I was considering this last night.

I'm waiting for pictures from Nun's next hotel camping trip, where he takes his Cervelo into new UL territory, turning it into a brakeless fixed gear with a chopped broomstick handlebar, :D further pushing notions of ultralite touring into absurdly postured new arenas.

I used a single speed Quickbeam to do a credit card tour of England.....it was very enjoyable and not very absurd at all. Only vague plans to mess with the Cervelo are to install a 12/36 cassette and new derailleur, but before I do that I'm off for a couple of days to see some foliage in New Hampshire......it will be a hotel trip where I'll be entirely camping and using the Cervelo. When the Cervelo breaks or fails to deliver I'll describe it. Bekologist never fails to deliver with his posts, he's always doing interesting trips, but his comments increasingly have backhanded personal insults which, unfortunately, no longer surprises me. So Bekologist I get that you have issues with how I tour and that I suggest that it might be fun for others to try as well. If you think that using a Cervelo or staying in a hotel is bad please criticize what I do and leave the character references out of it.

Yes. You can check it out at:
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/Ultralight
It is the very last link at the moment. I think the link is named "Yet Another List". In the interest of full disclosure I'll say that it includes a few items I have not yet toured with (a lighter bivy and a bigger tarp) and also does not include any extras a few of which usually make the cut. Depending on the trip I might add a pound or two in the form of a pair of trail runners and a nicer camera.

The link above it (A Stab at Ultralight Mountain Bike Touring), is pretty much but not exactly what I actually used on my last tour.

I agree that it something to consider and a place where going light pays off. I find that with care I could meet 44 pound requirement with one bag (my bike soft case), if I carry on a bit of gear. I think last trip I was a bit above 55 pounds for everything, but I was using a lot of extra cardboard padding in the case and had a few shop weight tools and some clothing for the plane that I left with my soft case. I also took more optional stuff than I might otherwise. Given those requirements, I think it would be hard to avoid extra baggage charges with out going very light.

Bek, the only way to go SUL is to lose the bike and barefoot run. No need to carry that frame around and tools and wheels. Helps on the airlines, too. Although you may need flip flops while eating out, that whole no shirt no shoes no service thing.


I really miss my SS and FG bikes. I had my fixed CrossCheck setup for town, brevet type riding and wanted to do a tour on it - with the Carradice and something up front it could have worked. Had a SS mountain bike that I wanted to use for bikepacking, but I never get comfortable on flat bars, so I moved to the Fargo. I wish the Fargo had the dropouts as on the El Mariachi frames as I'd run SS / FG often.


Nun, color just starting to hit yellows and yellow greens up here. Have a good trip.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8177/8...61be9890_b.jpg
Fall Classic teaser. by mbeganyi, on Flickr

I have ridden fixed gear in the past and it doesn't really appeal to me anymore, but going ultralight would seem like a great match with FG or SS touring.

I could see myself building up a single speed mountain bike and using it for "hike a biking". I mountain bike tight single track accompanied by my dog a lot and find that for those rides I only use a couple cogs on the cluster and one ring anyway. I could see picking a gear that will cover most terrain and just walking the gnarliest climbs.

I find the idea a bit less attractive for road touring myself. I guess I would find it more appealing if I were going to tour on terrain that especially suited it. I tend to pick routes with a mix of both mountains and long flat sections where I would have a hard time picking a ratio that I could live with. Maybe I should actually try it some time and see how it goes. I guess a flip flop hub might make it work better.

I think I will draw the line at nospeeding.

I've never done FG....I'm scared of it. On my "singlespeed" I actually have a 16t freewheel on one side and a 23t on the other. Up front I have a 40t and 33t chain rings. This gives 67.5" and 39" for the hills. I would not want to ride this in any serious mountains for any length of time, but it's a fun combo for a lot of terrain.

nothing to be scared of. i was for a long time too. had a bike for awhile that i used as a commuter that i wouldn't flip the hub on to the FG side. when i built up the cross check i simply didn't put the SS on there, only the fixed cog. started running 42x16, then pulling the kids in the trailer went to 42x18 and eventually settled on 42x39 up front and 18/22 or something on a Surly dingle cog out back. Eventually just left it in low as it was my town bike and I'd mix in some woods trails and pull the kid / groceries / etc.

