joseph senger

After this last summers tour, it is time to get ready to venture "out" again. I was kicking around the idea of a sun chasing tour before snow hit, but, its too late. so here i am, working on a new time machine. After this past summer, the one thing that i began to hope for each morning, was no tech that day; it rarely happened.

first off, i stripped down my xc bike to salvage some parts, mostly xtr with alot of life left, but a few parts that work good on xc arent best for touring, right?

hubs. I traveled about 2000km (out of 6000), with a loosening front hub, id like a cartridge hub, however, it wouldnt kill me to have laterally bearinged axles and some cone wrenches with me this time around. So i have an lx hub as a candidate, my other option, if i were to buy hubs, seems to be phil woods touring hub set. They are so expensive tho... and a theme in my travels is a fear of getting my equipment stolen, my theory is to keep it as cheap where i can as possible, but im not so sure about the philosophy after my last ride. not sure there is any place for junk while touring.

so, are the accounts of the wood hubs lasting over 15 years without bearing change true?, and that there shell will, under most circumstance, out live there users? and this said, what else are my options for hubs?, there has to be more than the wood hubs for a cartridge style heavy duty 9sp hub.

another area not far from the hub, but related in my chosing something other than my 32h lx, is spoke count. I ran a 32 rear on the last tour and ultimately went through 10 spokes. luckily i did not trust the 32 hole setup before hand, and brought a whip and cassette socket. in addition i had none break until i had rim failure early in the ride and had a rim built with no-name ss spokes, however all the dt's i replaced never broke. so it leaves me to question, was it just a matter of bad spokes? but then as well, even if it was a case of bad spokes, 36 (not 40 for i fear finding a 26in 40sp rim in case of failure far to difficult in most towns and cities) is that much stronger. valid? or should i go even further with this and go for a 40+ spoke rear wheel to excluded heopfully any chance of spoke/true problems? i feel confident with 14g dt's on my 32h rhyno light in the front, should i? are there special spokes ive not come across which really make a difference?

my other concern is the frame I used on the trip this past summer. its a 97 trek 8000 (al) with around 20,000km on it. It also had about a year of the occasional chain suck due to bad adjustment on my part, the the right chainstay is missing some aluminum, critical area? im not sure. I like the frame, it seems beefy for an xc aluminum jobby, fit is decent, and i really do like the stiffness of aluminum. what are my options?.

I am set with a high spoke counted 26in wheeled bike. any of you gurus know an affordable 26in candidate i can be looking for or maybe even buy new? I have an old araya i think (serial says arya72.....), and its a decent size, lugged, but im really not sure about the steel used in it. meaning, im thinking steel may put my mind at rest more than an aluminum frame, and is what im mostly interested in.



thanks for any input.

barrett