fietsbob

Not all Buses .. Greyhound, is intentionally bad to help sell private cars,, Oregon & WA , DOT, has invested in Buying European made buses like Volvos,,

has Wi Fi (but you might still like noise canceling headphones) One serves this County from the Amtrak Station...in Portland..






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gugie 

If you want a rinko bag, Compass sells one. Like everything they sell, they're a bit pricey.

fietsbob

Already cut the fork up? bit late to un do that .... I would have a longer*, steel, splice, and have the 2 halves of the fork notched, sharing an alignment pin ..

and made a threadless- like conversion at the top... extending upward out of the fork.. I had an old Interloc stem .. 30 years ago,
its upper wedge (machined Aluminum) expanded with in a tube ,
so the Quill Could be extracted. .. from stem and fork..



* I bought a long Nitto Technomic bolt.. I have just replaced the folding alloy steering mast, supplied on my Bike Friday Pocket Llama ,
with something custom made, that is steel and does not creak and flex, I designed.. (Ti Cycles Did the work)






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Salamandrine 

Yes, but it's the steer tube that supports the fork.


I like to visualize problems like this by imagining a component in question is made of cheese. Let's say the steer tube was a good aged Parmesan. If you put a load on the front wheel, the steer tube would immediately snap and the wheel and fork would fly forward. There's actually a significant bending load on the steer tube, even statically. Add bumps in the road and these loads will spike dramatically. Besides that the fork is going to act like a lever acting on the steer tube. Adding a giant stress riser - in fact a fracture - to the middle of the steerer is asking for trouble. Besides that it's inside the head tube which means you can't inspect it.


Sorry if I'm coming across as a jerk, but I really don't want you to have an accident. There's other ways to solve this problem.

jonwvara 

No, you're not coming across as a jerk in the slightest. I appreciate your insights. I've been enjoying all the travel tips, but this is the issue that I really wanted to talk about.
I like the cheese analogy. I'm sure you're right about the stress on the steerer. Even if the head tube were dead vertical, there would still be some load. And the head-tube angle means that there's definitely a load there. It's still going to be less than the load on a seatpost where it emerges from the frame, though, or at least so it seems to me. And since seatposts never break there, I don't think that the insert--which, after all, is made from a seatpost--is going to break at the point where the halves of the steerer meet.

What I think COULD happen is that the steerer tube itself could develop fatigue cracks at the ends--either upper or lower--of the insert. Since the section of steerer directly over the insert can't flex as easily as the rest of the steerer, you're going to have a significant stress concentration there, correct? (This is the phenomenon where if you sew a thick, heavy patch over a hole in lighter material, the lighter material will tear away from the edges of the patch.) Would that happen here? It might, eventually. Maybe it would take years. Maybe it would take a few days. It's a little scary to contemplate.

But here's another thing: A standard quill stem is going to produce a similar stress concentration in a steerer, but steerers never, ever break there. They only break if you overtighten the stem, especially if the wedge is over the threaded part of the steerer.

Or am I mistaken in thinking that the stress-concentrating effects of a quill stem are similar to that of the insert? I'm trying to think like an engineer even though I aren't one.

63rickert

Steerers get used hard. Bent and bowed steerers are common. It happens on very heavy duty bikes with extra thick steerers just as much as on lightweights. The longer the steerer the more likely it is to bow. And it happens without any exterior evidence, except possibly tight head bearings when turned to certain positions. I wouldn't trust that double wedge device around the block.

My limited experience with Amtrak says the only relevant authority is the conductor. The conductor decides which rules apply today. So it's a crap shoot. There are runs and routes with so few passengers you can stow the bike anywhere. There are runs and routes so jam packed there is just not imaginably room for a bike. Most of the newer cars seem to be designed to imitate the worst features of buses or airplanes. The old cars with same exterior dimensions were infinitely spacious and you could do anything. Not sure if there are any older cars at all left in the fleet. The general rule seems to be bureaucracy prevails and service must always be bad.

Bike flights to LBS.

63rickert

Seatposts most definitely break. Done it twice myself, seen it a few more times on group rides. All with standard level top tube bikes and not that much seatpost up.

seedsbelize 

I'm no engineer either, and I also would not trust that setup around the block.

jonwvara 

Really? Wow, I guess I have led a really sheltered life.

jonwvara 

I would definitely trust it around the block. What I'm far from sure about is whether I would trust in over years and a series of bike tours hauling loaded front panniers. At a minimum, one would want to inspect it regularly.

jonwvara 

No, I haven't cut the steerer yet. I will more than likely suffer from pangs of reasonableness and never do it at all.

