Great New Forum and looking forward to-->>

[Istanbul_Tea]

placing my order soon for my eXp!!

Thanks again Robin for the call and all the help, I appreciate it!!

Cheers!!  []

[Istanbul_Tea]

Can I get some Love in this thread?!?!

PS. You Thorn folks need to be thinking about opening up a sister location here in the States... lots of folks interested in touring here plus, we need(cyclists in the States)to see how great touring is from a British perspective... the history, adventure and fun.

[Istanbul_Tea]

[[[[[[echo]]]]]]]]

[Chris Land]

Is a bit quiet in here isn't it?  I keep checking (for now) but...

I guess that these things need a critical mass to get going.

[Istanbul_Tea]

Perhaps it will pick up when I take delivery of my new Thorn eXp in early 2004!!  

[James]

You will need to change your comments to spark a reaction, so what gearing have you chosen to use on the new bike and why?

[Cephas]

quote:Originally posted by Istanbul_Tea

\
PS. You Thorn folks need to be thinking about opening up a sister location here in the States... lots of folks interested in touring here plus, we need(cyclists in the States)to see how great touring is from a British perspective... the history, adventure and fun.

Or at least have someone like Sheldon Brown/Harris Cyclery stock Thorn frames.
"If its not British, its cr@p!"

[Istanbul_Tea]

22/32/44 for the amount of weight I'll be hauling.  Going to be fully loaded, self-supported touring for 5 years.

[Chris Land]

quote:Originally posted by Istanbul_Tea

22/32/44 for the amount of weight I'll be hauling.  Going to be fully loaded, self-supported touring for 5 years.

Got the same on my Nomad up front.  Works pretty well and with a large plate on the rear it deals with anything that you wouldn't need to walk-up anyway.

Am thinking about a trike for my 2 yr tour with family (leaving next Sept).  I was thinking that the stability might help if I have a kid as a stoker, and the gearing can go even lower as you don't fall over at low speeds...

Either that or a childback tandem from Thorn, but I am thinking trike at the moment, kind of like the first one on this page:
http://www.tandem-club.org.uk/nf2002/_kids.htm

[Istanbul_Tea]

Chris-

My wife and me will be touring with our 4 year old daughter.  At this point we'll be using a trailor that my wife will tow while I tow a trailor for just gear.

We just took delivery of the trailor last week and here's a pic of it with our daughter ready to go(note the swimming goggles... our daughter insisted on wearing them for the photo!!)

[Chris Land]

Brilliant!  We will be travelling with a 3 1/2 year old and an almost 2 year old.  The original plan was to pop them in a trailer (we've got something similar to yours) but some people who had toured with kids suggested getting a tandem as the kids can get bored, especially when older...

My original idea was to go with a childback tandem from Thorn as they suggested this would handle pretty much like a single when my older kid is tired and wants to go in the trailer with his little brother.  More recently people have suggested that a tandem trike will work better as it's more stable... Not sure at all now, but am tending towards the trike...

Of course, now my wife wants to stoke the trike and stick both kids in the trailer, so we're back to where we started.  We don't leave until Oct 2004 so plenty of time to sort things out.

What is your itinery (sp?)?

[Istanbul_Tea]

Chris-

Sounds like great ideas for your brood to travel.  Our thinking about the trailor was this-With the amount of time we're taking to tour-pace-and the amount of gear we're carrying anytime our daughter gets bored we can pretty much stop and let her run off some steam... we'll see how it all works!

Our plans right now are-

Tour to start in Fall of 2004.

Stage 1-Starting in Vermont to Maine and then the Adventure Cycling Northern Tier route of Maine to Washington state.

Stage 2-  Washington state to Alaska and then Western Canada all the way across to Newfoundland on the eastern-most coast.

Stage 3-  To Nova Scotia and down along the eastern seaboard to Virginia and then the Adventure Cycling Trans American route that sort of slices the USA in half all the way back to the west coast.

Stage 4-  Oregon(where the TransAm route ends)to Northern California south to Mexico, through Mexico and back up into Texas and along the southern Gulf states and then back up along the eastern seaboard.

Stage 5-  Fly to UK.  Explore the north of Britain... do the complete coasts of Ireland and Scotland.

Stage 6-  Come back into Britain and make our way to Wales.  From Wales go across the channel to France.

Stage 7-  France and Italy.

That's as far as we've gone and really everything from Stage 5 onward is very roughly sketched at this point.

[James]

That is quite an itinerary you have, how long are you planning to take for each section or are you just following the route and letting the time look after itself?

[Istanbul_Tea]

James-

Letting the time look after itself!  We have grown tired of time chasing after us... a change is called for!!