Touring - Help, Safari owners

I just bought an '05 Novara Safari so I could do dirt road touring here in Arizona. I tried putting the kickstand from my 520 on (before I bought a kickstand) but it doesn't work because of the odd configuration that the Safari has where the the seat stays and chain stays come together. The kickstand clamps to the chainstay and has a support arm that clamps to the seatstay so it doesn't rotate. This upper clamp point doesn't come near the seatstay.

I am under the impression that a kickstand near the rear axle is essential when the bike is loaded.

Certainly someone has surmounted this problem. What's your solution?

Anyone got any first hand experience with one of these?

http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/esge2leg.html

I've seen one in action (briefly) - it looked like it worked great. I would like to get one, but haven't had $50 in the kickstand budget yet.

An ESGE kickstand is excellent and even works on dirt roads, but the Safari would need that little sweet spot behind the bottom bracket to fit an ESGE, it has a pretty standard kickstand clamp.

I have an 05 Safari with an ESGE kickstand. I like the kickstand very much and am glad I had it on the bike for a three week tour I took this summer. It stablized the bike very nicely. However, since the kickstand does not spread out real wide, the bike ocassionally fell over when it was fully loaded and a gust of wind came by.

By the way, I didn't experience any difficulty attaching it to the bike.

Hey Paul, got any pics from that tour? I am curious to see your setup. Did you keep the factory rack or replace it? Keep the trekking handlebar or toss it?

Hey Paul, got any pics from that tour? I am curious to see your setup. Did you keep the factory rack or replace it? Keep the trekking handlebar or toss it?


Here’s a picture of my setup. I would have liked to have added a larger picture but the attachment feature only allows pictures below 100 KB.

I kept the factory rack and used Arkel hook kits and six gallon Rubbermaid buckets for panniers. They worked very well.

This tour was a family affair (wife and four children), so I used a cycletote trailer for the two four man tents. The trailer was a bit heavy, about 100 pounds fully loaded. It worked out well since we toured only on Wisconsin bike trails which are fairly level.

I liked the handlebars so I kept them, but they were too low. I added a stem riser and they were still too low so I flipped the handlebars over. Now the ends of the bars rose up instead of down. Perfect!! That is once I added new cables since the old ones were now too short. :D

If you look closely, you can see the ESGE kickstand which was effective most of the time in keeping the bike upright.

Funny you should mention flipping the handlebars. I just did that too. I am still trying to find the right position for those bars and everyday I get a little closer to putting on a flat bar. I could easily throw on the flat bar from my old mountain bike to try it out but like you mentioned the cables are too short so I would have to recable it just to do the experiment. That really irks me.

IMO shops sell bikes much too short. I bought the 21" frame and I am not having any trouble with bar height (although the bottom of the suspension post sits on the frame). After flipping the bars over, I turned the stem down a bit and the cahnge in angle helped the bars out a lot. The too short caling restricts how much I can rotate the bars to the stem, however. I want to rotate them a little more but can't without recabling. So far I am not too happy with the handlebars.

Anyone got any first hand experience with one of these?

http://www.phred.org/~josh/bike/esge2leg.html

Hello Vad -
1. I have that kickstand installed on my 2001 Safari and have toured with it for 2 years. It does not offer complete stability; however, I, also, like it because it helps a little with maintenance in that it gets the back wheel suspended. An REI bike manager special ordered it for me so that if it did not fit he was okay with taking it back. Would I do spend the $50 again? - Yes.
2. Regarding the handlebars, I have kept them as how it rolled out of the store; however, I added rooster tail 'type' handles to give me more ride position options....I think the brand was entitled "Profiles." They make a huge variety of shapes/designs.
3. Back in 2001 REI was still putting SoftRide Stems on the Safaris... you can maybe still get them from Softride; however they are only selling what is left in their inventory - quite making them cause front shocks killed their production numbers.... I bought an extra for $100 just cause I love it so much and was afraid the one I have might some day break.
Later.