Sorry, absolutely out of the question. In fact, that's illegal where I live.

On the chain maintenance question, I sure like the idea of 12 1/16" marks on the chain stay. But it was easy enough on my recent 4400 mile tour to stop every 1000 miles or so and ask the LBS to check it with their gauge, and to have a chat about the tour and local information. Armed with that information, I bought a new chain after about 3000 miles and installed it myself.

I don't carry a chain tool around town, but I do on tour. Same with the cassette remover. The spoke wrench is light enough it stays in there all the time, with the set of allen keys, repair link, spare tire, and patch kit.

Okay, I'm a bit late in replying and haven't read all the way through to the most recent post. Here's what I've found and what I'm carrying when it comes to repair tools.

I've never had any luck getting a chain to go together without using a pair of needle nose pliers. I have no luck getting the power links to move apart unless I use the needle nose.

On the tour I'm currently on I'm carrying:
Needle nose pliers
Multi-size allen wrench
Chain tool(to size a chain properly you'll have to have a chain tool to remove the links you don't need)
Spoke wrench
Cassette tool
Spare chain(I live in sales tax free NH so why spend the extra money...I'll carry the extra small bit of weight instead and save the money)
Patch kit/spare tubes/tire irons
Lube

Sure it may be a bit heavier than most but I'm covered for most things that could go wrong. Granted I'm still wandering if I might have a bottom bracket issue by the time I get home. I was questioning it before I left but was told it was fine. Time shall tell.

That's about the perfect tool kit. Thanks for the list Pete.

Zimbal is a Korean company that do nice bags that are a complete rip off of Carradice. They do an 18L bag similar to the Nelson longflap,

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/bags/zimbale.html

but if you want something like the Camper longflap or Super C you'll have to go with Carradice. You can buy Carradice from wallbike.com, but stock is sometimes limited so wiggle is the place to go

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/carradice/cycle/

I use the Camper Longflap. It's main compartment is 16L if loosely packed and up to 20L with the top fabric collar extended. With the longflap extended you can conservatively carry another 8L of stuff. It has 2 x 1.5L side pockets. At those volumes you might want to use a Bagman, until very recently I used one and put my tent between the seatpost and the bagman, although since I've managed to fit my tent inside the saddlebag I find that I don't really need the Bagman and can use the saddlebag as originally intended with it strapped around the seatpost.

Interestingly I notice that carradice now has new Bagmans with support struts that go down to the seatpost. So it looks like they are responding to the issues with the steel rails working loose, the result IMHO looks awful.

The Camper longflap weighs 2lbs so it is far heavier than a dry bag or the bikepacking saddlebags, but it makes up for that in practicality with it's side pockets and buckle down top flap. It's material is very tough and it's good for grocery shopping too.

stein cassette tool

http://www.universalcycles.com/shopp...ls.php?id=8509

Are you on a tour long enough that you will need to change the chain? I did more than one long tour on the original chain on my touring bike. It was at about 10K miles when I changed it and I had done a Trans America, 3 other tours of around 1K or a bit more each, and a bunch of riding around home. I have only once changed a chain on tour and that was because I started the southern tier on a fairly high mileage chain. Others have had poorer chain life, but none of my group of three had to change one on the TA or even anytime soon after.

I have to say that it kind of boggles my mind that you would carry a spare chain to save on the sales tax. Not sure how expensive of a chain you use, but sales tax on a chain has to be something like $0.75-$1.50. Given that this is an ultralight touring thread, saving 12 ounces or so has to be worth at least that much.


Bottom brackets typically don't fail suddenly. If you are observant you will probably have 500-1000 miles or more between first signs of a problem and when it completely lets you down. I am sure if it goes bad you will have enough warning to limp along to the next bike shop.

FWIW, the Unior Cassette Cracker includes a spoke wrench and weighs less than many dedicated spoke wrenches. So with it you could just carry it all the time and maybe save an ounce on tour.

