone. It is nice to exchange Christmas cards with folks I've met along the way.
One of my great regrets is my touring partners' schedule didn't allow us to accept invitations for such hospitality from the many, many people who offered it in rural Netherlands and Belgium. Food! Lodging! Showers! Road provisions! Home baked delights! were all offered spontaneously, kindly, and freely while I stood outside stores with the bikes while my friend shopped inside (quicker, since he spoke the languages). Most people thought I was English rather than American, and delighted in talking about politics when they learned I was from the US and had a degree in political science. I lost track of the number of older people who thanked me for my country's joint-liberating role in WWII and related tales from that time in their own villages and the fear and concern they felt and the price paid by their families as their homes were overrun and life changed forever for them. I could see people plowing across parking lots to come greet me, with a warm smile and outstretched hand. Incredible hospitality and warmth, and conversations I'll never forget; all this made for a much richer trip than mere travel alone could have provided.
Unfortunately, my experiences as an American here in the States has not been as good by a long shot. I think it might help if I developed an English/Irish accent, as friends from the UK and Ireland tell me they had to fight off American hospitality, it was offered so freely and generously. I won't have any problems when jags comes and gives a greeting or two to the locals. I'll just keep real quiet, smile big, and all will be fine.
Best,
Dan.
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Just picked up the previous posts. It is getting late here and I am ready for bed so I will respond tomorrow.
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goodnight alan.
dan you would not understand a word of my brogue ;D ;D i forget i'm on foreigh soil and talk exactly as i'm on home turf as bikepacker will gladly tell you, he understands me but we toured together a couple of time's, and he has been in that many different countrys he doesn't seem to find it difficult understanding different accent's.
but you got to be yourself on tour, people don't like talking to [admin. language edit for ehm, people who posture and are false -- Dan.] artists. sorry dan couldn't think of a nicer word ::)
but yeah wild camping emm not to sure i could go there,given a choice it would be a good campsite everytime and as long as i had tea.coffee i could survive from one end of the day to the other.
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Jim, jags,
Stealth camps needn't be elaborate to have a wonderful ambiance and the security provided by being out of sight. Attached are a couple photos of one of my favorites, located in California's Surprise Valley. After awhile, one develops an "eye" for where and what will make a good stealth camp and can find a good one nearly anywhere and on short notice. In this case, it was a road cut. I simply ducked behind the remaining berm and set up camp on the narrow ledge beneath an overhanging juniper tree. I was still in the highway right-of-way and outside the boundary marker for the farmer's fenced property. Come morning, I had a million-dollar view of the sun rising over Middle Alkali Lake -- Magical!
I really like my one-man tents for such occasions, as they allow maximum flexibility in placement and maximum stealthiness for wild camping.
All the best,
Dan.
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super pic's Dan ;)
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bikepacker meant to ask, who is building your new frame. 8)
are you going with rohloff hub .
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I have got Bob Jacksons to build my frame. I rode a friends bike and like it so I told BJ what I wanted and they are building it. Should be about another 2 weeks.
I have considered a Rohlof for sometime and have a long list of fors and againsts. At the moment the against are leading mainly due to 32 spokes and 26" wheels. Neither of which I like.
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I have considered a Rohlof for sometime and have a long list of fors and againsts. At the moment the against are leading mainly due to 32 spokes and 26" wheels. Neither of which I like.
This puzzles me. Surely one can build a Rohloff into a larger wheel without any trouble at all. I can imagine trouble with too small a wheel. And yeah 32 spokes is the default for the hub but people do switch that somehow. I suppose the Phil Wood shell is one way to make that happen, if the expense isn't too much a barrier!
http://philwoodco.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/36-hole-phil-wood-hub-shell-for-rohloff-hub/ (http://philwoodco.wordpress.com/2011/02/16/36-hole-phil-wood-hub-shell-for-rohloff-hub/)
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Expense is not a consideration. But I do not want a situation as a friend of mine who had to sit on a French campsite for a week waiting for a new rim and spokes to be shipped to him. A conventional wheel I could have rebuilt for him in about an hour.
