How much can you really carry on a bike?

[horizon]

You may be surprised at how much you can comfortably carry...even over mountain
ranges...when you get used to it...as long as you have sensibly low gears.
You may also be surprised at how much you need to carry, if you want to get right off the beaten track, or if you want (or need!) a wide variety of clothing. Imagine what it would be like to carry a week or 10 days’ shopping and clean clothing, your camping kit and your winter clothes...now imagine adding several days’ requirement of water.

I suggest that the Nomad Mk2 will cope with more weight than your legs will. I also suggest that, whilst it will cope with over 55Kg, it is at its best with a total load of around 35Kg. You really don’t need a trailer, not even for desert crossings.

I've copied this from the Nomad PDF. Most websites and forums discuss how to reduce weight on a bike so rarely talk about what might be a realistic maximum. So, allowing for a strong frame, wheels and racks and the lowest gear that still allows you to pedal (about 17" as far as I know), how much can you load on the bike before it is really impossible to cycle (or even walk) up hills? Thorn suggests 55 kg is possible on a Nomad but while the bike might take it, can you? My own comfortable limit is about 25 kg but I would like to know what people have managed.

[Danneaux]

Well...

I don't always load my Nomad to the maximum, but do occasionally for desert tours where I sometimes must pack 26.5l of water along with enough food for solo, self-supported travel. On those occasions my Nomad Mk2 (which weighs 20kg unladen) can weigh as much as 68kg, so...

20.0kg bare bike weight (dry)
plus
26.5kg water (two 1l bottles on the steerer, three 1.5l bottles in frame cages, two MSR Dromedary 10l bladders)
plus
21.5kg for my panniers and hb bag, clothing, tools, tent, sleeping bag and pad, and food.
equals
68kg total

Then...add my own 78kg and the bike is carrying 68+78kg or 146kg/321lb.

My gearing is 36x17, so that gives me a low of about 15 gear-inches, which I can pedal at about 85-110/120rpm. I have found I can winch the lot up 8% grades pretty handily and the occasional 10% reasonably well with this load. It is slow, but I get there. As the water stores are depleted (8.5l/day for drinking alone, a bit more for cooking) it gets lighter pretty quickly. My food stores also lighten the load as they are used, but not so much as the water...I mostly use dehydrated food and a few tins. With lesser/more common touring loads, I have climbed 18%-21% grades and get off and push on steeper grades than that.

Photos of some terrain and grades typical for me when I tour in the deserts of America's Great Basin. On the first photo, you can just see the path I will take on the upper right, next to the dome. Second photo shows the state of the road required to get there. Scroll sideways to catch all the third panorama shot. Last photo shows one of my typical desert/dry lake crossings, in this case Nevada's Black Rock Desert, a favorite venue for land-speed records. I do not go quite so fast as that.

Best,

Dan.

[horizon]

That's great Danneaux. It looks like you carry about the same weight as I do (around 22 kg) and then you add the water. We don't need the water here in sunny England but it hints that it might be possible to take a warmer sleeping bag and larger tent and maybe 30 kg luggage would be really OK.

[j-ms]

I think it depends on how big you are as well, dependent on things like VO2Max, lactate threshold and BMI.  I am a little guy - about 56 Kgs - and carry very little fat .  My bike (Raven) weighs about 17 Kg and I load about 25Kg on it before water which adds about another 3Kg.  With 40/19 gearing which works out at 15", and this total load of 45 Kg I can do 10% climbs and have done over 16% without resorting to walking the bike.  But all of that is hard work and not something I want to do all day.  Anything much over 5% over a long distance just becomes a schlep.  On the flats I don't think weight has much of an impact except when accelerating. 

I guess that bigger riders with a similar body shape should be able to carry proportionally more weight but I am not sure this assumption holds if you are a bigger rider who has a less advantageous BMI.

[j-ms]

the lowest gear that still allows you to pedal (about 17" as far as I know),

At 60 rpm on my 40/19 combo (15.3 inches) in the lowest gear I am doing 4.4 Km/H and I find that I am still stable so long as I don't have to take evasive action.

[jags]

bikepacker said a very interesting thing to me when i was trying to figure out what weight to put on the Audax.i was worried i'd overload it break the frame .
he said he never came across a steel frame  that wouldn't take a couple loaded panniers and a tent.
he was right .these thorn bikes are seriously well made ,mind you i keep everything as light as possible no point in killing a fella 

anto.

