Haven't had one of those for a while, what's new with you and yer wheels, folks? Any questions for things?
I recently came back from a vaction in Berlin and like half the fun was seeing cool bicycles all the time and having an actual bike culture, with like, cool shops n shit. It owned super hard. Even got a show of Fixie Riders doing mad spins and tricks.
Any projects on your mind? After having seen so many of the old steelframe roadbikes, I kinda wanna get one, even with frame shifters, just as a second café racer. Also still looking for a cargo bike that doesn't break the bank, but the local used market is ... fairly nonexistant, sadly. I'll find one of these days.
DA GUIDE
Anyway I recently converted an old trekking bike into a sort of cargo bike (transportation bike?). And it fucking rules, man. Panniers are nice, but the convenience of always rolling around with 70L and 40KG of carrying capacity on your daily fucking owns. Oh look, a computer monitor I need for home office, into the crate it goes!
So what you want is a front rack that affixes to the frame, not the fork. Because then your bars don't drop to one side and bring the whole thing clattering down when you leave it. This is about 25€. And then you put a fitting crate on it, that's somewhere between free and 5€ or so. Make sure it has holes so the rain can drain.
For the rear, you want your standard rear rack and then put a bigger baseplate on it for BIG CRATE. In the old continent the M-Wave Racky Baseplate (sorry for the advertising) is probably your most convenient bed, for the rugged individualists elsewhere in the world I'm sure you can find or just make something similar to screw onto a standard rack. Maybe take the Racky as a guide, it's not like it's a complicated system.
And then you just ziptie on a big crate. I got a 46L one. Make sure you you have somewhere to put your lights if you're running clip on lights, as the seatpost is probably going to be hidden by it. I'd avise a step-through frame for ease of use, but being young I've had no problems kicking my leg over one on a step-over frame. As long as the crate isn't too far out to the side and lower than the saddle it's the same motion anyways, allthough it does sort of limit how high you can stack goods in the back.
Et voila. The front racks take about 10kg, your usual rear rack can take about 30kg and together you have about ~70L of storage space on your bike. It's not particularly aero, but some plastic crates also aren't going to be all that heavy and the baseplate / front rack probably add around 3kg. It's noticeable, but you know have a quasi cargo-bike!
is there a specific term for single-day touring? like riding around all day with some cargo (food, water, etc) but then returning home at night. i'm interested in doing that
Covid Bike-Touring, heyoooo.
Nah for real, that's just called bike touring I think. It's sadly, in my opinion, a bit underrepresented in the bike sphere compared to say, road biking, bike packing, mountain biking and such.
Allthough it is basically my forté if I have one, so I'd be very glad to help you with it. /r/bicycletouring is okay if you're willing to dredge through the useless if sometimes nice photos and an avalanche of people having never ridden a bike before wanting to do a cross continental trip.
Seriously though, ask away.
the main barrier i can think of for me is endurance; is there anything else riding-wise i might need to improve at for touring?
If you're not going for top speed or whatever I'm pretty sure without enough nutrition any reasonably healthy adult could bike 50km a day, given the roads are good enough. Cycling is one of the few sports where eating during it, especially during a day tour, is advised. Also probably plan a break in about the middle of it, say 15 mins to walk around or so. It makes a load of difference.
Biggest hurdle'd probably be the bike fit and whether your saddle fits your ass without causing literal butthurt.
Check out how to fit a bike properly online and the rest is basically experience as every body is different. I'd start with some training tours, say around quarter to half of what you want to do, and if you can do those no problem there's little chance anything higher gets in your way as far as joints or ass are concerned.
This isn't magic or whatever, but you don't wanna find out you can't sit anymore 30km from home. That's gonna blow (trust me, I have done this). Some of it is just getting used to it, yes, but not all of it. Just go for shorter rides at first and then build up. This also goes for your bar. A flat bar might be good for 10km rides, but maybe you eventually wanna change hand positions on it for a bit and as such, bar ends and / or ergonomic grips might be good. Latter one is, from my experience, really down to personal preference. And that's basically what you wanna find out before you need to do 30km back home.
