George, I like the mix in your Lynskey: Trick Modern Frame Material harnessed to decades-old components which have proved their worth over time. Nicely done.
Cheers, John
Thanks.
Touring bike, I want reliability, robustness, easily repairable and easily replaceable parts. Thus the:
- 90s vintage XT derailleur,
- 8 speed cassette, 11/32 is a very common size,
- KMC eight speed chain,
- rear hub is an XT M756A,
- frame was disc only, went with TRP Spyre,
- I really like the old Campy triples,
- Origin8 cartridge internal bottom bracket, Campy taper,
- Campy front derailleur, the derailleur is for a double, shifts ok but not perfect.
- SP PV8 dynohub, after all it is a touring bike.
- Velocity Dyad rims, 36H rear and 32H front.
Lynskey wanted over $300 USD for the steel fork that went with that frame. But the specifications for the fork were almost a perfect match to a Long Haul Trucker fork, I had one of those in the basement. So I saved the money for the fork and set up the bike with V brake on front, disc on rear.
The rear hub has been in production for over a decade, quarter inch steel ball bearings, steel axle, I was pleasantly surprised to find that they were still in production, bought it as a new hub. For a load I want the big ball bearings and steel axle. And it only takes cone wrenches to fix it.
I liked the concept of the Spyre and I trusted that they knew what they were doing. At that time (spring 2017) everyone was saying a BB7 was best disc brake for touring, but now people seem to praise the Spyre more than the BB7. So, I appear to have gotten lucky with my choice.
I set it up with identical gearing as my Sherpa, except the Sherpa with 26 inch wheels is slightly lower geared.
I really like the looks of those older XT rear derailleurs, I have bought several used ones on Ebay and at swap meets. This year I put cartdridge bearing jockey wheels on it.
I have four bikes that take the same eight speed cassette, five that take the same eight speed chain. That helps simplify the spares shelf. The only flaw in my logic was that I bought some X series KMC chains, my Z series missing links do not fit so I needed to buy some proper sized missing links.
I want an internal bottom bracket, they appear to last longer than the external ones.
From a touring perspective, a Campy road triple crank probably does not make much sense, the odd BCD and different square taper means that if I had a problem, virtually no bike shop would have those parts in stock. But, that stuff is really reliable so I let my preference for the looks of the old Campy triple drive my decision.
I wanted 36 spoke front and rear, but nobody on planet earth had the 36H SP PV8 dynohub in stock at that time, I found a 32 spoke SP on sale, so I decided since this would be my light touring bike and the front carries much less of a load, I went for the 32 for front. If I recall correctly, 70s vintage Raleigh three speed bikes had more spokes on the rear than the front, so there was some precident for the concept of putting the spokes where the weight is.
I considered buying a disc hub even though the bike does not use disc in front, just from perspective of future proofing that wheel. But the disc version hub was not on sale and I was buying spokes in bags of 50, each hub flange had a different diameter on the disc hub and I did not want to have to buy two bags of spokes.
Initially I put a Brooks Pro on it, but I usually tour on a Brooks Conquest. Later I bought a road bike, moved the Pro to that and bought a new Conquest for the Lynskey.
It is a touring bike, so it is not as light as you might think. The rear wheel with tire and cassette weighs more than the frame. But it handles very nice, so I often ride it unladen.
A week and a half ago, I wanted to get some exercise in before a snow storm arrived here on the 11th, most of that ride would be on a gravel trail, so the Lynskey with 37mm wide tires was preferred over my rando bike with 32mm or the road bike with 28mm.
Thus, got a 72.5 mile (~~116 km) ride on the Lynskey that day. I got a late start, the sun set when I was 26 miles (42 km) from home. But I have a Luxos U on that bike, great light pattern. Even in the dark, the ride was quite pleasant.
Some of the parts you see in the picture came from SJS, I was surprised that some common parts like the rear hub and the Spyre brake were cheaper from SJS than if I had bought those parts on-line in in my home country USA, and that included the shipping cost from the UK.
