An alternative to bringing spokes is thishttp://www.amazon.com/FiberFix-Emergency-Spoke-Replacement-Kit/dp/B001GSMQZC
I havent used it, but have read about it and the product seems legit.

You don’t need a cassette tool either, just need to be able to thread the cable thru the hub.

So is the chain whip tool pretty much as the thing I made for removing rear track cogs eons ago. An AL 1/4 x 1" bar about 16" long. small piece of chain on the bar, and a longer piece to wrap around the cog to pull it off thread. I guess I need 2 for a cassette. Drill some holes to make it lighter? Am I thinking right?
Thanks!

In particular, Bike Stop, in Michigan City, Indiana, carries Axiom. Not too long a drive for me from Merrillville. BTW, the Axiom Streamliner is built in Taiwan, if that matters to you.

Interesting product, thanks for linking to it!

That is what a chain whip looks like, yes. But you certainly don't need two. In fact you don't need one, with a couple of zip ties you can use the chain you have on your bike. Read the thread that MSNTourist linked to.

Since you apparantly did not look at my response to your question the first time, here it is.

http://www.bikeforums.net/touring/10...l#post18363382

You touring on a Fixie?

Freehubs with a Lock ring . Ive been told *, A bunch of pretty wide Zip Ties can fix the biggest cog to the spokes ,

Then If you did not overtighten it the lock ring will come out with a tool not much bigger than a freewheel remover ..

and a Big wrench .. its the big wrench you probably have to borrow from a Local in the next town you limp into.

In the shop you only need 1 chain whip and a wrench to un screw the lock ring tool .. on a freehub..

2 chainwhips get used to tear down Multi speed freewheels to the bare Body .. (1/8" steel flat bar (Hot Rolled ))

Hardly needed since nobody sells new cogs for freewheels any more, its All or nothing.

* my tours were on freewheels . 48 spoke tandem rear hub.. (47 spare spokes already in the wheel worked out well )


2 Chinas, There were the 2 sides of the Chinese revolution , the loser, escaped & took over the Island of Taiwan ROC ..

the winner has the Mainland Mao's successors of the PRC

Country of origin is important to some of us.
There are countries I prefer to support over others.
YMMV

So... if you are running a 36 spoke rear wheel and break a spoke, do you need to replace it immediately or can you ride it Macgyvered to the next shop?

no big wrench needed. if you don't overtighten, you can use a 6" crescent
wrench (if the jaws open wide enough.).

can hold the cassette by hand, with an old sock or rag or whatever you find on
the roadside.


oh, yeah, that'll get your drive side spokes. and the other side? don't forget your T5 torx wrench
to remove the brake rotor....unless you replace the bolts with standard hex type.

Edited.

Yes I agree that some people care. And that's cool to care.
What's lame is constantly making vague and generalized comments and being dismissive of products due to the country of origin rather than the products themselves.

Also, it's nuts, especially in this industry where very few bike are made by the company whose name is on the downtube, to be dismissive of a company for outsourcing manufacturing.
Few cycling companies literally stitch the clothing and accessories which display their name.

Perhaps thats why blue collar unemployment has been such a issue in the west.
Until the movement away from the east gets enough voices jobs will forever be at risk in the west who can't compete with the poor pay and conditions those in the east are forced to slave under.
I don't think the comments are lame at all and applaud efforts to highlight this issue.
Indeed I look upon them as patriotic
The only thing thats nuts is your attack on someone who dares offer an opinion different than yours.
Surely you can find better labels for fellow forum members than lame and nuts?

Good idea!
I like it - thanks for sharing.
I've been stuffing them inside my handlebars up to now, but it's good to have another option to consider, especially now that my new bars are curved and I've yet to look to see if my spare spoke storage idea is still going to work.
I'll enjoy emptying a few bottles of Shiraz in a search for the perfect cork....

poor pay and conditions? slave labor in factories....in china? are you nuts? have you any idea...other than the
typical china bashing from faux news and co.?

i suppose the pay, hours, and working conditions aren't quite up to western standards, but compared to
conditions here in "our china" only a decade ago, they're light-years better.

no-one is forced (okay, there may be some prison labor somewhere, but i have no first-hand knowledge)
to "slave away" in foxconn or shimano factories. these are awesome jobs for the current environment!

