waddo

Hi all.

I have two questions.

1. I am riding LHT for daily life and touring. My wife has her eye on this:

FED ARAYA Federal?ARAYA Bicycle Procejt

I don't know much about bikes and components, so can any one offer some thoughts?

2. At present she is riding a Specialized with a 36 tooth gear cog. My LHT has 34. We need easy gears because we live in Japan and it is mountainous everywhere. I would like to know if there is a way to calculate the relative gears on different bikes. I am guessing it is a combination of large got on the back and small on the front. Is there some math we can do to compare two different bikes with different gear cassettes front and back?

Any help appreciated.

Waddo

NormanF

Nice bike!

Looks set up for touring. The downtube shifters make the bike look old school. Looks like a classic 1980s touring bike.

martianone

We need "easy beers" too.
Starting with wheel circumference, which according to Schwalbe site is 1990 mm.
So every turn of the wheel will transport you 1990 mm. Have three chain wheels on the crankset, smallest is 28 teeth. Have a cassette with eight different gearings, largest is 30 teeth. So the lowest gear combo would be 28/30, for every turn of crank - wheel would turn 0.93. You would move approx 1857 mm.
On the upper end, largest chain ring is 48 teeth and smallest cassette is 11 teeth, so each turn of the crank would turn the wheel 4.36 times, approx 8638 mm. You can set up a simple spreadsheet table that compares the relative gear ratios for each wheel size to see the distance a turn of the crank will propel the bike.

noglider 

In the US and UK, we describe gears in inches, calculating what the effective wheel size would be if we were riding an old fashioned high-wheel bike.

G = F / R * D, where

G is gear inches
F is number of teeth on front (chainwheel)
R is number of teeth on rear (cog)
D is diameter of wheel. If your wheel is 700c, use 27" as an approximation.

So if your bottom gear is 36 in front and 32 in rear and if you have 700c wheels:

G = F / R * 27
or
30 = 36 / 32 * 27

So you have a 30-inch gear.

That Araya bike looks excellent.

Note that you don't necessarily have to pedal up every hill. If a hill is too long or steep, you could walk your bike, at least part of the way. Years ago, bike gearing systems weren't as good as they are now. People walked when necessary.

I only saw one question in your post. What is your other question?

Doug64

Use:

Mike Sherman's Bicycle Gear Calculator

This will do the math for you.

That is a nice bike, but the gearing is not very low. The 28 small front and 30 large back will only give you a low gear of 23 I prefer something in the range of 17-19.

waddo

The first question was just thoughts on that bike. We have already done many bike camping tours and as a matter of pride prefer not to walk! It did happen once though. The bike she has now, Specialized Sirrus Comp has great gearing: CASSETTE SRAM PG-1030, 10-speed, 11-36t. But the carbon fibre fork is not durable and we are looking at other repairs/replacement parts of 250 dollars. So it seems a good opportunity to get her something that will last longer. My biggest worry is the granny gear.

Thanks for your post. I will try to get my head around the math!

waddo

Thanks for all the replies.

Does anyone know if it is a simple thing for the bike shop to change the cassette on the new bike? Also, would it be possible to put an 11-36t on a bike like the Araya?

veganbikes

It should be very simple.

I would probably end up going with the RAN Swallow Randonneur which is a much nicer build with better parts and nicer steel fork. The FED uses Hi-Ten steel rather than Cro-mo which is generally lower grade and heavier. I am pretty sure there are Surly dealers in Japan so you might just replace the fork with a Long Haul Trucker fork or even a Pacer fork on your Specialized or if the price is decent go with a Long Haul Trucker or Disc Trucker.

I love how Araya's english translation is :Madguards. I have always need to guard against madness when I ride and in other parts of my life. I actually didn't know they made bikes. I know their rims because I have a set on my Cilo but had never seen an Araya anywhere in America or for Keirin.

waddo

The Swallow is 1800 dollars vs 600 for the one Fed. I could buy the LHT (I have one myself) for about the same price. Many foreign bikes are VERY expensive in Japan. Unfortunately, because her failing Specialized bike is only 2 years old, we have to think about the cost. I didn't know about the Hi Ten steel thing. Something to consider for sure.

wheelinthai

Is it easy to get tires of this size locally? The bike is made in Indonesia, and is quite heavy. Most tpeople I see ride one because of its look (retro vintage), and low price tag, but eventually trade it in for a chromoly cyclocross, or true touring bike.
[h=3][/h]

NormanF

26" inch tires are easy to get anywhere, thanks to cruisers and mountain bikes.