I like this one better. It is smaller, cheaper, lighter, has no parts to lose, and includes a spoke wrench.
http://harriscyclery.net/product/uni...-tool-2456.htm
http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=271735

I think what I've seen has been from living in New Hampshire. I haven't had much luck with chains lasting more than 2000 miles. I had a KMC chain this past winter, new cassette and chain that didn't even last 1500 miles before it was toast and the cassette was practically toast with it. I think I now understand the simple reasoning was the fact of doing all my riding in NH. I'm testing the concept on this ride to the flatlands of the midwest to see just how much wear the chain gets from shifting gears(riding in the hills all the time) compared to otherwise. My old Cannondale bike had 15,000 miles on it and I still had the original chain and cassette. It was going fine and then I moved to NH and went from never shifting to shifting all the time and in no time at all the the chain started skipping on me. I changed the chain and it didn't last long(maybe 1500 miles) after replacing the cassette the next time it didn't help much either. I finally upgraded from the old 7 speed system to a 10 speed system and then it never helped much at all to eliminate the need to constantly be replacing the chain every 1500 miles or suffer the consequences. It didn't matter if it was a KMC, Shimano, or SRAM chain. They all performed the same way. I think it was all the shifting I was doing due to where I live. I've got 1900 miles on the current chain, most of it on the trip I'm on right now and I've been pretty much not shifting gears much since I've been riding most of it in the flatlands of the midwest. I knew I wanted to be prepared since I didn't even have the slightest idea what I was going to use for a route other than to get me to my mother's house in NW Ohio. So far I can say I've only passed by two bike shops...for sure, on the entire trip. Since I haven't needed any LBSs I haven't been looking all that hard but I've been mostly going through small towns(5-6,000 population) versus bigger towns/cities. Hence why I decided to carry the spare chain with me. I knew I would have if I needed it, versus having to wait to find a LBS somewhere.

Since I knew I wasn't going to be ultralight by a long shot(35 pounds+bike...biggest thing being the laptop computer I brought with me) I wasn't too worried about carrying an extra 12 ounces. In the future I know I plan on cutting down and probably converting over from backpacking everything to using a setup more in the lines of something like what you are using. The one thing I'm doing differently that I'm not exactly sure how it would effect what your doing is I'm stealth camping every night versus campgrounding it. I'm not sure though how you are handling the one set of bike clothes. Stealth camping would make that rather interesting. Granted I am stubborn. I haven't used a clothes dryer in almost a decade. I let everything air dry yearround. One set of bike clothes would make it rather interesting. I have had to carry extra clothes on this trip since I knew I was going to spending quite a few days around family that doesn't know anything about biking...all they know how to do is impress people(you have to look good).

I had one fail on me last winter. I knew I had noise coming from what seemed like the BB for quite a while...the same noise I've had now since about a month after I got my new bike back in mid March this year. I hadn't thought much about the noise this time last year on the old Cannondale but finally one day this past winter I was out riding, fortunately in the direction of the LBS anyways. I stopped to grab lunch and when I went to leave...all of a sudden I wasn't going anywhere. I was pedalling and going nowhere fast. The BB had gotten clogged up by salt/sand and I could pedal as hard/fast as I could and I wasn't going anywhere. Like I said I've had the same noise now on my new Specialzied Allez since mid to late April. I took it in and was going to swap out the BB/crank arm between the Specialized and Cannondale before I left on the trip to the midwest. I was told that would be a foolish idea as the BB on the Specialized was in better shape than the one on the Cannondale(yes, it was replaced over the winter with a much better BB than what I had on it before...truly sealed BB versus the crappy SRAM BB I bought when I upgraded the Cannondale to a 10 speed system). I left the original BB on the Specialized and so far it is still holding. Hopefully it will continue to hold until I get back to NH. While out in IL it did seem like a few times I was hearing ball bearings rolling around inside the BB while pedalling...who knows how long it will last.

I will clarify your statement...it the BB goes it can leave you sitting...perfectly still.

Very nice--thanks for the tip.

I tend to sweat profusely so I pick clothes that are not too bad when damp. Unlike some folks I have not had problems if I put on damp shorts in the morning. I do find that it helps to get out of my bike shorts and into some light airy running shorts for the night. I also turn the bike shorts inside out to get aired out (and also get some sun if possible). Getting both me and the shorts aired out helps a lot.

Also much of my touring has been in places where things actually dry in an hour or two, even at night, unlike it is back home on the east coast. While I am not big on stealth, I do dry camp for several days in a row sometimes and don't find being in the same shorts and tee or jersey to be a huge problem. Also I do stealth camp when the need arises and lately have done so more of the time than I used to.

It does feel good to get a room or camp where there is a shower once in a while and even though I started out avoiding getting rooms almost entirely, I am likely to splurge more frequently these days. Those days if it has been a few days I do wash out my bike clothes even if it means they will be pretty wet in the morning,

I've never cared for those hyper cracker or Stein tools that put force on my dropout or other parts of my frame in order to loosen a cassette. Remember you're talking to Mr. Murphy here. A small crescent wrench is helpful for so many other tasks and a standard cassette tool isn't that much heavier. If I had to carry a chain whip it might be a different story but a small length of 1" web strapping weighs nearly nothing and again can be used for other repairs as well. That extra ounce or less is worth that peace of mind for me.

thats a good one.

for me, when it comes to mechanicals

the bike(s) I ride get a fair amount of weekly use. I pretty much know how long parts last, etc...