[RST Scout]

Dan, You are a glutton for punishment. You have my respect.

But I'm with j-ms, I'm under 5 ft and only weigh 48Kg. My panniers weigh in excess of 25Kg and I pull an 11Kg trailer with hefty dog. Are there any other ladies in this forum and what do they carry as I think I'm way overloaded. I don't have to carry much water, just 1 bottle for me and 1 for Hamish. If I can't stop for a cup of tea every couple of hours, I don't want to know

Janet

[Bill C]

lol you lot are flyweights
my sherpa has to carry me and i'm getting on around 95/100kilo's in socks
no wonder i struggle up the hills when i'm fully loaded 

[mickeg]

I am guessing that I had over 100 pounds (~~45 kg) on my Nomad (excluding my own weight) at the start of my Iceland trip, I had nearly two weeks of food on the bike.  See photo.  It is not a very good photo, but it is the only one I have where the extra overflow drybag between my Ortlieb duffle and seatpost was still close to full.  That dry bag and the Orlieb duffle were almost exclusively food.

Oops, add three more kg for water in the three liter sized bottles.

Before that trip I had frequently commented that my Nomad was much heavier than I liked.  But the Nomad Mk II performed so well with that load that I no longer complain about the weight of the bike.  I might say that it is a heavy bike, but when I say that it is not  a complaint, it is more a statement of fact.

Regarding body weight, you can put a very heavy person on a bike and still have a good riding nearly shimmy free ride.  But a bike with too flexible of a frame will feel like a wet noodle when you put weight on the racks.

the lowest gear that still allows you to pedal (about 17" as far as I know),

At 60 rpm on my 40/19 combo (15.3 inches) in the lowest gear I am doing 4.4 Km/H and I find that I am still stable so long as I don't have to take evasive action.

I need a cadence of about 72 or more to have a smooth pedal stroke.  When I built up my Nomad I rode a different bike up a steep hill several times and tried to assess what minimum speed I needed to maintain vertical and directional stability, I concluded that I needed 3.5 mph (5.6 km/hr).  From that I calculated that I should have a 36T chainring with my 16T sprocket, that assumed the wheel diameter for 559X57mm Marathon Extreme tire.  That is 16.5 gear inches.  Some hills I have to pedal at a slower cadence than 72, but I do not like to do that because I find that it is harder to go in a straight line.

Some people on this board want a lower gear than that, but if I had a lower gear it would not get used because I can't maintain stability that slowly.

[StillOld]

lol you lot are flyweights
my sherpa has to carry me and i'm getting on around 95/100kilo's in socks
no wonder i struggle up the hills when i'm fully loaded 

Same here...I wish I was lighter and fitter and could cycle like Chris Froome. However I have had to settle for a just under 100 kgs starting weight and finish higher due to eating too much cake. Maybe I should pedal in the desert more.....

[Danneaux]

That's great Danneaux. It looks like you carry about the same weight as I do (around 22 kg) and then you add the water. We don't need the water here in sunny England but it hints that it might be possible to take a warmer sleeping bag and larger tent and maybe 30 kg luggage would be really OK.

<nods> I think so, Horizon, provided the bike's frame is sturdy enough to take the weight without it compromising the handling too much. My Nomad rides very well with lesser loads, but requires "care" at the maximums I listed earlier. By that, I mean it is less responsive and feels less stable than with lesser weights -- a reasonable outcome. In comparison to my earlier expedition bikes with smaller diameter tubing, it has a much higher payload and feels more stable even with the greater cargo load.

Properly distributed and with a sturdy frame, bikes can carry enormous loads, as if often the case with working cargo bikes in much of Asia.

George (mickeg) is right: The Nomad is a heavy bike, or as I describe it, "a lot of bike". This is not a detriment as it makes it fit for the intended purpose. If you don't need the ultimately greater cargo capacity it provides, then a Raven might be a better choice as it weighs less -- but at the cost of a lower cargo rating. The only shortcoming I found to my Nomad (aside from the extra weight) is the sturdy construction made the bike too stiff to ride comfortably unladen on rough logging roads. Substituting a Thudbuster LT suspension seatpost completely addressed that for me and now the bike is great in all circumstances. I find I often ride it for 200km day rides, but that has been the max/day so far, partly because I am tempted to go off pavement with it to explore the many slower tracks and trails and gravel roads where it does better than the randonneur bikes I otherwise use for longer (300-400km) day rides.