When I used it for a century carrying the gear I wanted for a solo self supported double (that I did on my rando bike) I ran 42x17 with Pasela 32s Tour Guards. Lots of dirt roads and some rolling (flat for Vermont) sections, with a few short climbs @ 12% or so. When I had my mountain bike setup I also made use of a double upfront, SS out back, Paul Melvin, and front derailer with cheap thumb shifter. But I started out running that fixed, then SS. Only went to the double up front when I was doing major kid hauling, and that only lasted about a month and I went back to pure SS.

Think it would make a wonderful platform for touring. I liken it to friends who asked that it is alot like hiking. There are no gears in hiking - you just dig deeper, change muscle groups, slow down, etc. And on a bike, you always have the 2 foot gear. Just get off and walk. What I try to carry over from SS / FG riding to riding my Fargo is that when you get dropped by someone coming by you just shrug and 'ride your own ride' and ride your own pace. Spin up to comfort level and just go. No trying to get into the red and mashing gears and such. It just sort of is what it is.

I'm like what Dave has written about his bike evolution: (and he's got some great gear stuff and trip reports (hiking, mainly) on there too)
http://bedrockandparadox.com/2012/08...atsinglespeed/

And a TD finisher this year (northbound) did it on a dinglespeed that he manually switched.

my comments haven't been increasingly backhanded, rather, consistent. I'm am genuinely glad you're having fun on your bike trips, nun.

the thread has taken an increasingly absurdist tone of rating people's camping gear weights by the weight of their bikes.

So, I take it you agree converting a Cervelo to a brakeless fixie with a wooden handlebar to lower weight categories people consider 'lightweight, ultralight, superlight bike touring' would be contrived.

Using a fixed gear brakeless Cervelo with a wooden handelbar, then using those base weights to engage the BF community into discussions about lowering the bar on ultralite camping weights in the ultralight bike touring arena would be contrived, and deserving of some jibes. It really depends on personal opinion, eh?


I've always found ounce counting spreadsheeters humorous, regardless of the pursuit. Although i've cut off more than a few toothbrush handles, i've never weighed one!

I really have no idea how much any of my minimalist kits weigh, or combinations on the bikes thereof.

bekologist,

We agree that gram counting has Dada elements and that it is ultimately not the most important thing. Whether to include the weight of the bike in the weight of gear is not of world shattering importance, but it is an entertaining and, IMHO, valid discussion on this thread. Your opinions on UL touring are good to know. I can do without the personal insults. You seem to think that every opinion you hold is worth sharing, I think a little editing of your posts would improve them. You posts have been consistently offensive (I was wrong to characterize them otherwise) which unfortunately means that I no longer need to read them.

I'm getting confused now. There a category beyond ultralight called superlight?:eek:

Oh yes, there are as many categories as we want............beyond that there's RUL, Ridiculously Ultra Light, it might involve riding naked on a fixed gear

In backpacking there is Super Ultralight or SUL (<5 pound base). There is even mention of XUL, but I do not know the definition of that if one exists. I don't really care much about those distinctions.

The lightest category should be called stupid light. But then someone will come up with extra stupid light. No win situation.

Or you do what the Scandinavian guy did on PBP 2003 and use a scooter -- big front wheel and little rear wheel. He was a cross-country ski champion, I think.

Backpack for all the gear, and a small handlebar bag. That is the ultimate light, perhaps.

