rodar y rodar

This route had nearly 200 miles of unpaved roads, including a good dose of washboard, rocks, sand, loose surface gravel, and even some nice smooth hardpack (but what fun is that?). I had 20 x 2.0 BAs on the bike for the whole trip and they really didn`t do as well as bigger wheels when the going got tough, but they did make it through everything with a bit more care though no more hike-a-bike than I would have had to my big wheeler. Structurally, the folder was outstanding- no feeling that it was going to snap, no noticeable flexing. And that`s saying something since the road was rough enough in places that the stuff I had bouncing around in my panniers was damaged. Since this route was a rough as I plan on riding the Llama for, I know it`ll take anything I can dish out.

The luggage system was a "mixed bag" (haha- get it ?!?). I still like the platform + small front panniers idea, and still think it`s the way to go for lighter loads, but not when things start getting into the mini expedition scale. For this trip, I had to devote most of the space in the panniers to water storage, so the dry sack on the platform got kinda big. Add to that several days worth of food (unreliable resuply points) and it was downright huge. It was hard to arrange in such a way to avoid heel strike (wore a tiny hole on the bag with my heels without even noticing they were hitting) and the load had a tendency to fall off to one side if it wasn`t cinched down super and tight, which probably isn`t very good for the cargo.

I was a little apprehensive about the way the BF front pannier racks mount, but they held up as well as the bike did. What I don`t like is the way they stand off from the frame on the little plastic spacer bushings. I don`t know physics or math enough to prove it, but I`m convinced that using those long skinny bolts loses stregth to using short skinny bolts, and that there`s extra leverage from the length of the spacers trying to snap things compared to bolting the rack tightly to the fork. Besides that, as the spacers are relatively thin walled plastic, they compress as you tighten the mounting bolts, so it isn`t easy to judge when the bolts are tight. I still don`t like it, but don`t know a better way. And since they didn`t break on this trip, with a lot of heavy water bouncing over all those rocks and washboard, I`m probably over thinking thigs- will just keep the Loctite on he bolts and try to ignore the squeemish feeling that the spacers give me.

Oh, the bike rode to the starting point for this ride in the trunk of my wife`s little Saturn sedan. That isn`t a good test of suitcase-ability, but I didn`t have time to make up a custom cardboard box this time around. Gotta save something to test later! I do need to practice packing it though because I hope to fly it to Puerto Vallarta next spring.