I'd also advise learning how to do the basic maintenance at home. Know how to change or fix a tyre / tube and how to put the chain back on. It's easy to learn and might save yourself from a lot of walking. And of course, bring the appropiate tools and materials to the ride so you can actually change the tube / tyre.
As such, some on-bike storage is advised. A backpack is doable, but it does get annoying quickly for longer rides IMO. One or two small bags and of course the bottle cages should supply you with everything you need for a day tour.
The rest ist just comfort things you learn as you go. Whether you wanna dress in layers or just be a bit too cold or too hot etc.
great advice, thanks! i built my bike so i've already got some experience with the maintenance you listed thankfully, though i hadn't thought about bringing spare tubes/tires
Padded bike shorts (by themselves or under clothes) are an absolute must for any tour over 50km. Trust me, you'll have a better time.
Good call!
Front Rack (without crate, I'm guessing you can visualize this)
Back / Baseplate (just imagine the crate of beer is some other sort of crate)
Where I'm from, locally? Hell no.
Where I'm from, nationwide? Also hell no.
This finally got me to make an account. My beautiful, beloved track bike has been the bane of my existence this past week. Something is off in the drivetrain causing the chain tightness to vary wildly in like a quarter rotation. After swapping components to test for change, the only way to diagnose the issue, I'm finally just replacing basically the entire drivetrain. Not asking for advice, just saw bike thread and wanted to vent.
I feel you. Chain issues can be a fucker to diagnose as there's so many possibilities.
Allthough, and I'm sorry if you did, have you checked whether you got a stuck chainlink somewhere?
Yeah checked my chain and it looks fine. It's probably not anything related to that, but that's one of the parts that's just getting replaced on principle now.
I think that's what we call a chainring and cog. I swapped both to no avail. I believe the issue is the crank arm spider which attaches to the chainring (front sprocket I think?) is slightly bent, not to a visible degree but enough to throw off the chainring rotation. So I'm replacing that, but they're sooo hard to find not as part of a full crankset and match to the bottom bracket.
I have a question: How thick is too thiccc to ride a regular adult bike? Is there a usual weight limit?
I haven't ridden a bike since I was a teenager.
The "standard" EU-Cycle is rated for 120kg of load. In the US, and especially depending on what you buy, anybodys guess, but if it's not from walmart i'd say about the same since all the frames and wheels are produced in asia anyways and I don't quite believe they change the production up. Wheels are usually rated for 70kg each, so 140kg in total.
Allthough that's with safety factors. I'm not a small person and with my cargobike conversion I have definitely exceeded the weight limits with that thing multiple times by like, a lot and it was entirely fine, albeit for smaller trips.
If you want a bike that holds up, I'd recommend a proper hardtail mountainbike. Sure, they're rated for about the same weight class as every other bike, but they're also rated for doing jumps and shit. If you don't do those, it'll probably hold up fine for a long time. Put some slicker tyres on it, run enough tyre pressure, don't take curbs head on and speed and such and you'll be fine.
What 6bikes said. Also if you're very thicc, fatbike tyres (as in the tyres, not the person) can help, though they compromise steering a bit.
How the hell do I go about looking for an ebike? There are too many options. I don’t want an electric motorcycle, I want a bike with an assisted pedal sometimes.
After having seen so many of the old steelframe roadbikes, I kinda wanna get one, even with frame shifters, just as a second café racer.
They are super fun, I love my old Trek.
Generally much cheaper to just upgrade a bike you already have, if you don't mind the wait you can get kits from aliexpress that work well for a little under $400
It's a tired out advice in bicycling circles but; local bike shop, if existent.
Should also probably ask where this is? E-Bike regulations in the US seem a lot different from europe as far as the law goes.
I'd pre-filter anything by removeable battery. There's by now services that will repack them for your with fresh ones even if the manufacturer doesn't produce replacements for them anymore, but the bill's going to get a lot higher when somebody has to disassemble the bike and dig into the frame, if that is even possible.
