trevstonbury

Good Afternoon,

I am looking for some advice on kitting out 2 mountain bikes for touring across South East Asia. The bikes are Whyte 604 Compact and 605 (2016 models), with no alterations from their original spec. We are looking to bike through Mongolia, China and through the rest of SE Asia to Singapore and will be carrying our luggage on the bikes. Our main concern is that the bikes are fitted with the most suitable tyres which provide the right balance for efficiency on roads vs ruggedness for tracks in places like Mongolia with many being dirt/gravel. We would also like to know if there are any suitable panniers or other accessories you would recommend for such an extended journey, we will also be looking to take spares, inner tubes etc...

Any advice would be much appreciated!

Kind regards
Trevor

bikemig 

I don't know how much gear capacity you are looking for but carradice makes some pretty big bags out of cotton duck which is tough stuff:

https://www.carradice.co.uk/bags/pan...-rear-panniers

Most folks here will likely say get ortlieb bags.

Schwalbe is generally the go to choice when looking for a tough tire.

Tourist in MSN

I did a search for Whyte 604 Compact, did not find it, but found the Whyte 605. These are not high end bikes. I am not saying that a high end bike is needed, but the lower end bikes are likely to need more repairs as time goes on as long as the frame holds up. I paid more for my expedition bike frame than the total cost of one of your bikes.

You might have a problem with heel clearance, those chainstays might be a bit short for touring.

In generic terms (as Bikemig mentioned) Schwalbe usually are looked at for tires that you need to depend on. The Shwalbe tires that I use are now discontinued, they were replaced by the Mondial. But I have not used a Mondial since my older tires are still performing, so I can't speak from experience on the Mondial. Others that have used it might comment on it.

Tubus racks are usually the go-to racks when reliability and dependability are called for. I am quite happy with my Tubus Logo. I have no suggestion for a front rack because you have suspension forks.

Ortlieb panniers are pretty much the standard. But as Bikemig mentioned, the Super C panniers also have a strong following for toughness.

Take a look at the photos of some of the bikes at this link, you will get an idea of what a lot of other people are using for their heavy duty touring. But I do not think you will see many lower end mountain bikes at that site.
The Loaded Touring Bike | Photo Gallery Photo Gallery by Wheeler Creative Works at pbase.com

djb

trev, have you ever done any bike touring and what riding/bike repair maintenance experience do you have?
I ask these basic questions as you are contemplating a rather tough trip that is quite an undertaking with lots of implications of logistic stuff and being hard on equipment. Your bikes will have limitations that could easily become a handicap at the least for a trip like this--specifically the wheelset and suspension forks--given the amount of gear that a trip like this would require.

blunt I know....but realistic points.

ps, I highly recommend that you look up the website Crazy guy on a bike and check out trips through these areas to get real, detailed, up to date info on what travelling in these areas entail, distances wise, quality wise, access to water, you name it--all stuff that generally points to having a very tough bike and the experience to deal with stuff.

saddlesores

from the crazyguy reports, mongolia is an empty wasteland....unmarked dirt tracks with no supplies for days. might be one or two paved roads by now, though.


here's a link for the 604
https://whyte.bike/collections/bikes/products/604


*435mm chain stays.
*are 27.5" rims+tires common?

alan s 

dgodave

For my lunar expeditions I dont worry about the rack so much, what with gravity being only 17% of earth's.

3speed

mev

A few thoughts here:

1. I haven't been to Mongolia. However, I did travel north of there in 2007 before the road was paved. That was ~1500km of gravel road. I also have been the from Prudhoe Bay to Ushuaia including some rough roads along the way.
2. An important part for the bikes is getting a sense of what may break. In my case, I am large, heavy and cautious. So the first thing I upgraded in both cases were wheels.
-- On the Russia trip (~13000km), I took a Trek 520 with following modifications: (a) front rack was Surly (b) 48-spoke wheels with double-walled velocity rims (c) leather saddle. See second photo below. Along the way, my front rack attachments broke several times (Surley since redesigned the attachments), I wore out a rear rim, I replaced front hub+rim, I went through two tires and four brake pads. Shortly after the trip, I took another 4000km supported ride across China and ~500km in Thailand before my rear hub failed. The second photo below is the bike close to start of the trip.
-- On the Americas trip (~27000km), I took the Trek 520 for small portion but mostly did this ride on a basic Trek 4500 mountain bike. I modified the bike to replace wheels, add old-man mountain front rack and leather saddle. I also replaced the entire drive chain (bottom bracket, chainrings, chain, derailleur). See first photo below. Along the way, I went through two rear hubs before replacing with a different type, two rotors and countless pads, half a dozen tires, torqued off a rear derailleur and cracked the frame near the right chainstay. The frame was thus welded.
-- On a supported ride across Africa (~8000km+ cycled), I also took a Trek 4500 (different bike, but same frame with hydraulic brakes instead of disc brakes). I had two flats on the entire trip. I broke a hub and two rims. I wore through chains, rear cassette, front chainring and some brake pads.
3. For me, durability and robustness is much more important than speed. So I was willing to go with more "bombproof" tires in Schwalbe XR and Marathon Plus rather than something that was faster. On the Russia trip I had barely any flats. On the Americas trip, I had more and few times a bit frustrating but mostly smooth riding. There are large parts of the world one might not reliably find a spare of the same caliber, so I carried up to two spare tires at a time. Similarly I carried spare tubes. Surprising to occasionally find those in out of way places - but also not something I would rely upon.
4. I carried a fair amount, so ended up with both front end rear panniers and as can see from photo below even had a mix of bikepacker bags and panniers. Some of that might be overkill but it is useful to review journals from others that have gone where you are going and anticipate some spares (e.g. binder bolt for seat post?, derailleur hanger? failures are relatively rare - but can be obnoxious if it means spending a chunk of your ride on a bus to get to larger city as well as basic duct tape, etc. I'd be more concerned with Mongolia/China in that regard than Southeast Asia.
5. I've become a fan of disc brakes because I wear out pads+rotors rather than rims. Combination of weight and cautiousness means I go through both.
6. My Trek 4500 was an aluminum mountain bike and not particularly high end. I paid ~$600 for it new and then spent multiples of that with wheels, replacing drive train, racks etc. The frame cracked, was welded and then lasted another 3000km to the end of the trip. One thing that influenced me on buying this was seeing Spice Roads use essentially the same frames for their clients in SE Asia tours.