My old riding partner at the time, Tim, snapped this shot of the guy:

Or the way to ascetic enlightenment.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mahavratas.jpg

It can get to the level of just being a stunt. In my personal opinion that probably happens somewhere around the SUL mark or just a bit below that threshold. But then again as I experiment I am surprised how little if any negative impact on comfort I have found with each drop in gear weight so far. Still for me I think I have about hit the point where I expect the law of diminishing returns are about to set in if I go lower. That for me looks like around 7.5 pounds base, for someone else it might be more or less.

I concede that I am likely to have 1-2 pounds of optional stuff in addition to that on most tours depending on the tour. For example I may want more camera stuff for some locales or trail running shoes if I will be doing a lot of hiking or peak bagging. I also might opt for a tent instead of tarp an bivy for some conditions. So my base might range from 7.5 to 10.5 in fairly normal circumstances. It could also possibly go a good bit higher in special circumstances.

all of this is academic, and fun.

what really needs to happen is 'effective touring' - be it light, ultralight, mountain bike, road, carbon, etc.
once you peel away the 60-80 pound loads that many folks carry for a cross country or week long tour - the gear and their weights really need to be effective to deal with:

weather
terrain to cover and general location (you carrying bear spray in your base weight? a gun? personal locator beacon? packraft?)
resupply options
failure options (how bombproof does your gear need to be? how many tubes / patches / chains? can you go a night in the rain if your tent is shredded?)
tour intent (blogging? podcasting? video production? course record on the great divide? trip to grandmas for the holidays? education with excursions off bike?)


the easy stuff is choices made on intent, resupply, etc.
the harder stuff is comfort level - with your own abilities and with those of the security you may or may not need - tent, bivy, how many tools, how adaptable are you to catastrophic gear breakdown, how safe is it if that happens, can you walk out, can you deal with cold snaps / heat snaps / dehydration / hypothermia / etc.

while i still plan on trimming my kit, i'm far more interested in doing more with less, and a big part of that is letting go of things in my head, and learning how to do adapt.

Once you make the decision to lighten the load it's easy to get drawn into the "weigh weenie" thing. Those first 10 or 20 lbs that you remove from the bike make riding so much more fun and they are intoxicating. And when you also find that you are just as comfortable off the bike and don't have to worry about keeping track of unnecessary stuff then the addiction can set in. I offer as evidence the length of this thread.

What we are doing when we compare UL to SUL gear lists and carbon frames bikes, MTBs, and LHTs is mostly a lot of navel gazing, but fun nonetheless. I would not encourage bike tourers to start off with a carbon bike or going rackless, but that first 10lbs might just push them in those directions.

Of course it is! It encourages people to think outside the squares we've created for ourselves. And it encourages a reassessment of what we have and what might be.

I have many of the components for my little CF FG/SS project (even the bike if it comes down to it) and it's now just a matter of getting to them.

apparently, yes. but only on carbon bikes - this allows you to carry a pair of jeans and still be SUL - :lol: or alternately, by sleeping under a shower curtain Grandma Gatewood style (who's ever wrapped themselves up in a blue tarp for the night?)

Well, I think that the ranking from light to ultra light and beyond [on both ends of the spectrum] should be divided up into a coded sequence of sorts... assuming you would want the best way to rank and determine exactly how light/crazy someone really is and compare it effectively

So a system sorta like how manufactured parts like pneumatic cylinders are designated: The first letter/ number determines the approximate rank of the bike [only including the bike and whatever it needs and has], then the same for the bags and containers mounted to the bike, then food, water, cooking gear, sleeping/ non riding gear and so on

An example would be: U 8 8 7 R - N C 7

And each category could be amended with more letters added to accommodate more and new things. plus the latter sequence would identify the primary use/ method for spending the night at campsites or more of a credit card type touring.

Obviously this would need a standard to be setup and enforced, and likely it would just be awkward to use. But it would be the best/ easiest way to compare one setup to another, plus how it is used... a bit silly though as there are always different levels of things and classifying them will be annoying and not practical , especially where bike riding is concerned [your neighbor may think himself a good cyclist when he rides his hybrid a mile and a half a week for two months in a row, but compared to most bike riders/ commuters that is a joke]...




