bikemig 

@robow's point was pretty good (we learn and sometimes overlearn from experience).

Back on topic, I picked up a 2009 fuji touring bike recently; it weighs in right around 30 lbs (with racks and water bottle cages) which is a bit portly I think for a touring bike. Still it rides well and that is what matters most.

Happy Feet

Of course, with hind sight, no accidents would ever occur. The thing that gets you is often the thing you don't expect. I once had my handlebars fall off of my 80's mtb when the welds failed, this being the old triangular tubular steel one piece flat bar stem combo style. Who would anticipate that. I am usually good about avoiding road debris (to avoid flats) but this last trip I rode over what I thought was a brown leaf only to find it was a jagged piece of rusty sheet metal (cringe). But the point about maintenance going a long way to prevent failures is true enough, most of the time.

The chain issue was a matter of a neglected part, or rather, an unsuspected weakness. Of course a new chain, new rims, new derailer etc.. would probably fail less often but I was using my older Maruishi by choice and the chain had small metal fractures I noted later in the links. The good part was that I had the tool and the experience to deal with it.

robow

Not portly at all, many modern touring bikes with racks will weigh in at more than 30 lbs and most vintage tourers almost surely will.

mdilthey

spits wine


Oh, oh.

Carbonfiberboy 

For a couple with 2 singles, you'd have to add back in the weight of another rack and pair of panniers, maybe 5 lbs for light gear. Wind resistance goes up though, fun goes down. Should be possible to field 18 lb. naked singles.

mdilthey

We're still talking about bikes....?

Happy Feet

two single unicycles sharing a central drive train too...

spectastic

tandems are so ****ing cool.

spectastic

when i get back, I'm going to take apart the bike again so weigh the damn frame, compare the steel with the carbon, and get to the bottom of thiis. nice thing about alfine 8 is it's so simple. wheels, handlebar/stem, saddle, crankset/bb and you're done. also, none of that internal cable routing bullcrap. i don't even have to use the cable guides, just one long housing secured with zip tiies that go on and off lickity split.. would be super awesome to travel with.. like super duper

tmac100

When I had Arvon1 built in 2005-6 I wanted an expedition-grade bicycle that would be reliable and easily repaired. It weighs 40 lbs empty (front and rear racks included). The frame is steel (S&S connectors) and the 26" wheels are on 48-spoke PWs. Only thing bad was a screw that came out of one of the RD wheels and it was trashed - necessitating a 700 km hitch-hike to the nearest BS in Katherine, NT.

Otherwise it has done 3 Australian outback tours of 2000+ km and of 1+ month duration. It is a KISS bike. Better to have the extras and not need them than to "need" the extras and not have them!

Arvon Cycles "Expedition Grade" Touring Bike with S and S Couplings

Tourist in MSN

Outstanding comment.

Just curious, is that a cartridge bottom bracket or cup & cone style?

Doug64

Pete,
I tend to agree with your statement. However, I do believe that doing or not doing something where there are no significant consequences is not being risk tolerant. Now, what is a "significant" consequence?

tmac100

PW BB that I bought used on ebay - to replace the original Shimano that had issues when a bo-zo LBS used Shimano and Truvalev parts together when putting the original BB together which caused some play between the square taper "shaft" and the locking (screw-in) ring.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks. I have cartridge in my expedition bike but I have toyed with the idea of a cup and cone version. While the chance of contaminants getting in cup and cone increases compared to cartridge, the ability to clean it out and lube it with almost anything including cooking oil has its merits too.

Rowan

If you want super-simple in transmission and lighter weight as a consequence, go single speed or fixed gear (the latter, I have for touring in Europe).

There is almost nothing that can go wrong with a well-thought-out set-up, especially if you use 7-8sp chain decent chainring and good quality hub, freewheel or cog* and BB.

Gearing is a factor, of course, for the terrain to be traversed, but there are even ways around that which are "weight-efficient".

My fixed gear is a lugged steel framed Shogun 400, which by itself is no lightweight. But I weighed it recently with steel Brooks B17, rear Topeak rack, fenders, bottle cages, stock steel crankset, Velocity Aero rims, 7sp chain, a SON dynohub, and Specialized All-Weather 25C tyres, and it's 12.6kg, or 27.2lbs. It is the sweetest-riding bike I have.

* This is essential, as a poor-quality pressed-steel cog will almost inevitably destroy an alloy fixed-gear hub, as I found out once, but fortunately, not on tour (but towards the end of a century).

djb

I dunno, haven messed around with cup and cone bbs for years, the already ancient yet super reliable sealed bb units work so much better, or have the ones I have had. A very good quality shiimano un-whatever will go and go and go, without any maintenance. I once had to remove one to figure out a creak and cleaning the threads, slathering in some grease and putting it back in was all it needed, and that was after at least 10 years of fairly regular use, at least 20,000 km.

Rowan

The sealed higher-spec Shimano BBs I have used have always given great service, and certainly I haven't had to worry at all about servicing every couple of thousand miles like I would be cup-and-cone (which I have on my fixed gear).

I recently disassembled a sealed BB as an emergency exercise for Machka's MTB -- I wasn't prepared to put new stuff on it until I knew she was going to use the bike (which she is).