I doubt the cassette cracker is very likely to damage a dropout more than possibly chipping the paint in a location where it doesn't show and stays greasy enough to not rust. It does help to verify that the lockring is not overtightened before the trip. It does not need to be very tight, but some are way tighter than necessary and could be hard to remove.

Have you found a small crescent wrench that will open far enough to fit the standard cassette tool? My 6" adjustable wrench does not open that far and it isn't exactly small or light. The smallest one I have that fits the cassette tool is 8" and quite large and heavy (over half a pound). It is big enough that I wouldn't have considered it even when I was packing pretty heavy. It might be nice if an adjustable would open to 32mm, be thin enough to do pedals, and still be smallish and light. I have never seen one that met or even came close to that criteria though. Then again I probably wouldn't carry one even if it did.

It varies from bike to bike, but there are not that many things that an adjustable is suitable for on my bikes. My headset would require a really big adjustable the smallest one I have that will do that is probably at least a pound and may be more. They are too thick to uses as a cone wrench on my bikes and even too thick to be used as a pedal wrench. On newer bikes more and more things only need an allen wrench. I can't think of anything else other than 8 or 10mm stuff that an adjustable wrench would fit on my bikes. I guess it would be handy for straightening a bent derailleur hanger.

The good news is that it is pretty easy to borrow a cresent wrench. Many people carry one in their car, any auto shop will have one, and most homes will as well. I did borrow a 12" crescent wrench to tighten a headset once on tour.

Bikes vary widely and every rider has different preferences, so the answers will also be different. I carry different sets of tools on each of my bikes, each is tailored to fit that particular bike.

Hey Robow, this is Jason from the Katy trail all those years ago, the poster known several years ago as Delver(did not change because of anything bad, was not banned or screw anyone over, I simply forgot my passwords to everything when I changed Email accounts and stopped reading the forums for a year or so, and by the time I found them I had started this account and had more posts with it than the old one)

I hear you on the Murphy, also Finagle, Hanlons Razor, The Inverse Midas Touch, Sod's Law, Sturgeons's law, and on some days under the right conditions I have invoked the rare and powerfull Fourth law of Thermodynamics. I carry either a standard cassette or freewheel tool depending on what I have. I don't carry a wrench though, always figuring that I would put my one fibre fix spoke on untill I passed any sort of place that looked like it might have either a wrench or a vice. Since I build most of my own wheels for touring out of whatever I can find, I guess that I should be more prepared!

On the whole strap as wrench thing, once I was on a canoe trip with some friends, and when the truck came to pick up our canoes with the special trailer, the nut fell off the ball hitch. No one had a wrench big enough to fit it, so I took a strap, wrapped it around the nut, the other end around my arm, and used all my strength to tighten it.
Everyone was real impressed with my super brainyness, but then later at the rental place they could not get the nut off without a cheater bar(they put it on the guys truck cause his was the wrong size). So since then my friends thing I am some sort of hercules.

I, too, have found the 6" crescent wrench doesn't open wide enough for the cassette lockring tool. However, I did drill two holes in one of the tools where the flats are, opposite each other. I could then get a decent-thickness allen key in there, and if necessary, use another tool for leverage. I tried it at home, and as you say, make sure the lock ring isn't done up too tightly, but it worked. I never used it on tour, though, and it was burnt in the bushfires in 2009.

That tool steel is damned hard to drill, though!!

That sounds like a good idea, but I am surprised you managed to drill it. I bet it would grind pretty well though. You could probably grind one down enough to work with a 6" crescent wrench fairly easily.

Yes, but the wall thickness is not particularly good on the ones, at least, that I have/had.

I went through three or four drill bits on that little project.

However, I recall a thread here not so long ago by azesty in which he had one of his Chinese mates weld a crosspiece, IIRC, on the top of the tool so that a crescent wrench could be used on that. It was just before he left for his trip, so it was within the past three months.

I haven't included a crescent wrench on this trip. I am figuring that I will adapt a way to use the lock ring tool a-la-shipwreck's use of the strap... or just buy a cheap Chinese one from a hardware shop if I need to service the rear cassette.

I've done that before, and somewhere out there in the vast blue yonder of France is a 9" crescent wrench that I bought, used and placed somewhere for someone to pick up two days later in 2007. I think it cost me 3 euro.

