afrowheels

Hi All,

This might be a slightly frustrating question/set of questions so apologies in advance. I've not been touring for a while and I am dealing with a bike that I built in a hurry over a decade ago.

Basically, I have a Surly LHT 64cm (as I recall but might be 62cm) for 26 inch wheels that I want to get ready for a potential tour (that I've posted about before). I still don't know whether that's going to happen but if it does it will be a last minute decision so I want to get as much ready as possible in case it comes off.

I previously had a Hewitt and transferred quite a few of the components from that to the LHT: front and rear derailleurs, wheels, racks, cogs (3x front and 8x rear). I ended-up doing all that before a short, easy tour in France but it was very rushed. For some reason, which I now can't remember, I ended-up using a different set of (rather low quality) shifters. I'll post pictures in my next post below this one. On the tour and subsequently I found that the shifting did not work well except in a few gears, but I wasn't able to figure out why. I also found that the butterfly bar setup did not feel comfortable or stable for me.

I am thinking of changing the handlerbars to (quite high) drops and replacing the shifters and brakes, but possibly also replacing the front and rear cogs/rings (which did take quite a bit of a hammering on my first tour - 5500km in East & Southern Africa). I am wondering whether the wheels are good enough to reuse for a long, hard tour in South America. What would you do/recommend in this situation? (in terms of replacing components)