Originally Posted by
Cougrrcj
OMG!!
We're all gonna DIE because nobody in history of cycling had
ever used rim brakes on a touring bike! /sarcasm
Really? what do you think we all did before disc brakes were a thing? I toured with Dia-Compe center-pull brakes - before cantilever brakes were even a thought. I'm certainly not the only one still alive.
Same goes for 5-6-speed freewheels and triple cranksets vs 8+speed cassettes with 'compact doubles'.
Quit listening to the cycling rags. They take money from advertisers that are pushing these new technologies. Not
all that is new is 'better'.
Just
ride!!!
I toured on this - BEFORE the triple crankset or six-speed freewheel. Imagine - touring with only ten gears and with rim brakes!!! No braze-ons! Only ONE water bottle!! AND with using rear panniers
only on a cheap
Pletscher rear rack!: Oh, the horror!!
.
And TOE CLIPS!!! How did we ever do it? My first tour was a 300 mile round trip with two friends, we were 15 years old in 1972. Speaking of hardship, one of my friends had lost his right arm to cancer a few years before (he was rigth-handed) so his 10-speed Raleigh Competition was set up with a stem-mounted front shift lever and bar-end for the rear. Oh, did I forget to mention FRICTION SHIFTING? Oh I forgot to add, we were all running sew-up (tubular) tires. Had that same rack - although that IS crappy for touring. We didn't have panniers, we just strapped bags of stuff to the crappy rack. No GPS, no cell phones. Our mothers were fools or they just had confidence in us. I'm sure we called home from a pay phone every day or two or three. We had paper maps. And paper money. And regular clothes and sneakers.
It was such a good time that I continued to tour through my life and still doing it at 63. How did I ever survive all that old technology? How did I not give up in frustration because my brakes were crappy (actually they were not - just as good as most new brakes).
The new stuff is great but not so much better that you need to spend much money. Listen to the advice to JUST DO IT!
The one thing I FULLY AGREE WITH IS LOWER GEARING.