Another reason to buy a Nomad/Sherpa?

[in4]

https://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/cycling-has-a-weight-problem-a-call-for-the-industry-to-be-more-transparent-about-its-weight-limits

Interesting and timely piece perhaps.

[PH]

I think riders of that weight would be better off on a Nomad, wider tyres, lower gears and more able to take the strain.  I think she's barking up the wrong tree when she says "This limitation excludes a substantial portion of the cycling community from accessing performance-oriented bikes." If someone weighs 140kg, the gains come from comfort, gears that you can use without the huffing and puffing, wheels and tyres that will smoothly carry you over anything.  Their cycling won't be the same as someone 50kg lighter, why would the bike?

[mickeg]

According to the USA govt data, I am right at the borderline of normal and overweight for my height at about 182 cm.  I weigh about 80 kg, but at that height if I was over 83kg, I would be classed as overweight.  But just about every bike out there could easily handle someone of this weight, or even 20 percent more than this weight.

I just do not see someone that weighs 300 pounds (~136kg) as needing a performance bike, for one thing a skinny tire bike with someone that heavy would have a lot of pinch flats.

I agree that weight limits should be more clearly stated, but the author of that piece was taking things a bit out of context in my opinion.

[in4]

Interesting topic this.
My BMI is 26.8 so I’m ‘overweight’ Curiously (for me) the online calculator asked for my ethnicity. I rather thought height and weight were data points that ethnicity had no bearing upon.
Back to the article. Perhaps the author was inferring that race-type bikes are not widely available for ‘sturdy people’ In that sense she’s probably correct and also stating the obvious. It’s not where the market is.
I emailed the author suggesting they take a look at Thorn’s Nomad and Sherpa range. I’m sure either bike would be an excellent choice for well built/heavier riders.

[mickeg]

I thought Sherpas were discontinued?

SJS web site lists two red and two black in stock.  Plus one of each are available built up.

[in4]

I thought Sherpas were discontinued?

SJS web site lists two red and two black in stock.  Plus one of each are available built up.

Probably correct. It says ‘limited availability’ on the Thorn website.

[UKTony]

Presumeably there’s no reason why the Raven, the Rohloff equivalent of the Sherpa, would not be fit for purpose as well? Though also discontinued, I believe, with very limited availability. But there’s always the second hand market. Used Ravens and Sherpas regularly turn up.

[PH]

Back to the article. Perhaps the author was inferring that race-type bikes are not widely available for ‘sturdy people’ In that sense she’s probably correct and also stating the obvious. It’s not where the market is.

It isn't so much the market, I see plenty of overweight people on road bikes, it's the physics.
I'm currently too heavy to ride my Mercury, so am riding the Nomad.  I find the Mercury a lively ride but a fair bit short of what would be considered a performance bike.  If I were to take it and have it redesigned to be capable of carrying a 140kg rider, I'd end up with a Nomad.  The complaint in the article isn't that there's no bikes for the overweight, but no performance oriented bikes, I don't know what such a bike would be or how it would benefit the non performance rider.  Bikes don't preform, the appropriate one will enable the rider to attain their optimum performance, but that isn't going to look like the same bike for everyone.  The author can do as they please, but IMO if they put aside the desire to look like they riding the same sort of bike as everyone else and instead looked at what would make the most appropriate bike for them, and their riding, they'd be better off.  I've been down this route, at my usual weight (95 - 100kg) I spent ten years riding Audax on an Audax bike, I went through three of them in that time before concluding I was better off on a different sort of bike.   
 

[PH]

Presumeably there’s no reason why the Raven, the Rohloff equivalent of the Sherpa, would not be fit for purpose as well? Though also discontinued, I believe, with very limited availability. But there’s always the second hand market. Used Ravens and Sherpas regularly turn up.

The Mk3 Nomad has replaced, the Sherpa, Raven and previous Nomad.  Possibly with some compromises, but in this context none I can think of which would matter. 
If I were the rider's weight and still wanted to retain some of the sports bike look, the Nomad Mk3 with drop bars, MTB derailleur gearing, 650B wheels and 50mm tyres would be my pick.  If I wasn't so concerned with that look, it would be same bike with straight bars and a Rohloff.