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Hi Bikepacker, Jim et al,
Rohloff brought a 36 hole hub to market as of last year: http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=3853.msg16749#msg16749
Cheers
Ian
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Various sorts of breakdown in the field, yeah, that is definitely a major consideration. What sort of equipment to take on tour, what sorts of tools and spare parts, and then too the budget in both money and time.
One big challenge is all the wonderful creativity in the bike business. That's actually what tipped me into buying a Thorn. The 7-speed brifter on my 1996 Trek 520 broke. They don't make those any more! I did replace it with a downtube shifter but it was too late, I was off rolling into a new bike!
The 650b drumroll seems to be getting louder. It's great to be playing around with tire dimensions but it is a bit dangerous too. It would be so nice to think that if I get in a jam out days away from home that I can get a new tire from some bike shop not too far away.
What is the biggest challenge in building a Rohloff into a wheel? I would think that the large flange diameter puts a large angle on the spokes and so some rims have angled holes to reduce the stress. Certainly the large flange will mean you don't want to use just any old rim... I would think that the very deep section rims, like those crazy aerodynamic rims, would be a bad idea. Yeah and the offset rims that correct for the deep dishing of the huge clusters folks have nowadays, those don't make sense with a Rohloff.
But for you and your friend sitting in the French campground, what was it about the Rohloff that was so unconventional? Could you have gotten suitable parts locally but the whole rebuild process was different enough from your experience that you chose to have it done by experts and there were none close by? Or were suitable parts not available close by, so even an expert in building Rohloff wheels would have been stuck for that week?
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Hi All!
The angled spoke-seat issue arises when the large-flange Rohloff hub is used with small-diameter rims (26" and less). With a conventional 26" rim, the spoke nipple seats close to vertically in the rim, and when the wheel is brought up to tension a bend occurs where the spoke meets the nipple, right at the end of the threads, which already comprise a stress-riser. This can result in failure of the nipple as well as the spoke at the threads, rather than near the bend. Angling the spoke holes/nipple seats allows the spoke to approach the nipple straight-on and addresses this problem.
Supposedly, a 700C wheel is enough larger in diameter to result in less-acute spoke approach angles at the rim, and pretty much any symmetrical (non-offset) rim can be used with success. I see Co-Motion here in my town is using Velocity Dyads on their 700C tandems.
26" rims are smaller in diameter, so with the large-flanged Rohloff hub, socketed/angled rim spoke holes are required, and Rohloff say they should be matched with Sapim's Polyax wounded-seat nipples; in at least some of their literature, Rohloff also specifically recommend use of Sapim's butted spokes. The result is a straighter approach of the spoke/nipple to the rim for 26-inchers.
When Bike Friday (also local) started building with Rohloffs, there were some flange breakages as well as spoke problems because the spoke angles were really acute with 20" (406mm) rims. A friend used to work there, and we spent some time discussing the problem years ago. They've largely given up on Rohloffs, but for different reasons ( http://bikefriday.com/service/service_library/84/131 )...THE ROHLOFF HUB: We used the Rohloff hubs for a while. It's a marvel of engineering, but most of our customers found it to be more hassle than it was worth. The Rohloff is heavy, a little noisy, and rough in some gears (even after break-in and oil change). It has a small proprietary cable that likes to break with Bike Fridays because it's put under too much strain by the long and tortuous path of the cables. The Rohloff uses a push-pull two cable system, so the friction is doubled. Another issue is that the oil likes to leak out of the hub when you put it on an airplane because of the pressure change. To its credit, Lynette had one on her Bike Friday for a while, and her speed on rolling hills increased considerably. Despite the weight it added to her bike, and the fact that she's a 99lb featherweight, being in the right gear all the time made her faster. That's the key to performance riding, whether touring, racing or commuting - being in the right gear.
