thanks....

mdilthey, thats my FESTKA Continental bike, its from 2013. sold my FIREFLY touring, so I went bike packing. new FIREFLY is done, they are just finishing the details.

https://c3.staticflickr.com/1/316/32...5a84d065_h.jpgFestka by Stefan R., on Flickr

My enve wheels are jealous of the of the rides your enve wheels have been on.

I'm gonna miss that bike, but I'm excited for the new one!

And here is our bikes loaded for the central america trip, we don't use panniers because we tougth if we have to move witouth the bikes (and we did) we are stuck with the panniers and no easy way to carry.
We did make our panniers, we used dry bags and attached them to the side using velcro, and also I turned a backpack into a front bar bag but for some design issues I had to use it as a pannier.
We are carrying about 20kg (more or less, depending on what we plan to do) and riding some 45km each day.

Reminds me of something I saw on 'world cycle videos' on Vimeo. A couple made panniers from colorful
woven bags in Peru when they got there.

Not quite a touring bike but sadly I still haven't gotten around to taking pictures of the Wagon Queen Family Truckster so this will have to do (and it will probably go on some short tours and maybe some bike packing stuff):
http://www.bikeforums.net/19319866-post154.html (there is also more pictures of the bag and a touch more of bits of the bike in the post)

I promise at some point I will get pictures of the Co-Motion I really do want to but I am so busy and I don't take a great shot so I need to get some friends with fancier cameras to lend a hand.

BTW that Festka is quite nice (though I would have adjusted the bottles so you can see one half of the logo on one and the other half on the other and made sure the tires are properly aligned ; ) and I am excited for pics of a Firefly because that may well be my next big bike purchase once I scrounge up the shekels.

Not mine. I saw this rig many years ago in NoVa when I arrived to call on one of my dealers. I suspect this is not actually a touring rig, but is more likely a homeless person's rig. Whichever, I'll never gripe again about toting too much when I travel.
Attachment 549529

Got the sled back up into touring shape after a winter full of fat-tired adventures. I'm not claiming winter is over, but the snow has all melted and something tells me there won't be a ton more, what with the general warming of our entire planet.

Added Jones bars back on, 29+ wheels, a new Dinglespeed ratio better suited to loaded riding, and a cool new seat/post. Well, new to me, anyways.

http://i.imgur.com/iy64L5U.jpg

soon to be fully loaded..

https://c1.staticflickr.com/1/631/31...82734893_h.jpgFF-600-Studio-1 by Firefly Bicycles, on Flickr

Nice, str. Very nice. What's the top tube say?

I thought disc brake touring gravel bikes were trending towards mounting the rear brake inside the seatstay for rack clearance, but I know you don't use a rear rack. Any underlying logic there?

Downtube bottle bosses are awesome.

What's the tire clearance?

I'm full of questions!

Edit: also noting your front fork looks primed for a custom rack, if I'm not mistaken. And, that pump peg! Nice!

Max, you ever tour with hydraulics or only mechanical discs? I'm thinking about upgrading my troll to hydraulics for convenience/stopping power and wondering about long term thoughts.

I personally do not use hydraulics, although many do. I have witnessed mushy brakes, ripped-out hoses, brake fail, and the ritual of re-bleeding on friend's bikes, and decided not to mess with that on tour.

Mechanical brakes are very field-serviceable, although I will say that the skill curve and practice it takes to properly install, adjust, and correct a mechanical brake to keep it from rubbing is probably equal to the skill curve of bleeding hydraulics. In the beginning, it was frustrating. Now I have no issues.

I also like a very analog bike. So, i'm biased.

I got these Avid bb7 and I'm so sick of trying to service them. I heard high-end Shimano hydraulics are great and reliable. I've grown up my whole life with cantis and know everything about them, and these BB7 frustrate me to no end. They take so much damn work, the pads wear out too quickly (with aggressive city riding thru all weather; lots of road salted).

A few things that I learned are very important:

1: Never get grease on your rotors, ever. Never touch your rotors with bare fingers, ever. Wipe down your rotors once a week with an alcohol swab. This keeps the pads from getting contaminated and wearing out faster.

2: Never lean the bike against the rotor or otherwise let the rotor touch anything. This keeps it from going out of true, which accelerates pad wear.

3: Use compressionless brake housing.

Great advice, and that all applies to mechanical disc-brakes as well of course. Speaking of which. By my own lack of experience and preparation, I ended up have some excess frame-saver leak out of the drain-hole on my left fork-leg. Yep, it ran right over the rotor and cave it a nice shiny wet coating. I didn't realizing it until the pads had been wrecked. I had to remove the pads, clean all the components, resurface the rotor, and put new pads on. Great learning experience all in all though! :thumb:

Pro tip: you can restore contaminated brake pads with a blowtorch.

Well, that's interesting. I may try that some day. In this case, it turned out I found a small burr on the rotor that had deeply gauged the pad, so in this case I would have had to replace them regardless. Once I resurfaced the rotor and replaced the pads, the brake worked better than they did when new for whatever reason.

first the poem:

Der Panther
Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Sein Blick ist von Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf—. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille—
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.




Der Panther: Six Ways of Looking at a German Poem

The Panther by Rainer Maria Rilke - poetry on 'The Beckoning'

Rilke, The Panther

His gaze against the sweeping of the bars
has grown so weary, it can hold no more.
To him, there seem to be a thousand bars
and back behind those thousand bars no world.

The soft the supple step and sturdy pace,
that in the smallest of all circles turns,
moves like a dance of strength around a core
in which a mighty will is standing stunned.

Only at times the pupil’s curtain slides
up soundlessly — . An image enters then,
goes through the tensioned stillness of the limbs —
and in the heart ceases to be.

the max tire clearance is 44mm, with 44mm tire I go everywhere, just not rocky trails, so no MTB needed. this new geometry has shorter chain stays for better response and dynamic behaving. most probably i will not be able to load in the back, no enough room for the feels. if rear rack, it will fit, any problem, i used rear racks and the Tubus ones leave you spacer for disc. brakes for now will be mechanic, later we will see;) if hydro. low trail fork 40mm. for was built by Rock Lobster, and Firefly added all the eyelets for racks at the right places, I sent them my top handle bar rack and they ordered a Tubus Duo.

all best xx

My tourer... Trek 800 Sport (Late 90's)
 

Update! Got the front rack and panniers on there:

http://i.imgur.com/wLk7pV1.jpg

you can lower the back panniers around 10-15cm, more stable ride.

Will probably be getting a rack with lower mounting options once this one goes. Thanks for the tip!

My custom bike packing build, hoping to add racks later for longer rides. Though currently it is enough for a few days.

3x10 speed Deore/Tiagra groupset using STI levers and Shiftmate 7.

https://snag.gy/IZ2O9W.jpg