I purchased the radrunner from rad power bikes when they had their Christmas/end of year sale, it's awesome. It's designed as a utility bike, it has a heavy duty rear rack integrated into the frame, it can carry a lot, including a rear passenger and you can still go uphills on full throttle, so with pedal assist it is no problem. I attached a 70L pannier on the back, and along with a backpack I carry a lot of groceries. Lots of youtube videos.
https://www.radpowerbikes.com/products/radrunner-electric-utility-bike
I'm a fan of Smartmotion, which is an NZ company. Best value for money. Their bikes are just slightly road-illegal for Europe/Aus (300w+, Throttle to 30kmh) but you can request a downtune so the throttle is only a boost start to 6 kmh and the wattage is 250.
Or you can shake hands with danger as almost everyone in AU has juiced their bikes in order to make it safer on busy roads.
I'm guessing since the edit function doesn't work because you can't edit pinned posts, but I do wanna say I really appreciate these being pinned now, much love <3
Just got a blue Dutch step-through. No gears, backward pedal for braking. Got a rack for it. I've only ridden it twice, but want to get a littlw in shape and start riding it 5.5 miles (291 km in fake numbers) to work. I hate cars so much and want to stop using mine so often.
Edit: oh yeah! My gf said I could get her one too, as long as I find a pink one.
Go for it, my dude. There's a reason the dutch use that style of bike for their daily needs, it hardly ever needs servicing and takes the abuse well. If you take stuff to work, definitely get either a basket for your rack or panniers. It will make you so much less sweaty.
Haha yeah, the low maintenance was a big part of my choice. I hate messing w tools, and putting it together was my max mechanical capacity.
Will do in re bags/basket. Thanks!
All great advice. I got a heavy step-through (seriously don't know why they're still though of as "girl bikes" in the anglosphere) e bike and it carries massive amounts.
One extra thing you can do is mount panniers on the side of the rear rack as well, which helps with more fragile stuff or rain.
All great advice. I got a heavy step-through (seriously don’t know why they’re still though of as “girl bikes” in the anglosphere
Great Youtube Channel Not just Bikes has pointed out how it's really backwards as a "mens" frame is the only one you can hit your nuts on.
https://i.imgur.com/SOHb4UI.png
A bike co-op in Colorado has that as their logo. It's vibes and good.
kinda hyped to go back to uni I'll get to use my cool new bike, zoooooom :sicko-biker:
Are you like forgetting passwords? Or is it a part of your whole thing to come back with a new account?
Either way :rosa-salute:
One time the admins logged us all out and that was the first one and then I deleted all my browser history and that was the other oneI mean, uhh, it's good opsec to count up your accounts. You can't prove I'm not an impostor!
I dug out the road bike I bought years ago, and want to fix fenders and probably something like 32 tires and junk to it, and a shorter stem so it fits better, but no one is making 26mm stems anymore?!? I dont wanna buy new handlebars too!
It's a bit of a hack but you can just increase diamater with some cut up soda cans. Probably should go for a test drive before you really get into it, but soda can shims aren't unheard of in the Tour de France so you'll probably be fine.
Also look for adjustable stems. I know it looks like shit, but they usually come shorter and I'd be guessing in a bigger variety of sizes. That is, if you have an ahead system anyways. Or look for used ones, craigslist / ebay tend to have those kind of stuff.
True, this whole bike is a cheapie bikesdirect models and they all come with threadless cockpits. I dont know how safe shiming a 31.8 clamp to 26mm might be tho. I’m just confused cause i thought 26mm was the standard
There's like 0 (enduring) standards in the bicycling industry for anything (which fucking sucks) apart from like pedals threads.
I'd honestly give it a try with the shimmy. 6mm isn't all that much. Like, give it a good shakedown before you go off with it, but it's not like the soda cans are gonna spontaneously disintegrate.
EDIT: Because I think that's kind of the beauty of bicycles being a mostly mechanical contraption. You can just fuck with it and it'll probably be fine, there's no electronics to break. Will probably be fiddly as hell, though. Possibly put cut up old inner tubes between the shim and the bar so it has less chance of sliding around
in the past few days i took some bad falls, i noticed to that my pedals a fucked. they are cracked as shit