50-60 hours a week? 10-hour shifts? $500 monthly wages? oh the horror!!!

think about what they're leaving behind: 12 hours a day every day...that's 84 hours!....no weekends....few
holidays.......working in the sun, knee-deep in mud behind a water buffalo in a rice paddy......living in a thatched
roof hut with no running water or electricity, one long-dump outhouse for an entire village......all for the
princely sum of (on average) $30 a month.

these slave-labor factories have raised 300 million people....just about the entire population of the united
states....out of poverty over the last decade. leave the village for the big city, work a year or two making
a huge salary (comparatively), go back to the village, build a house or start a business or send your kid
to college so they can have a future.

perhaps you might read up a little on the subject. until then, stick with the "war on christmas"

Not sure why you feel threatened by others opinions so much.
Mine still stands that you shouldn't come in here bandying about names like lame and nuts.
Stop using your head as a suppository and allow for the fact that others have different opinions to yourself and that they are no less valid for that.
I'm still going to buy products not manufactured in China where I'm able and support locally made/grown where I can.
There will be times that I will succumb to the temptation of price but think a lot more these days of where my money is spent and who it supports.
I prefer that my money supports blue collar workers in countries where I reside, where many have lost their jobs due in part to cheaper labour costs of non western countries.
I dont blame these countries workers for wanting their lifestyles lifted, but it must be done in acknowledgement that its at the expense of blue collar workers in the west.

1- not everyone on this forum lives in the US. Actually, many live all around the world. Crying that 'they took er jerbs' is great and all, but it isn't applicable for many here.

2- I didn't call anyone lame or nuts. I did say that it is lame to use vague generalizations to dismiss a product based on the country of origin instead of based on the product itself.
And I said that it is nuts to dismiss a company just because it doesn't literally make the products it sells because that is the MO for probably 85% of the industry. That is the norm.


Do you see the difference? That line of thinking is nuts and absurd, and I explained why. I didn't just emotionally call a poster names, like you suggest.

If you want me to find better labels, I could say 'ignorant of modern economics and manufacturing.' Not sure if that would be any better though?
...I kid, I kid.


Well this thread has the potential to be more controversial than that 'why are UL tourers hated' thread!

You can probably true the wheel and ride it in. But it depends - on how heavily loaded, on what you're riding over, on how far the next shop is. Touring on roads in developed countries with moderate loads you'll probably get away with it. Riding the pave on Paris-Roubaix with 50lbs of gear on the back, not so much.

i think blindly following the uninformed rantings of teevee rabble-rousers is crazy.
please don't feel threatened by my opinion. it won't hurt....much.

you are entitled to your opinion, but would be easier to get into my suppository head
if you actually had your own opinion, not one mass-marketed on the aye-emm raydio.

you wanna support locally-made products? great, you're awesome. lotsa great reasons
to do so. but claiming chinese products are produced by slave labor? you sorta lose
credibility there.

regardless, you can't blame the chinese for having lower manufacturing costs. not when
they still have 250,000,000 living in poverty. they'll be happy to take those jobs.

you CAN blame your corporations that move the jobs to low-cost countries to save on
salaries and taxes and environmental standards. you also CAN blame your government
that allows it. i guess you can also blame capitalism, but then you can't blame the
communists....oh, gosh, thinking is hard! slave labor!


ps. you don't have to quote an entire post. just the relevant parts will do.

Yes, situations dictate. For common road touring a busted drive side spoke is one of those failures I don't bring tools for because the risk/frequency vs weight is too much.

I went on an overnight last summer with two companions, and one broke a drive side rear spoke causing the rim to rub on his brake, miles from anywhere as the sun was setting. Fortunately, I had a fiberfix spare spoke, and got his rear wheel back in shape in about 20 minutes. He rode on that spoke until we got home the next day. While it is true that you can often true a wheel with a broken spoke, If we had done that, it would have required a lot more work when we replaced the spoke. As it turned out, a couple of turns here and there were all that were necessary, and probably would have been even without breaking a spoke.

Or just use Shimano Centerlock hubs* the same Lock ring tool unscrews the Lockring on those..

* I have a Schmidt made Centerlock compatible SON Hub on my Bike Friday ..

Packing to travel The front wheel being removed, the front one is the main one that will have potential disc bending..