That only helps this discussion, of course, if a Home Depot or similar is on the course.

Not even just a Home Depot. I mean, the northeast was absolutely pockmarked with Aubuchon Hardware stores, but there are other places for wrenches...

If you're holed up, finding a wrench is usually within easy reach, barring bikepacking trips into the wilderness. Auto repair shops, boat repair shops, airports, gas stations, farms, and construction sites are all likely to have a monkeywrench lying around.

On our 2012 bike tour, we ripped through a flatwrench taking the wheel off of an old Univega to replace flats 2-3 times. Lo and behold, on the side of the road we found a monkeywrench that weighed less than half a pound, and used it 4 more times on the rest of the trip.

Here's the wrench I carry, it's right at 6" in length and will open open to right at 1 1/8" (that's 29 mm for those of you with the better system) . It's also fairly thin to be able to get in tight places. Been invaluable on the road. I can't remember where I bought it though....hmmmm

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=271801

Now for the important stuff: Delver how have you been? I had to laugh this summer when a couple buddies from out east wanted to come out and ride the Katy right around the 4th of July and I told them that I been there and done that and it can be hot as heck at that time of year but "no problem" they said. Then the day we were to take off out of St. Louis it was 108 degrees and it wasn't going to be much cooler for the next several days and they backed out. Ha Smart move though. I was down in your neck of the woods, touring Arkansas twice last year, wonderful place to ride and excellent state parks. You know where to find me if you get any free time and want to head back out on the Katy for old times sake or want to bum around those hills down there. Btw, how's the restoring of all those vintage bikes coming along?
robow

Well, I was gonna do a long "ultra light" tour of the Mississippi River Trail this summer, going for big daily miles, but when the drought and heat got pretty bad I decided to hang around the house so i could at least watch if a fire destroyed it. Suprisingly I never heard on firework, even with all the drunken redneck neighbors. Thats how bad it was, forget the corn crop, when Arkansas rednecks won't shoot at least a bottle rocket you know its bad.

I agree on the heat, probably not a bad idea to bail.

So just did a lot of smaller rides around NW AR and SW MO.

And, I was going to do a two week trip on the last half of August, but then got run down by a guy on a Harley, broke me collarbone and cracked me up pretty bad, that was three weeks ago today. So, as soon as I can start throwing pottery again, I plan on making a big run of beer stiens that say "your Harley makes you look fat". That expresses my resentment over not being able to ride in this great weather.

Till I can ride again, been reading to much A&S, this thread, and stripped the paint from my 1989 Schwinn 974. Ordered a white Vetta saddle for it, and am thinking about sticking a newer wheelset in it and doing a fast four or five day tour next spring, or else taking it down to Florida with me this October when I do a visiting artist gig in Sarasota. Ride the keys, feed some skeeters, and put all this Ultra light info to some good use. Please ignore the bontrager saddle, its just keeping the post warm for the Vetta.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8169/7...30979e5c_z.jpg

And I might load up everything this winter for a week or so, do the ultra heavy thing, forty miles a day or less. Take a Holly four barrel along to rebuild during the long nights, and a five man tent to do it in.

Glad to touch base with you again, been awile. Way upthread, like on page one is a pic of the Maruishi I was on when we rode together, along with my newest outdated bicycle, the Centurion. Guess I just love outdated stuff!

Unior tool is soo light and tiny. trouble is finding one, not sure they are in production. I got one out of an old bike pouch i bought at a thrift store, and have the stein as well. I don't like the parts on the Stein - to pack it you almost need to dissassemble it - but if you keep it safely stowed...

I really like Rowans idea, and the welding thing someone mentioned to make a small cassette tool. for those of us that have neither the stein or the unior cassette crackers, and want to bring a cassette tool.

Shipwreck, nice looking ride, what size frame is that, must be at least a 25"? That is one long head tube, and just curious as to your tire size, betting you've got very little clearance within those side pulls. Sorry to hear about your accident, hope all heals well and welcome to the club of most broken bone by a cyclist, the clavicle.

The Schwinn is a 64c! huge, but a fairly low BB means that I can standover it with a tiny bit of clearance. I like a bigger bike for touring. The Max tire size is 23mm. Trying to decide if I should run Armadillos, or something a little more sporty. I would rather not fix lots of flats. And I like armadillos, they are worth the lower performance to me, though my last set is coming apart in chunks possibly from the roughness of the roads here. On tour, I am going fast, but not racing anything but the sun, so its leaning to the heavy tire.

Yes, I understand that breaking that particular bone gets you into an elite group. But I hate the dues.