chrisx

Mev,
I am curious about your front rack on the suspension fork. You mentioned a lot of replaced parts. You did not mention a replacement suspension fork.
How did the, I think they call it unsprung weight, work out on the suspension fork_? I ask, because I am thinking of attaching 6 liters of water to my fox fork, and do not know if that would hurt it.

mev

I don't have a good A/B comparison of the bike performing with and without the rack and my gear on panniers. In practice, I weighed enough that I wasn't using the suspension much even when I didn't have the rack on it. I also didn't end up replacing any suspension parts.

I cycled most of the distance from Prudhoe Bay to Jasper on my 520 touring bike and then switched to the Trek 4500 mountain bike. My motivation was to try some of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and I had planned on using an Extrawheel trailer instead of a front rack. By accident I didn't have the hitch when switching bikes, so did parts of the GDMBR and nearby roads with some bikepacking bags and no front rack. By the time I got to San Diego, I ordered the Old Man Mountain rack as well as the front panniers. I rode in with the configuration pictured through all of Latin America from San Diego (16,000km). One front pannier was my "tools and parts" stash and the other was my "electronics and maps" stash. So not quite as heavy as water, but also not really light.

chrisx

All I can find on the net is people saying unsprung weight is not ideal, nothing about how long the fork will last outside its normal use.

6 liters is about 6 kilos + 1 kilo for the 4 bottles and cages. I just want to know if my Fox Float fork can survive through another trip down the Baja with 7 kilos attached to it?

So 16,000 kilometers and no damage to a stock Trek fork?

Tourist in MSN

I have occasionally seen front panniers on a suspension fork, I rode with an Italian for a day in some rough part of the Iceland interior, he had a Stumpjumper, first photo. I have no idea what kind of rack he used for the front end. I think he had his suspension locked out, but not fully sure about that.




Second photo, a gal I met in a campground on the Pacific Coast in 2014 had a discontinued front rack, I think it was a Tubus Swing? She really liked it and kept getting it repaired because she could not replace it. It solved the problem of unsprung weight. I only mention this because of the mention of unsprung weight above.




Third photo, my Nomad in Iceland when I had only eaten about three days of food, so the bike was still pretty heavily loaded at the time of the photo. I had just entered the interior. I do not know how much weight I had on the bike, I did not want to know. But I was really glad I had a really heavy duty frame with a stout wheelset. Regarding discs versus wearing out rims, I have Ryde CSS rims on both front and rear, those rims do not wear down the braking surface at all. Rims will probably last longer than I will. I had Schwalbe Marathon Extreme 57 mm wide tires on front and rear. I am not too happy about the front rack, so I am intentionally not naming it.



I would trust that Nomad to go just about anywhere, but I built it up, laced up the wheels myself, etc. Thus, if something goes wrong with it, I only have myself to blame. Where practical I stuck with low tech stuff, like it uses a UN55 bottom bracket that just about any bike shop can replace.

The frame is rated for something like 60 kg of capacity not counting the weight of the rider, I am sure my load was less than the 60 kg rating. The Tubus Logo rear rack is rated for 40 kg which I doubt that I reached. The frame uses M6 bolts for rack mounts, not the more common M5 bolts.

3speed

chrisx

Did I hijack a thread?
I own panniers, but hoestly, they have not seen sun light in a few years.
I have 4 of these, I want to attache tham to my fox fork and have 6 liters of water on my fork

The Baja hurricane season has about a month to go, and then it is open roads.

mev

No damage I can see. The bike is a 2011 model Trek 4500 and fork was whatever came standard. I brought the bike to India in 2011 and used on successive ~6 week business trips over the next three years - so not a huge amount of use. In 2014, I brought it back to the US, upgrades tires, drive train, saddle and switched from caliper brakes to disc brakes. However, I didn't change the fork. It became the bike I rode from Tete Jaune BC to San Diego w/o front rack and from San Diego to Ushuaia (16000km) after that with front rack. The last 2300km was a supported ride so unloaded and the rest of the 16000km was loaded.

Trevtassie

I dunno, for that kind of trip I reckon you'd be better off building up something from a steel touring frame with 26" wheels. For a long tour you aren't going to like the stripped down bike packing style of touring you'd need to do since your bikes don't have rack mounts. You are going to need to carry enough gear to be able to be comfortable from extreme heat to very cold at times, harder to do with bike packing gear. Something like the Surly Troll, that can take big fat touring tires. Hopefully somebody other than Surly will start making 2.5" ones, since their QC on the ETs can be a bit flakey. The 2.5s take away the need for suspension. If you like a bit of comfort something like the USE Shokpost will smooth things out in the butt department. Alternative would be a good quality older 1990s mountain bike with 36 hole eyeleted rims but you'll only be able to go up to around 2.15- 2.25 tires with that. You may need to use a canti or U-bolt front rack upper mount.