Oh, dear indeed.
At least it happened at home and not on tour.
I'm confident you are experienced enough to not damage the tire during a tube change. My guess is that 12,500 miles of sidewall flexing and 50 months of UV rays (even in Scotland!) took their toll and time was just up for that tire.

Back to Thailand. How exciting!

Best

Ron

Have just finished building this bike, a Spa Cycles D'Tour, with an SJSC handbuilt wheelset. I was after a Thorn Sherpa style bike with relaxed geometry, long wheelbase, long headtube and top tubes and able to take large tyres - but with disc brakes and 700C wheels. Steerer and handlebar yet to be cut down to size but pretty much all there otherwise.
I'm ill at the momenet and won't be using the bike for some time but Im looking foward to my first tour on it next Spring, hopefully. The folks at Spa Cycles were super helpful by the way - as was Nik Heathman at SJS of course.

The Scottish Tourism Board should give you a hefty honorarium for those photos, Ron!

(My sceptical ancestors are muttering "Cooked! Redone in the lab!" -- ignore the doubters. )

Cheers, mate.
 

Thanks

Just about to order the left-handed shifter from SJS.
Found one other site that had it for £10 cheaper, but SJS are always reliable and happy to answer questions.

It does seem rather expensive, but will hopefully last ages and I can actually see advantages to leaving it that way so I'm not trying to shift with the same hand that operates the front brake.

Any tips on measuring and cutting the internal cables before fitting them too the EX box on the hub?

I have watched the Rohloff video but any other pointers would be appreciated.

As far as I know (I could be wrong), the only difference between the right and left shifters is the printing of the numbers on the shifter.  If I was considering making this change for a temporary measure to last a few months, I would not worry about the printing.  Or I would put some tape over the numbers and write the correct numbers on the tape if I really wanted to read the numbers.

If both outer housing cables are exactly the same length, then the two inner cables should be exactly the same length too.  And if you use this bike for touring where you might want to carry a spare cable, that would be a good time to cut a third inner cable to that same exact length to keep as a spare.  And of course labeling the spare so it does not get mixed up with others.

I am in USA, the norm here is rear brake on right side, front brake on left.  My light touring bike (derailleur, not Rohloff) has a disc brake on rear, rim brake on front.  When slowing to a stop, I was usually downshifting the rear derailleur (right hand) and braking with the left hand (front brake).

Several months ago, I switched my brake cables on that bike so that my rear brake is on the left side instead.  I made this change because I would rather wear out disc brake pads than the front rim. 

My point is that you can easily change brake cables and skip buying a shifter.

I think I have installed cables three times, and I think twice I had to take it apart and switch cables when I got them the wrong way.

I agree with Worldtourer about the Rohloff video. I have my iPad close to hand and lose count of the number of times I re-run the vid to check the process!

You might find an earlier discussion on this forum at the following link helpful also.

newbie introduction and Shifter cable advice- does this suggestion make sense?