Is five gears enough for touring?
 

https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d5b93485fd.jpg
https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ba8b0a8d04.jpg
Hi.

I think the answer to my question is no. I just picked up a Dawes Fox yesterday from a local bike shop. When I say picked up I have not paid for it yet. I really want to ride across France in the summer and do some stealth camping so the bike will be quite laden with a pannier on the back (but not the front). Now I've read that you need a lot of gears for touring (for hills and such). I've read that the Dawes Galaxy would be one to go for.

The Dawes Fox rides very well and has been totally stripped and looks nice. It's £140 but I suppose a similar condition Galaxy would be £300.

Would you say the Dawes Fox is a non starter for what I want it for? The guy has said he could make it into a 10 gear but everything is all original and I don't like changing original stuff. I think I am going to go back into the shop to day and back out and keep on looking for a tourer for around £150.

I first started touring with a 3 speed Speedwell, when I was young, and that was up hills and down dale, as they say, I then went to a 5 speed Malvern Star, same type of touring, and next was my current bike a 16 speed, only did this for touring with dog in trailer, and same type of hills. That is not a bad bike, actually it looks in good nick, and you wont find much better for 150. Lugged bikes especially with a Dawes name are collectables. I cannot see anything wrong with it. Edit: Just realised , it doesn't have mounts for a rack at the rear, both up top and down below, so it could be a problem unless you jerry rigged it.

It is certainly possible. Some people tour with single speeds. However it might be hard going depending on your route choices, amount of weight you're carrying and lowest gear you achieve.
Personally I prefer to have a lowest gear of around 22 gear inches which translates to a 34 tooth front ring and 42 tooth largest sprocket at the cassette. With a single chainring at the front you won't likely be able to achieve that since the front chainring would have to be tiny.

Also you did mention you did not like changing things. To me that's a non productive stance, since you'll have to change parts when they wear down anyways. The whole drive train is made of expendable components which will need to be swapped at some point due to wear. Also you don't need to toss a components when you replace them with something more suitable for touring. If you add a triple crankset for touring use you can put the original crankset back when you've returned from your tour.

Just a word of caution. While the Dawes Fox is as suitable for touring as any bike and you will likely be able to cross France with it no problem, keep listening to what your body is telling you. Less gears and higher gear ratios will mean more strain on the uphills. This means you'll need to grind instead of spinning which can cause wear on your joints, especially knees. Now I am NOT saying you will blow out your knees by riding a bike with few gears. I AM saying that you need to be alert on pains and aches and just push the bike uphill if you feel like going at it with tenacity is going to do more harm than good. There's no shame in that especially if you don't have enough gears to get really low gear ratios. Since touring is not a competition there's no rush and pushing your bike now and then lets you stretch your legs and freshen up a bit.
If you develop knee or back pains that worry you, take a rest day or two. Also remember to have regular rest days to recover and eat enough.

And one last thing. France is a beautiful wine country with a selection of some of the finest wines on the planet. Just try not to partake too hard into the wine tasting since alcohol will be quite detrimental to your sleep quality and recovery even in small doses. Learned that the hard way myself

Hi.

Thanks for your reply. Could I not rig the pannier rack up to the back brakes and the rear mud guard hole?

Hi thanks for you comments. Luckily I don't drink so there is no worry on that score! I think I am leaning towards looking for something more suitable. I may have to up my budget a bit.

More comments are welcome.

That's a pretty cool bike, but it's not ideal for touring. It's got more of a racer geometry, what looks like short chain stays and no rack mounts. The gearing may work well in relatively flat land, but I couldn't push that gearing in the hills or mountains. I'd say that there are better ways to go about getting into a touring bike.

for your budget, you'd be better off finding a hybrid type bike that at least has three gears in the front, and larger ones in the back than this bike. Around here in Canada, there are not a lot of used "touring bikes" as such for sale used, and the good ones that are are much more than you wish to spend, so the "hybrid" type bikes available will be a lot cheaper and still be reasonably suited for what you want to do, but its always hit and miss with used bicycles.

Put all your gear on it, and try riding up hills you expect to encounter. Can you do it comfortably? Then yes, it is sufficient, if not, then it isn't.

At the least, though, I'd find a new crank and a frond derailleur and make it a 2x5. Shouldn't cost you more than a few bucks in parts if you have a used parts shop or coop by you.

Depends on how far apart those five gears are, how many hills are on your route, how heavy you pack, how heavy you are, and your level of fitness. I've seen people touring on a single-speed, but most people would want a lot more than five gears.

Pretty bike, yes, but those gears won't get up many hills empty. Needs a 46/ 34 double crank at the least.
I had similar on a 1974 Raleigh. Those GIs are actually WORSE than a Sturmey Archer 3 speed.
Likely has a low of 50 or 52 GI now.

Its Big, are you tall?


You always have the get off and walk gear.. which is partially the British, traditionally call non motor bikes .. Push Bikes


Irish Author of Full Tilt* Dervla Murphy wrote of her tour from Ireland to India on a single speed , saying she thought the 3 speed may be un reliable..
* + many others


Touring is what you do, the fact you use a bicycle is secondary..






....

I personally have toured, 5700 miles round trip across t he Appalachians, I live in NH and rode out to the midwest andthen back home. I did it on a single speed bike with 40 pounds of gear in a backpack on my back...not on a rack. I was in good shape, riding 20,000 miles a year in NH. Yeah, I was use to the time on the bike and the climbing. It depends on your mental fortitude and physical fitness. The questions are you willing to do it and are you in shape or out of shape.

