Touring - Setting up a racing bike for touring?

I'm new to this forum so go easy on me folks. I recently aquired a 2003 Raliegh International frame that I am now looking to outfit. I haven't seriously biked for twenty years but am looking to get back into it as a foot injury prevents most other kinds of exersize. My original thoughts were to set the bike up as a racing bike, but the more I think about riding in packs and broken collarbones, the less I think I'm interested in racing.

So I'm thinking of changing gears (ok, pun intentended) and setting this frame up more as a touring bike. The frame is Columbus Steel with a carbon fork. I don't even know if it will take the wider tires associated with touring, but I'm hoping it will.

Assuming I go this route, what would you all suggest as far as handlebars, wheelsets, derailurres, etc.? Is this a stupid idea? I have the frame, but could sell it on ebay and just go buy a Trek 500. On the other hand, it is a beautifull frame and I'd like to set it up for touring if possible. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

What kind of touring are we talking here? Self-supported? Semi-supported? Fully-supported? Credit-card touring? If you plan on doing fully/semi-supported credit-card touring then you will be fine with keeping the bike the way it is as you probably won't have to carry much with you.

With a trailer, almost anything goes now, in terms of type of bike to use touring?

With a trailer, almost anything goes now, in terms of type of bike to use touring?

How do trailers handle steep downhills? Especially hard braking... will it want to try and swap ends with you?

How do trailers handle steep downhills? Especially hard braking... will it want to try and swap ends with you?

I have toured with both panniers and a bob yak trailer . . They both have their advantages. As far as hard braking goes, I never noticed bad sway, but a slight fishtailing effect, and an unexpected "push". This on a very steep hill and my max speed almost 40mph. Braking distance I believe would be about the same as loaded touring, maybe slightly longer, because the trailer weighs a tad more than panniers. Its a slightly different feel with the trailer however. And as I have said before, the more you put in a trailer, the harder the bike is to keep upright at low speed. But as far as going out for a few days, I would agree that any bike/trailer with the proper gearing for the terrain would suffice. I much prefer panniers for road touring to the bob, but refuse to sell it, because there are times, when I go camping in the mountains that the bob is much better and I can carry more, than I could with rear panniers only. As far as my opinion goes, that is when the bob really shines! Off road!

40 mph with a yak? Holy Christ, man!



There are some weird forces with the yak, but so long as you're aware its there its nothing you can't adapt to. Just make sure you've got strong enough brakes.


Cheers...


Matt B.

I guess I have to tell my "My trailer tried to kill me" story again, the short version... b.o.b. trailer, fairly heavily loaded, going downhill, about 25-30 mph, the trailer started to fishtail, the oscillations got bigger and bigger, and I ended up over the bars... or at least that's what the witnesses told me.

YMMV. I'm pretty small and the trailer was pretty heavy, that might have been a factor.

anna

I'm new to this forum so go easy on me folks. I recently aquired a 2003 Raliegh International frame that I am now looking to outfit. I haven't seriously biked for twenty years but am looking to get back into it as a foot injury prevents most other kinds of exersize. My original thoughts were to set the bike up as a racing bike, but the more I think about riding in packs and broken collarbones, the less I think I'm interested in racing.

So I'm thinking of changing gears (ok, pun intentended) and setting this frame up more as a touring bike. The frame is Columbus Steel with a carbon fork. I don't even know if it will take the wider tires associated with touring, but I'm hoping it will.

Assuming I go this route, what would you all suggest as far as handlebars, wheelsets, derailurres, etc.? Is this a stupid idea? I have the frame, but could sell it on ebay and just go buy a Trek 500. On the other hand, it is a beautifull frame and I'd like to set it up for touring if possible. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

If you look around a bit, you'll find links to discussions of a book entitled Journey to the Center of the Earth (or something like that). It's about some young Brits who rode vast distances in Asia and the Indian sub-continent on racing bikes.

My point is that you can tour on just about any kind of bike, if it is comfortable for you. A touring or light touring bike, however, is designed to ride well (and safely) with a load. So if you are going to Mongolia or rural Argentina, you'd probably want a steel bike with a steel fork and a touring geometry -- plus drop bars to give you a number of different riding positions. For just about anything else, your set up seems alright, if YOU like it.

Both of these last two posts bring up great points. First is that for touring, comfort is key by far. Spending 40+ hours a week on a bike will amplify every nuance of the fit, so if you already have a frame that you know you can do the hours on, stick with it. There are benefits to steel, to the long stays, etc, but these only really become important in very remote areas.


The other point about the Bob trailer is good, about the weight distribution. The yak is rated to hold 70 pounds, which means it can probably safely *hold* 80. However, at this point you've got two very heavy loosely connected objects, and that can mean danger time when your momentum gets up there. i.e., the weight of a 190 lb rider will easily stabalize a 40 lb tow cargo, while a 120 lb rider towing 75 lbs (including the yak's 12 or so lbs) might have much more difficulty bearing down hills.