[Andre Jute]

The look is the fashion, the fashion is the look.

I have a bike, a Utopia Kranich (if you don't know what it looks like, try at http://coolmainpress.com/AndreJute'sUtopiaKranich.pdf), rated at 170 or 180kg (can't remember --  when you get that high, it doesn't matter which it is) not counting the fully trimmed bike itself, and actually capable of carrying it, as I have done on numerous occasions with heavy painting gear or a case of wine in each pannier. A very comfortable bike, and secure on its 60mm low-pressure balloons and long wheelbase on fast downhills. So weight per se isn't a problem on a properly designed and constructed bike. The same modernised design is built with cheaper tubes (the Kranich is made of custom Columbus tubes and is actually a lightweight for such a stiff frame) as a delivery bike by a Dutch firm called Workcycles.

However, if the rider is 140kg, I think there could be a rear bias to the bike's handling on the downhills. Seems to me that the Utopia's designer (re-designer, really, as the design was first made in 1935 as a tandem prototype and sold from 1936 as a single-rider bike) intended such an extraordinary load to be sensibly distributed about the bike.

The key word being "sensibly".

Automobile suspension design starts with the weight to be carried. I've always assumed that road bike designers are designing for a rider and his water bottle absolutely no heavier than 75kg.

From just looking at "racing" bikes in the LBSs, if I were 140kg, I'd give them a big miss for fear of a sharp pipe up a tender place.

[mickeg]

I consider my Nomad Mk II to be my heavy touring bike, my Sherpa to be my medium touring bike, and my titanium bike to be my light touring bike.

The Nomad Mk II was rated for about 60kg of luggage weight for my frame size, the Sherpa was rated at about 30 or 35kg.  So, the Nomad Mk II was rated for almost double the luggage weight as the Sherpa. 

When I took my Nomad Mk II on this road (first and second photos), I was really glad to have that bike instead of my others, I am quite certain that with my luggage weight that day, that I exceeded the weight rating for a Sherpa, but not the Nomad Mk II.

I have looked at the Nomad Mk III weight ratings (months ago), they were rated differently than the Nomad Mk II or Sherpa, so I was not sure if the Mk III is lighter duty than the Mk II Nomad or not.

On the topic of putting a 140kg rider on a super lightweight bike that a 70kg racer would ride, that makes no sense to me.  If you want to put double the weight on the bike, you should expect the bike to need to be twice as strong with twice the materials, thus roughly twice the bike weight.  And they should have wider tires to reduce the chance of a pinch flat.  And their rims will need to be strong enough to handle the extra air pressure in the tires.  Even their freehub pawls would need to be stronger.

The Co-Motion Americano touring bike made in USA is the only solo touring bike I am aware of that uses tandem wheels with 145mm rear dropout spacing to provide a non-dished rear wheel.  That is not a performance bike, but if I weighed 140 kg, I would probably buy that bike because that bike is built for a heavier load.

A decade ago I fitted a suspension fork to my Nomad Mk II and rode the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands.  A tour group operator provided the vehicle support to carry our gear, food, water, etc. for four days of camping.  The truck in the third photo was a Ford F350 Superduty truck for that purpose, fourth photo is an example of the road.  If they took a light duty pickup truck with an average weight rating on that road, they would have needed a really heavy duty tow truck to retrieve it.

Of the 10 bike riders on that White Rim trip, I was the only one that did not have a full suspension mountain bike.  I had owned my Nomad Mk II for only a year and wanted to see how it handled a rough road.  So I bought a suspension fork for it and I have to say I was quite happy with how the bike worked.  When I bought the Nomad Mk II frame, I did not anticipate ever wanting a suspension fork, so when this trip became a possibility, I was quite glad to have a frame that could handle a 100mm suspension fork without upsetting the geometry.