Build technique is a little different as well, 'cos each hole is side-specific and directional, and there are guidelines about whether the spokes can/should cross the hub bolts as well. Thorn have laced them both ways over the course of time; the spokes on my Nomad's Rohloff cross over the bolts and the pulling-spoke heads are on the outside. When I asked Andy about it, here is what he told me (with permission to pass it along): That just leaves the question of the way we lace the hubs.
We lace the pulling spokes from the outside…we are convinced that this minimises the chance of the spokes causing flange failure. I am an old school wheel builder and it was difficult for me to accept this counter-intuitive solution. Note we also cross the spokes over the hub screws…this further reduces the chance of flange failure.
Builders who pre-stress their wheels through lateral force ("side-loading" by placing the axle on a table and pressing sideways on the rim with hands 180° apart) should use extra care with Rohloffs, as the flanges can be unduly stressed and the axle displaced laterally as well. A local firm once made a plywood fixture with a hole to accommodate/locate the flange on these hubs to prevent lateral axle-loading. It accomplished that, but did nothing for flange stress during builds. When I build wheels, I prefer to stress the spokes in groups by hand as I run-up the tension in layers, rather than stressing the wheel laterally. I've seen a few semi-built wheels collapse when strong builders overdid the "lean" during lateral stressing.
Thorn do use rims other than Rigida's Andra for their 26" wheels. For example, on the current Raven, they offer the Rigida Zac19, the Grizzly, and the DT Swiss XR 425. I presume these are either re-drilled so the spoke seats are angled /or/ the ferrules are cranked as used to be considered good wheel-building practice, and which I still do myself if the rim/spoke combo requires it.
On their Mercury (admittedly not a fully-loaded touring bike), Thorn offer a choice of the following rims:
• Mavic Open Sport (sports)
• Mavic A719 (trekking)
• DT Swiss RR465 (high performance)
• DT Swiss XR470 (disc-specific rim)
• Mavic TN317 (disc-specific rim)
• DT Swiss K540 (disc-specific rim)
As I recall, Andre's lovely Utopia Kranich uses 700C rims with a Rohloff; perhaps he can add additional insight to Rohloffs/700C wheel builds.
Best,
Dan. (...who is watching this wonderfully evolving thread with an Admin's eye and pondering how/when/if to split it)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLQmlqma6PE.
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Yikes. Three spokes and no spares, all broken on this fellow's Rohloff...and after a short time as well. Mechanic told him "it was the way the spokes had been cut" to fit the hub? Sounds as if a spoke-roller was used to rethread longer spokes for the application. Doesn't seem to be a Thorn he's riding, and it is an older Rohloff (label rather than lasered logo)...lots to ponder there as I've got the video on PAUSE.
Interesting story! I need to go back and find Part One and start from there.
Thanks, jags, for the link!
Best,
Dan. (...back to hit PLAY and off I go)
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well worth a look Dan he is using a koga world traveller.
gets into a lot of trouble when he hits America. ;)
mind you after he got the wheel fixed he had no more issues with it except for the usual .
enjoy.
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But for you and your friend sitting in the French campground, what was it about the Rohloff that was so unconventional? Could you have gotten suitable parts locally but the whole rebuild process was different enough from your experience that you chose to have it done by experts and there were none close by? Or were suitable parts not available close by, so even an expert in building Rohloff wheels would have been stuck for that week?
He had a new wheel built around his hub just before leaving on the ride from UK down to the Med. The problem was with the rim the spokes were not angled correctly and just kept breaking. We did get some replacement spokes locally but they broke almost as fast as they could be fitted. It needed the correct rim which had to be sent out from the UK. I build a lot of different wheels for myself and others but was powerless to help.
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Hi Bikepacker, Jim et al,
Rohloff brought a 36 hole hub to market as of last year: http://www.thorncycles.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=3853.msg16749#msg16749
Cheers
Ian
If I do go down the Rohlof route it will be with the 36 hole hub.
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The problem was with the rim the spokes were not angled correctly and just kept breaking.
Thanks for filling in the details. It really helps to know where the danger areas are, what to avoid, where to be especially careful, etc.