I wanted see what I could do about regreasing the sealed bearings. Well, I found that the bearings slid off the spindle press-fit and were just the same as any off-the-shelf sealed bearing that you could get at any store that deals with bearings.

I didn't go that route, instead I pulled out the seals and cleaned and repacked the bearings, and reassembled the BB.

But I have noted for future reference the option of getting good quality sealed bearings for much less and slipping them back on the same spindle.

I'll just add that:

1. This is the sealed BB cartridge with square taper or Octalink.

2. This might become a real option in the future as replacement square taper and Octalink BB cartridges might become more difficult to locate.

spectastic

nah, I will gladly pay 3-4 extra lbs to have multiple gears. this new bike I built has horizontal dropout, so no more tensioner. i imagine it will ride almost as well as a ss.

mdilthey

I'm nearly done, and then I will certainly post about it here, converting my mountain bike to a 2-speed transmission.

Simple SS cog in the back, a Paul Melvin chain tensioner, A 22-36 crankset in front, and a front derailleur. Simple, elegant, versatile, indestructible (hopefully).

bikemig 

Looking forward to seeing this. I've been thinking of picking up a SA 2 speed kickback hub; a 1 x 2 sounds good for commuting.

Rowan

Flip flop hubs can achieve something similar, or at least provide a coasting cog if running fixed. But as you say, there are options that are simple, elegant and versatile to create weight-savings. Vertical dropouts have complicated things slightly, but no more so than trying to get a rear hub nicely lined up and tightened in horizontal ones. The chain tensioner is key in your case because of the tooth difference on the rings and the resulting chain length issues (you know this, and I'm just pointing it out for the curious )

I could say you could have dispensed with the derailleur (and shifter?) and made the required gear change by hand... or foot.

Tourist in MSN

Thanks for posting.

mdilthey

Simple, yes, but still, if there was a potential issue, I ran into it. I'm still running into issues. The bike is a Surly Karate Monkey, an older one with horizontal rear-facing dropouts and a derailleur hanger integrated into the frame (not an MDS chip).


Stage 1: I removed my rear derailleur and rear shifter. Had to cut off my old grips, because ESI Chunky grips are stiff as hell after they go on.

Stage 2: I removed my cassette and replaced it with a Surly spacer kit and a Surly 17T cog.

Stage 3: I removed the C-clip from the Paul Melvin and removed a spacer from the inner side, and lined it up with the cog.

Stage 4: I alternated removing/replacing spacers from the Paul Melvin and removing/replacing Surly spacers from the cassette body until I get the chainline approximately lined up. Takes me several tries.

Stage 5: I broke down a 9-speed chain to approximately the right length (2 links short of max Melvin tension on the big ring).

Stage 6: I go outside and test it. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Something's wrong.

Stage 7: I remove another link in the chain to increase the chain tension. Skip, skip, skip skip.

Stage 8: I move the cog one 2.5mm spacer closer to the dropout, trying to align the Melvin with the larger ring. Skip, skip, skip skip.

Stage 9: I switch from a 9-speed chain to an 8-speed chain, and adjust the chain length to match. Skip, skip, skip skip.

Stage 10: The best mechanic in the shop throws the bike in the stand for an hour. He backtracks everything that I did, looking for the skip. Three other mechanics all come to see if they can figure out the genesis point. Finally, under braking tension, they recreate it in the stand; under power, the edges of the individual links are occasionally catching on the squared profile of the Surly cog.

Stage 11: I slide the back wheel all the way into the back of my sliding dropout and tension the everliving daylights out of the QR skewer. This allows for another 3/4 inch of chain wrap after the chain comes off the top pulley of the Melvin, before the chain hits the cog. Skip, skip, skip skip.

Stage 12: We gut a 16T cog from an old 9sp cassette, throw it in with an extra Surly spacer, tighten the lockring, throw it into the dropouts, reconnect the chain, and BOOM. No skip. Proof of concept.

Stage 13 (To Be Continued): My crankset is worn down, so that needs replacing. North Shore Billet in Canada makes a custom spider for the X9 crank that switches the chainring BCD from 80/120 to 64/104 (standard BCD) so I have a bit more freedom in the rings I order. I got a 22 and a 36.

I also ordered a new 17T cog from Wolf Tooth Components, hoping it won't have the same tooth profile as the Surly cog, letting me run a real cog instead of a cassette cog, which will wear out a lot faster and negate some of the durability reasons for giving life to this frankenbike. We'll see how it goes, I'll drink a beer and mess with it on Tuesday, and then take some pictures and write a blog post that sounds something like this forum post.

mdilthey

Oh, also...

I would have gone with a flip-flop hub, but I didn't want to rebuild my rear wheel. I also considered removing my front derailleur but the X9 front derailleur has a pretty stellar reputation for reliability, so I figured I'd just leave it on there. It's also a chain-catcher, anyways.

The chain tensioner is also a work of art, really a beautiful component; at least half of my motivation for this project is just to take advantage of something so elegant existing in the bike world. It seems a crime not to try.

Rowan

I am presuming you are using a spacer kit and cog designed to go on a standard freehub for the project. Again, for the curious.