cosmo starr

can the xtra make it. I know the 'riding the spine' guys have had problems with durability.....does the route itself demand more than what the xtra can take.

deadly downtube

the great divide ride sounded incredibly mellow compared to what the riding the spine guys are doing... i'd guess yes... what about the surly big dumby?

Niles H.

The Xtracycle was designed by someone who studied Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. I've met him and talked with him, and have seen some of his engineering equations as he worked through some designs. It is quite sturdy and up to the task. It is a very intelligent, well thought out and well-tested design.

Nothing is abolutely immune to problems, especially if you ride abusively. It is very well supported by the warranty and the people at Xtracycle; and in the unlikely event that you run into problems, it is one the best companies to have on your side....

invisible

the riding the spine guys are not easy on equipment, but dont really put thier gear through unreasonable circumstances. i do know that they have broken them a couple of times, but that xtracycle ended up fixing/beefing up a coupel for them, which is super cool. if i were to take the trip id spend the money to get mine reinforced, as they were originally a bit stouter than the new ones and were designed (for the us market) as more an urban hauler than an off road one. i say go for it, but get it beefed up, as the xtras are sweet, they ride great, carry a ton, and are just plain fun to ride.

vik 

+1



Surly Big Dummy. They've basically built a frame that incorporates an Xtracycle frame and accepts Xtracycle accessories. I can't say for certain, but this might be a stronger option.





You can run a suspension fork up front if you'd like.

cosmo starr

fixed

NoReg

"The Xtracycle was designed by someone who studied Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. I've met him and talked with him, and have seen some of his engineering equations as he worked through some designs. It is quite sturdy and up to the task. It is a very intelligent, well thought out and well-tested design."

The basic tenant of engineering is you start with a defined problem, and you develop a solution. That problem was not really touring or offroad riding when the extracycle was under development. Engineering doesn't really come up with design idea, and can't even really quantify them structurally until a few of them have been brokem in use. Also, as an add-on, none of his equasions apply to what you strap the bike too. He has minimal control over the front end. All that said, I take your point, and don't see why the EC wouldn't work.

More generally... There are certain load carrying situations where it is an advantage to have a large carrying area on your bike, so you aren't restricted on the size of items. In fact I think the rear end of the average touring bike is too short, tents and bags hang off, etc... I don't really see that a rear end as big and heavy as the extracyle is what is called for though. If you asked this engineer guy to design the perfect touring bike for the Great Devide, and he didn't take it on just to promote the extracycle, I doubt it would look like an extracycle or be built like one. Or if so there are a lot of different opinions out there.

Michel Gagnon

Notwithstanding what Niles H. has said, one of the problems of the design of the Xtracycle is... the bike onto which it is grafted. The bicycle is not designed for the added length, so it adds to its flexibility. The vertical deflection should not be a real problem because the triangle is high enough, but the lateral deflection will make the bike a little bit more wobbly than it used to be. I don't remember the specifics of the Riding the Spine, but apart from those, the failures I heard of were on the bike itself, mostly where the Xtracycle leans onto it.

To obtain perfect geometry, the steerer tube angle and fork trail should also be slightly different for a longer bike.

spambait11

Exactly. And very annoying to say the least.


The kludgy part about attaching an X is that it "rests" on the chainstay bridge which I always thought was a ghetto way of securing it to the bike. Not only that, but it uses - what? - a 6mm bolt for the attachment? I have no idea why this bolt isn't bigger.

But in terms of failures "on the bike itself," are you just talking about the chainstay bridge?


I think Xtracycles are good for what they were intended to be: quick and dirty cargo bikes. But yeah, for more severe loads, nothings beats a purpose-built bike.

pmseattle

Not available yet. The shipping date for these has slipped so many times that I would not count on it being available any time soon. If they are ever actually shipped, I don't think the most recent price I've seen quoted is all that unreasonable.

NoReg

"To obtain perfect geometry, the steerer tube angle and fork trail should also be slightly different for a longer bike."

Not so sure about that, though there is little reason for the geometry of a donor bike to be correct for anything it wasn't designed for. It's just a roll of the dice. A fast front end might not be in tune with a long heavy rear, that doesn't mean it won't work. You want to keep the front out of holes while the rear can just sled on through. Anything short of a 30 degree chopper is probably going to be slow for the rear anyway.

vik 

From the Surly Blog:

"-Big Dummy
One of the best one-liners of the show we heard was "my favorite new product for 2006 Interbike was the Big Dummy". So why isn't it available yet? The very first prototype we got arrived at the show last year with exactly zero test miles on it. After which, we had two more rounds of prototypes built before we were satisfied with the result. In between each of the three rounds of protos came a thorough testing period where we rode them, modified stuff and swapped parts to determine everything from ride quality, load capacity, how it handled with different loads, how a Stokemonkey motor mounted onto it, how thick some of the tubes should be, how the large boxes will be handled by freight companies and countless other small details. It's a much more complex project than even the Pugsley, so the timeframe from 1st prototype to finished and available product taking a year and a half doesn't really sound that long. We're glad we took the time to perfect this bike because the end results that we're riding right now are going to make all of you crap haulers out there happy. So we're expecting these to be available to you by Febraury 2008. We'll also be posting a lengthy spew for the blog page in the next month about all our opinions and ideas about building and riding your Big Dummy or Xtracycle"

vik 

Here is a new post to the Surly blog regarding the Big Dummy:

"Big Dummy production is now complete. Thanks to the long ass frame, longer than a tandem, it totally clogged production at the frame and paint shops. As soon as they're boxed up and shipped, they'll be on their way to our warehouse. So we should have them in stock around mid-February.

I've written up a huge spew for our website about Big Dummy that can be found HERE"

Big Dummy Frame Geometry

Looks like everything is on track for an early 2008 arrival of this frame. If I didn't live in a small apartment with a very small elevator I'd be building up one of these bikes.

DukeArcher 

I've seen a Surly Instigator built up into a touring bike that travelled around the world. The instigator frame is is immensely strong, probably more so than my Thorn, a little heavier though.