If this were my purchase and I intended to tour, I'd be looking for a triple crankset (52-42-28 is my favorite) and front derailleur capable of shifting it if necessary, a 14-28 Ultra 6 freewheel and a capable rear derailleur. I am assuming that bike has 120 mm rear dropout spacing. I might well spread it to the 126 standard and go 14-18 7-speed and have a better choice of freewheels. That would require a new axle and spacers for the rear wheel or perhaps a new wheel with a freehub - better because the hub drive-side bearings are out at the end and the axle will be far more resistant to breaking; something that 126 spaced FW hub axles are well known to do.

So, yes I am suggesting a fair amount of work and expense, but that is because I view that frame as a very worthy place to start. (The Peter Mooney of my user name started as a 53-42-28 X 13-19 15-speed and evolved to a 50-38-24 X 12-21 21-speed. Spacing went from 120 to 126. It is currently a fix gear but if I tour, I might go to 130 spaced 9-speed, 53-42-26 X 12-28.) The Mooney is a frame of not very different geometry from your Dawes.

Ben

Yes 5 gears is enough to tour if it works for you.

I'm the wrong person to ask, but... I have done a tour in Europe on a fixed gear. No problems.

I think that crank can't have a 2nd chainring added to it, so you would need a different crank to add more gears up front.

A five speed freewheel is 1970s vintage technology. If that is a Simplex rear derailleur, that would also be 70s technology. You might be able to fit a six speed freewheel to it, maybe a long cage vintage Suntour derailleur to get wider gearing if that freewheel was a wider range. Simplex gears had a fairly short amount of cable pull per shift compared to some other derailleurs, if it was setup with a vintage Suntour derailleur you might find that the shifter needs to move farther than desired to cover all the range of gears.

If the rear dropouts are spaced at 120mm, you might need a longer axle plus a spacer on that wheel to fit a six speed freewheel, you probably could fit a 126mm rear hub in that frame but it would take a bit more effort to pull the dropouts out a bit when you drop the wheel in.

If that is a 27 X 1 1/4 tire, those are getting pretty rare, most road bikes these days are 700c.

Interesting front light bracket on the fork. I have not seen anyone use those front wheel hub wing nuts since the 1970s, very retro.

I think the bike is over-priced IMHO

While some of the effects of alcohol have to do with the personal perception of the effects it has, it has also been scientifically shown that alcohol has a detrimental effect on sleep quality and recovery even in small doses. That is not really something you feel in the morning as a headache. It is something you start feeling after a while when you're not recovering enough on tour.

Though it must be said that you have plenty of experience and are a beast of a rider due to that. But I would be cautious of recommending fixed gear touring for beginners or people whose fitness level is unknown (which I appreciate is not something you did with your comment. This is more of a general comment using your comment as a reference point more than anything else).
I think fixed gear touring or even limited gear touring is something that requires a certain level of fitness to be feasible. Mostly it is to do with leg muscle development and thus leg joint stabilization. Good amount of muscle trained for the action of pedaling a bike will keep the knees safe even when going up hills loaded on fixed gear but someone who does not have that stability yet can face issues.

There was this one time I met two hockey players who had taken on riding a shortish touring route in one day as a dare. One of them had bike he had bought from a friend the day before with three gears and the other had a single speed. At the middle point of the route after a ferry crossing they had to take a break and contemplate whether they'd continue or not because their knees were shot from all the hills (it's not a route you expect to have hills unless you've been there). We gave them painkillers and they asked us whether the route would get easier in terms of elevation. I couldn't say then because I couldn't remember but as my wife and I rode it to the end the route just got progressively worse. I felt really bad for those dudes.

There's really no set answer to that.
With bikes, everything has been done on anything.
Around the world on a high-wheeler - sure.
Coast-to-coast(US) on a unicycle, naturally.
I think there's one guy who set out to ride all mainland states on a BMX, backwards.

Touring on a 5 speed will not even stretch the oddity barrier.

It's not only about the number of gears, it's also about which gears they are.

I could easily see myself doing a "casual" tour in flattish country with only five gears.
IMO, walking a bike uphill is more boring than coasting downhill, so I'd set the range fairly low and sacrifice the powered descents immediately.
For a European tour, there are several river valley routes with very little elevation gain wher this is likely to work fine.

Me, I wouldn't want it if I planned to hit the Alps.
But that doesn't mean it can't be done.
And there's no natural law preventing someone from even enjoying it.

Unlikely to work well on two accounts:
- Racks tend to be somewhat narrow at the front, I'm not sure a brake would fit in the bend
- even if you find one that can take your brake, or make some sort of adapter from flat steel or angle iron, mid-mount racks tend not to be a stable sideways as side-mount racks.

The good news is that you don't need to bother with that complication, thanks to the wonderful invention called P-clamps. Available from a good hardware store, these wrap around the chainstays and give you a pair of mounting holes for a side-mount rack easy as that.

Certainly. Some longer bolts and you're good to go. Make sure you don't get too much protrusion on the DS inside.

For a variety of reasons I don't think this is the bike for what you want to do, and I like the suggestion of finding a sturdy hybrid.

FWIW, sure, no problemo.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...f533920527.png

Mega range FW offers a very low first gear. Available in 6 or 7 speed.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...048f305763.jpg

Who needs sleep?

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...a4041d3cd8.jpg

https://cimg4.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...08b4359eeb.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...404bfd416b.jpg

https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d5d267a6ef.jpg

https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3c4f5f6756.jpg

https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...c145d24b46.jpg

https://cimg1.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...5edb1981f1.jpg

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...3457b46100.jpg

I certainly wouldnt want that setup to ride across a country like France, but everyone is different.
I probably would want a wider gear range to even ride across The Netherlands and a lot of that is flat and below sea level!

Good luck with the planning. Pack light, i guess.