zeppinger

Hi all,

I am helping a friend get into touring for the first time. She is wanting to tackle the Pacific Coast after she irons out some gear issues on our upcoming weekend tours. However, until now she has been using a back pack and I have been carrying the rest. She wants to get some racks and panniers for her bike.

We are both located in South Korea where mini-velos are pretty popular. However, touring is not so I am having a hard time finding suitable front and rear racks for her bike. Also, a lot of the information I have been able to find is not in English

Do any of the folder or minivelo people around here know of a product that can help us?

Also, what else would you consider doing to upgrade this bike if you were going to take it on tour? I am hopeful that we can find a set of Korean made fenders that will fit but I am just starting to research. Do you think those wheels are up to the challenge?

I am thinking she is going to need to drop her gear ratios a bit but I am not certain how best to do this because the smaller size wheels throw off everything I know about bicycle gearing.

Thanks ahead of time for all of your help!

Here is a link to the bike. There are tons of pictures so just scroll down.

https://withvelo.tistory.com/95

rm -rf

From the photos, it appears you have 52 & 42 chainrings, and a 12-25 cassette (9 speed?) I think the wheels are 20 inch, with 1 1/4 inch tires?

So see Mike Sherman's Gear Calculator.
Choose your cassette from the pulldown list. Set the wheel size from it's list, and set the two chainring sizes.
Then you can see the speed ranges for different cadences.

The calculator shows:




Since the wheel is smaller than a road bike, but has the same chainring and cog sizes, it's slower for the same gear combination. So it should handle hills pretty well.

For instance, a road bike with a 34,50 and 12-25 would have a chart like this.

zeppinger

Thanks rm-rf thats great information and good news that we wont have to swap out any serious components.

Does anyone have any rack or fender suggestions for us? Please?

crimsonking

What about carradice bagman at rear and nitto minirack at front?

zeppinger

Good ideas. I was thinking about the nitto mini up front too. A min front rack would probably be fine but I think she wants to use panniers since she is doing the whole pacific coast route.

Pletcher makes some racks designed for 20 wheels that I think MIGHT work but I am not sure.

Any other suggestions?