Also there should be a stationary weight and a moving weight designation, maybe even a rank classifying how aerodynamic the bike + gear + rider are. Some riders may want to attach trim wings to their bike to provide minimal lift to reduce weight on the road, [while others will face the trim wings the other way so it puts greater weight on the road to increase traction slightly] and some more adventurous cyclists may want to inflate their tires with helium or hydrogen to in effect reduce weight of the bike [road bikes not so much, but bikes with large mountain bike like tires would probably noticeably benefit from this due to their volume, anywhere from 1-3lbs 'reduction' could be possible]; and yet others could attach a large helium/ hydrogen balloon to their bike to make it nearly weightless or even levitating [think a snoopy type balloon from a parade; clearly there would be issues with off-roading or on-road travel with power lines, but that is not so much an issue if you increase flotation and instead float above the trees and other obstacles -think how jealous the cyclists that see you will get when they see floating along without a care in the world :) ]
-PS: that last paragraph is mostly written in jest, though I am sure there are those out there that would attempt a few of those things or other even more audacious ideas.


Ultimately I think the idea is to grab a light and fun bike [maybe not your favorite carbon racing bike that cost you $4000, and probably not a 40lb mammoth from the stone ages, but a decent light bike] strap a minimal amount of stuff to it, add a little more for your comfort [whatever that entails], and ride to enjoy yourself on the bike!

ISO, MIL-Spec anyone?

XUL is probably just bringing along an SAS Altoids can survival kit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jYGF...eature=related

While we are having a fun time seeing how light we can go and still enjoy ourselves, these guys are the ones who take the cake in pushing it just to push it. I watched a video of a guy who went to test his kit out in the woods. Purposefully walked into the woods with a little altoid tin of stuff, along with a camera larger than the altoid tin, just to film himself being generally miserable and getting really cold at night due to some issues with his makeshift shelter. It just wasn't enough for the guy to be prepared, he HAD to go out and live it for a night just for kicks. Takes all kinds.

Anyhow, back to the subject at hand, some folks are getting a little bothered regarding including the bike in the overall weight. I think it's a useful metric, but I don't think I'm going to hold up my nose at a rider for riding a 20 pound bike with a 13 pound list when he could have bought a 17 pound bike to make it an even 30 overall. That misses the point. As would riding a carbon bike and carrying jeans and calling it UL touring. It may meet some arbitrary cutoff, but it's just kind of silly. The same would be said if someone on backpackinglight,com posted a list with a UL bivy and tarp that he put in a massive external frame pack. It would be LW by an arbitrary weight standard, but missing the point of going light.

I think gear carried is the more important factor as far as changing one's mindset of what traveling light can be. But once you whittle it down to 10-15 pounds, it then makes sense to rethink whether or not your bike could be lighter. Simply because, as I said before, at that point of traveling light, a change in bike weight would be a bigger overall percentage of the weight moved from point A to point B. At a 60 pound load, a 30 pound bike vs. a 20 pound bike doesn't seem like a big deal. But once you're down to something like 15 pounds, swapping the same two bikes would make a pretty big dent.

Is it required to join our "special club"? Well, maybe. That is, if you really care what a bunch of gear nerds on an internet forum think of you. But in reality, in the end, it's all just numbers as long as you enjoy the ride.



And Bekologist, let me be clear: you're kind of an ass. I don't mean it in a disrespectful way, it's just who you are. I'd advise you to reread all your posts, but because it's your personality, you just wouldn't see it. It's just who you are. Some of your posts have added an interesting insights and some viewpoints and experiences that have been helpful. And some of them are best ignored. I was doing my best just to leave it be, but your inability to see that you're directly insulting Nun just annoyed me too much. This is not a request to shape up or anything. You are an adult and can handle yourself. I just wanted you to know that it wasn't just Nun who was bothered.