For reference, my Nomad weighs 20kg dry kitted out as it is. In comparison, my 26in-wheeled touring tandem weighs 20.86kg...and it can carry two people. When my Dutch pal came over to tour with me on it, we (bike, loaded panniers and 56.7kg/125lb trailer, plus both of us) weighed 272kg/600lb. The bike did fine...even the wheels gave no problem when used on rough gravel. I wouldn't have wanted to carry much more, but it was his first real bike-camping experience and he wanted to take *everything*, so we did...even his heavy Dutch Army tank driver's boots, for off-bike trail hiking. We had fun.

Best,

Dan.

[Bill C]

lol you lot are flyweights
my sherpa has to carry me and i'm getting on around 95/100kilo's in socks
no wonder i struggle up the hills when i'm fully loaded 

Same here...I wish I was lighter and fitter and could cycle like Chris Froome. However I have had to settle for a just under 100 kgs starting weight and finish higher due to eating too much cake. Maybe I should pedal in the desert more.....

100k starting weight you lucky bugger,
i'm only 98k cos i already lost a fair few, still you can't be a big lad and weigh nowt
I did get down to 85 but it was a constant battle had a 30" waist back then but it wasn't worth the starvation and amount of exercise it took to maitain it 

[Danneaux]

Are there any other ladies in this forum and what do they carry as I think I'm way overloaded.

I suspect you may be carrying more than you need, Janet, but if it is what you want, then it is fine so long as you can pedal the lot. Of course, carrying less weight makes cycling more enjoyable and makes a big difference when lifting the bike on/off trains.

I'm happy to ask my sister what she carries if you'd like and then PM you. Except for a very few items specific to her needs, her packing tends to mirror my own. She does not go solo, but rides with me on the tandem. *That* is a real challenge -- carrying two peoples' worth of items on one bike! We do share things like tools, stove/cooking gear, food/water and some toiletries, but the personal items must each fit in a smaller space. We also each take our own sleep system (sleeping bag, mats, and 1-person tents). If we are to be out for awhile, then the trailer is really necessary for carrying our food/spare water stores, freeing up space in the panniers for our own "stuff". Our rain gear is similar: Jackets with stowable hoods, rain pants, shoe covers, and waterproof gloves.

She tends to wear clothing that can work both on and off the bike. This includes more yoga-wear oriented clothing items (i.e. leggings and tops, now de regueur casual wear on this side of the Pond), though she has become addicted to the rear pockets on dedicated cycling jerseys and will not ride without her lycra cycling shorts underneath. As for me, much of what she takes depends on the season and trip duration/laundry availability.

For reference in regard to clothing items, I made my four-month European double-crossing wearing a base of helmet, buff, jersey, cycling shorts, cycling gloves, socks, and SPD cycling shoes.

I carried my rain gear, a  longsleeve and short sleeve jersey, 2 pairs of quarter-socks, a pair of riding shorts, a pair of lycra full length cycling tights, a pair of 3/4 cycling tights, uncoated lightweight wind jacket, lightweight fleece pullover, and longsleeve wool jersey. For off-bike use, I took a single pair of lightweight nylon cargo pants with zip-off legs and an air-weave synthetic t-shirt. I wore my SPD cycling shoes as my only shoes throughout an dhad no problem walking as much as 21km/13mi/day in them when sightseeing. Coldest temperatures were at the beginning and end, when temps dropped to 3.3C/38F. I used the 3/4 cycling tights and wind jacket the most of my carried garments. My rain clothing is not superlight nor heavyweight, just a sort of medium weight that is durable but very packable and reasonably light.

All the best,

Dan.

[RST Scout]

Hi Dan,
Don't bother Denise about it. I was merely interested in weight carried. I mind that we have discussed clothing before. I think I just need to go for it   I'm sure Scout can manage.

Janet

[RST Scout]

George,

I do like your set-up - neat and tidy. What size is your Ortleib RackPack? I ordered a 31L and got a 49L Not sure whether to send it back or not. Its on the top of Hamish's doggie trailer at the moment.

Janet