The cog is undergeared for touring - I'd swap it out for an 11-34 or better yet 11-36 cog for true touring.

mstateglfr 

Interesting bike, the Araya.

I think it's excellent looking and that should be 2nd most important after proper fit.
The components are fine- they are all reliable and well established.

The hi-ten fork is surprising as I would figure it too would be cromo at this point. A price saver for sure.

It's 28lbs, so hardly light, but it won't be used for racing, so weight shouldn't be the driving factor in choosing.


Pretty cool to see Araya designing bikes.

noglider 

26 x 1-3/8 is 590, the size found on old English 3-speeds. MTB and cruiser bikes use 559mm tires, which is much smaller. The selection of 590 tires is OK but not extremely broad. Not a deal breaker, but the buyer would need to know what she's buying.

NormanF

Ach, you're right! OP's wife might want to switch to a 559 mm wheelset. That way no matter where she would tour, tires and tubes are going to be readily available in any bike shop in the world.

noglider 

I don't like the sound of that. Changing the wheels would require changing the brakes and would change the handling of the bike. The benefit would be little to none.

NormanF

What if the bike shop doesn't have replacement tires and tubes in stock? The 590 mm size has a small selection. The wheels would only need to be changed for a long distance tour. If OP wife's is going to tour in her own country, I would agree it can be kept stock.

But if you're going to tour the world, it makes sense then to have a more universal wheelset standard to minimize possible problems en route.

noglider 

Who said anything about a world tour? If 590 tires are available, then no problem. If not, get a bike with different size wheels. Changing wheel sizes on a bike is a drastic move likely to cause as many problems as it solves.

NormanF

I had a Raleigh Superbe rebuilt with 700 C wheels by the late Sheldon Brown for me. The brake reach problem was solved with drum brakes. I upgraded to Shimano 7 speed IGH at the same time I upgraded the wheelset. It can be done and in my case, it improved the ride quality as the new alloy wheelset was lighter than the old all-steel wheelset I replaced.

noglider 

That's a project that requires planning, knowledge, skill, and experimentation. The OP asked for a recommendation on a bike to purchase. You are right about what you say, but it's not a helpful answer to the question.

CenturionIM

downtube shifting touring bike in 2015?

NormanF

Like I said, old school. Also has old school 26 1/38 = 590 mm wheelset like those used on old Raleigh 3 speeds. What's old is new again.

djb

and not just any dt shifting, but according to that chart--FRICTION 8 speed dt shifting. My 1991 or 92 dt touring bike came with index shifting and still works as well as it did when new.

there must be better options out there in your market, there are plenty of hybrids that have as good or better components and that you can put racks on, and have threadless headsets etc. This bike seems pretty cheap, and shifting with downtube shifters has nostalgic aspects of it for me personally, but dont really want to ride with it anymore.
If you wife has never ridden dt shifters, this is another reason to look at a diff bike. There must be other options out there that are reasonably priced but have modern shifters and similar level components.

waddo

Thanks for all the replies. And djp stated well my final decision. There must be better options for ALL the reasons stated above. And by the way, there are several small Japanese companies using dt friction shifters etc etc because of the retro aspect. Japanese are very traditional and the population is ageing. So there are lots fit retired ppl with free time and money who remember bikes of old.

The problem for me here is that we jump from this 600 dollar range to 1400 for the Surly and this is to replace a Specialised that is not even 3 yrs old. There are not many bikes between those two prices. The Jamis Aurora is one, so I will have to look into that.

Finally, I have no idea why so many so called touring bikes have such stupid gear ranges.

djb

no one has asked and you dont specify, but what happened to the Sirrus? Did the carbon fork get damaged? If it needs to be replaced, if your wife likes that bike and it fits her well, why not get another fork, or even see if its possible to put an aluminum fork on it? One of my bikes has a carbon fork and it has been durable, so I assume your wifes bike has had an accident or something that caused damage to the fork.

Just seems that the Sirrus works well for her, and has good low gearing as it is now, so is it not comfortable for her? If it is, it seems a reasonable option is to get the fork replaced and just use that bike.

noglider 

I had the same thought as @djb. Look into getting it fixed. Most bikes are worth fixing, most of the time.