I had thought about having the pin fit a hole shared between the halves of the steerer, but then it couldn't serve its anti-rotational function if the bolt were to stiffen up in the wedge. Also, I'm not sure a steel insert would be beneficial, since I don't think the insert itself is likely to break--any breakage (I'm guessing here) would be most likely to occur in the steerer itself, just beyond either end of the insert. I think that a longer, stiffer insert might actually worsen the stress concentration in that area.

In any case, there's no room in the steerer for a longer insert than the one I have.

RobbieTunes

Stupid is no fun without dangerous.

nlerner

jonwvara 

In February, pretty hard.

jonwvara 

Truly.

63rickert

First seatpost broke because Raleigh got cheap at height of boom, that post was made from aluminum that was just too thin. Most posts break because the seat tube they sit in is not all that round and there are stress points.

I've got two bowed steerers in the house right now. One is in a 1955 Automoto and anything might have happened at any time. The other bow is from a DL-1. I am original owner. Nothing extreme has ever happened to that fork. And it is bloody heavy. But it is a long steerer and they flex a lot. Fortunately it was easy to get a replacement fork. Don't imagine that steerers sit there static and immobile.

jonwvara 

So which failure mode do you think would be more likely--fracture of the aluminum insert at the joint, or fracture of the steerer itself just above or below the insert (as outlined in my speculation about stress concentrations in that area in post #30 )?

Actually, that's I guess that's not a meaningful question. If you believe--as you not at all unreasonably do--that the whole concept is doomed to failure, it doesn't really matter where or how it would fail, since you're not going to be using it anyway.

I'm slowly trending in the "doomed concept" direction myself at this point, although I'm not quite there yet.

obrentharris 

You could cut half an inch off the top of that silly-long head tube, half an inch off the steerer tube, and call it a day. (assuming there is enough thread on the steerer to still allow the headset to be tightened down properly.)
Brent

dgodave

Thats what I was thinking.

Dont cut the dam steer tube!

CliffordK

That's what I was wondering too.

As far as cutting the fork, it is probably safe enough to not go flying apart while riding. You will have to deal with bearing lube when assembling and disassembling. Sealed bearings?

However, the risk I'd see is that a lot depends on very fine adjustment. As you're riding, if that gap in the fork opens up just slightly, your bearings will become loose and sloppy. Not necessarily a game killer, but annoying.

Yep.

Years ago, before the internet, I had a trip from Parma, Italy to Grado, Italy. On my northeast leg of the trip, it just got late somewhere north of Venice, so I ended up snagging a train for the last 50km or so. I think it was a split level train, and I just stayed with my bike near the exit. Nobody said a thing to me.

On my southwest leg of the trip, I decided to catch a train... hmmm, I think from Verona to Parma. I suppose just to save a day of travel or so. I took off the front and rear wheels. Maybe tied it up with twine or something. So, the result was smaller than some legal luggage. But, it was obviously a bike. The train wasn't too full. But, when the train conductor came, he kicked me off the train at the next town. No sending it up to baggage. And, I never got a refund for my ticket either. And, it was the last train of the night stopping in that town. Fortunately it was at a crossroads that headed in the direction back to Parma so I just got on my bike and rode until I couldn't ride anymore, then stopped for the night in a city gate of a small walled city.

Needless to say, my Christmas trip from Parma to Uggiano la Chiesa was unique. About twice as many people on the train as seats. People and luggage everywhere. And, that was all just fine. But, that one trip with my bicycle not bothering anybody... BIG PROBLEM!!!

I'd go with the Duffel, but NOT label it. Just pack up the bag, and don't worry about it, and don't give the conductor any reason to question it either. Out of sight, out of mind.

jonwvara 

Yes, I'm thinking of a down-tube decal that identifies the bike as made by ACME FOLDING BIKE, with a tope-tube decal identifying at as the "Foldino" model. That way, if the conductor insists on looking in the bag it could provide some backup to the folding bike claim.

63rickert

When seatpost breaks you get to ride home somewhat uncomfortably. When handlebar breaks most succeed in riding the bike home. Once I broke a stem and surprised myself by keeping the bike up.

Break a steerer and you are just out of luck.

dgodave

"Probably".

madpogue 

Fixed. But +1. And it's not lazy, it's the obvious answer. That's the elephant in the room of this thread. 30 posts, talk of structural surgery, arcane interpretation of gummint-speak rules, when the solution is staring us all in the face in the OP pic - TAKE THE WHEEL OFF. Slip the fork blades over the seat tube so the steerer is in the main triangle and the blades are in the rear triangle. Foam in the appropriate places around the frame/blades. Wooden dummy axle in the dropouts (both), Bob's your uncle.

jonwvara 

Yes, that's been the fallback all along. There are no possible structural problems with the approach, either. The drawback is that it makes breaking down the bike a little more troublesome.