45 liters is a huge amount of capacity! I use Ortlieb front and rear Rollers and seldom fill the rear (40 l) bag beyond half capacity. The only reason that I use the rear ones is so that I have more space for bulky, but lightweight, items. The heavy, denser stuff goes in the front bags as I've found through many years of experience that the 60:40 front/rear split results in a bike that handles better. In some instances I'll go with a set front of bags only if I'm not carrying enough to justify the rear bag.

The Relevate bags work for their intended purpose of off-road bike packing. I have a full set but I don't know that I would use them for a tour that is on pavement or is mostly on pavement. They are a compromise at best off-road with the load being very high and they make the handling a bit squirrelly and the space is severely limited.

I wouldn't say that a 2 bag system is all that great for convenience. From the standpoint of actually getting into the bags to get out things you might need on the road like rain coats, snacks, extra clothes, etc., 2 bags means that you have to do a lot of digging or very careful packing in the morning. With 4 bags, I put cooking stuff and food up front while I put clothes in the back. If I have to get snacks, those are on top in the front bag while the rain coat and extra clothes are in the back. There's a lot less digging to find what I need.

I live and camp in Colorado, by the way, and I've never found the need for any kind of bear canister. A bit of parachute cord is enough to hoist the food bags off the ground as well as keeping a very clean, bear resistant camp.

I'm not sure what size backpack you've used but I would say that 45 l total volume is a whole lot even for carrying on my back. It's certainly enough to "carry the kitchen sink" as long as the sink is small(ish).

As for your route, are you planning on a road tour or a mountain bike tour? Which one should definitely influence how you carry your stuff and how you outfit your bike. For example, a mountain bike tour would include knobbier (but slower) tires and you'd want to carry your gear higher to avoid hitting objects on rougher roads. That does have an effect on the handling of the bike, however. One other thing to consider when mountain bike touring, you aren't going to be making runs up too many single tracks through the woods. Dirt roads, yes but not single track. At least not unless you want to be horribly frustrated. Single track on a loaded mountain bike is not fun.

But your route sounds more like a road tour and I would suggest you approach it as such. Run smooth tires and go for a lower center of gravity on the larger part of your load, i.e. use panniers and lowriders. The bike will handle better and you won't be fighting it as much.

As for riding up mountains in Colorado, our mountains have altitude but not attitude. You will seldom find a paved road with a grade over 7% here. In the eastern part of the US, they just point a road up and over a mountain and hang the grade...I've done some 25% grades in the Appalachias...but here in Colorado we aren't that dumb. We don't like people sliding off our roads. Granted you won't have as much air here but at least our roads are easier:thumb:

Depends on (don't you hate it when you wanted a simple answer, but it is not simple) a lot of things:

- rim brakes or disc? (Rim brakes needs a rim to be trued better.)
- how much weight on the wheel? (That is obvious)
- drive side or other side? (Drive side is under more tension on almost all bikes, harder on a rim if you ride without it.)
- surface that you are riding on? (Smooth pavement easier on a rim.)
- how good the quality of your rim is? (Obvious.)
- rime diameter? (I think a 26 inch vs 700c is not much different, but some would say the 26 inch is a stronger rim.)
- how much you value keeping that rim compared to replacing it later? (If you don't care about trashing it, go for it.)
- how far are you going to go? (Shorter distance is better.)

I was in a campground this past August, someone was mountain biking (not touring) on a pretty tough trail. He broke a spoke, was worried about riding teh bike. I asked and he did not care if he had to buy a new rim when he got home (he was car camping). So, we loosened a couple adjacent spokes to make it a bit truer, but he had disc brakes so it did not have to be really true. He then went back out on the trail and started hammering on it again. It was a good rim, I don't think he trashed it, but he drove hundreds of miles to get to that trai for the weekendl, he would have gladly paid for a new rim and the cost to have it put on.

I think 45 liters is a large amount of capacity as well. What I should have said is that you don't need 4 bags if you want to carry 45 liters and if touring offroad, you might want to borrow ideas from the bike packers.

I probably don't understand. Wouldn't the spokes being inside my seatpost require my to pull the seatpost out of the frame to get to the spokes, and do all that necessary seatpost adjustment. I've usually seen spokes taped somewhere to the outside of the frame.