For starters I'd say get the thickest tire you can fit under that carbon fork with a fender. Conti Top Touring 2000s are great and you'll find a number of posts saying so around if you look-- I'm on 28s right now and I think they might be on the skinnier side of good touring size.


And brakes, brakes. Just make sure they've got the power to stop you and your cargo. Its weird, to me it seems to take a lot less effort to get things moving forward than I would have suspected, but much more braking power (and distance) to get those same things to stop in a hurry.


Cheers...

Matt

I'm new to this forum so go easy on me folks. I recently aquired a 2003 Raliegh International frame that I am now looking to outfit. I haven't seriously biked for twenty years but am looking to get back into it as a foot injury prevents most other kinds of exersize. My original thoughts were to set the bike up as a racing bike, but the more I think about riding in packs and broken collarbones, the less I think I'm interested in racing.

So I'm thinking of changing gears (ok, pun intentended) and setting this frame up more as a touring bike. The frame is Columbus Steel with a carbon fork. I don't even know if it will take the wider tires associated with touring, but I'm hoping it will.

Assuming I go this route, what would you all suggest as far as handlebars, wheelsets, derailurres, etc.? Is this a stupid idea? I have the frame, but could sell it on ebay and just go buy a Trek 500. On the other hand, it is a beautifull frame and I'd like to set it up for touring if possible. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

I'm doing a credit card tour in June. Lemond Maillot Jaune (steel frame) with Campy record 10. I've got the Topeak seat post rack with the bag. Camelbak Mule for water and a little extra room. I will also be putting a small Jandd handlebar bag on.

The only thing that I'm changing is replacing the 23's with 25's.

If you are going light, then build up the racing bike and have fun.

Is it a stupid idea? Heck no!...Crazy? Maybe...

FWIW, we met this guy on a ride last year. He's a Cascade Bicycle Club ride guide and was prepping for a ride by scoping out routes. As I recall, that's a Trek 1200 hiding under all that gear.

http://www.neebu.net/~khuon/albums/kitsap_penn-20030824/PICT0050.jpg

What kind of touring are we talking here? Self-supported? Semi-supported? Fully-supported? Credit-card touring? If you plan on doing fully/semi-supported credit-card touring then you will be fine with keeping the bike the way it is as you probably won't have to carry much with you.

It will be credit card touring mostly. I don't expect to carry much weight. I was more concerned with configuring the bike so that it is comfortable for long rides realizing I will be sacrificing speed.

It will be credit card touring mostly. I don't expect to carry much weight. I was more concerned with configuring the bike so that it is comfortable for long rides realizing I will be sacrificing speed.

You can probably get away without any modifications at all. Click on my link for my roadbike in my signature. I use that configuration for supported credit card touring and it works out fine. Of course everyone's different...

Don't know if that frame has eyelets, but if not you could use a different fork w/ eyelets when you want to tour and just run a front rack and panniers if you are travelling light, maybe a fork from Tange or Surly. The bike handles better and has better weight distribution with the load up front if you are only going to run one rack anyway, and you would not have problems with heel/pannier clearance

IF you want to attach panniers and you probably don't have eyelets for that you still can do it by buying a special bracket the wraps around the rear stays and the bracket has the eyelits; see: http://www.jandd.com/search_results.asp?txtsearchParamTxt=&txtsearchParamCat=3&txtsearchParamType=ALL&txtsearchParamMan=ALL&txtsearchParamVen=ALL&txtFromSearch=fromSearch&iLevel=2&subcat=13

Scan down towards the bottom untill you find the FCLAMP which is shape sort of like a U.

Road bikes on long tours can be less comfortable then a touring bike, but you can compensate for some of that by putting on larger tires (700x26 or maybe 28), they handle loads better but they also ride smoother and last longer; find some clip on fenders that will fit with the larger tires and clear the brake calipers at the same time, this would help with water spray; a suspension seatpost would take some of the edge off the bumps that a racing frame would transmit harsher then a touring frame would.

I use to credit card tour (actually Travellers Check tour) on mine (before I had family commentments!), and all I did was put on the larger tires; attached a handlebar bag and went. I didn't care about the water spray because I was young and stupid? But I could put all I needed into the handlebar bag while my tools, patch kit, spare tire and tube, was in the seat bag.

Road bikes on long tours can be less comfortable then a touring bike

I often wondered about such statements. I can ride all day long on my roadbike (and have) that's set up primarily for "performance". I didn't want to say "race" as I don't race. Assuming the frame will hold up, would bigger tyres (I'm running 700x23), longer wheelbases and slacker angles really make the bike much more comfortable? I'm running narrow tyres, stiff wheels, stiff but vibration-absorbing frame and I still can't see my riding getting much more comfortable than it is.