hohenheim

Hello everyone. I'm currently riding on a 2014 Fuji Touring Bike (aka the Green Monsta) and am currently saving up for a multiyear around the world tour. I'm hoping to leave mid summer 2016 or beginning of 2017. Anywho, I'm planning on cycling Patagonia as well as eventually several other South American and Southeast Asian countries to start and eventually also India/Nepal. I'm rocking 700c tires and wonder if anyone has any personal experience touring in the developing world on tires that size. I'm mostly wondering if it is better to

A. Buy the strongest/most durable wheels I can find and carry extra spokes/tires/tubes and be prepared to spend money (if anyone has ever done this and could quote how much it cost to have a part fed ex'ed to say, remote Chile it would be awesome) and lots of time to have things shipped to wherever I happen to be in case I have an equipment failure.

or

B. Drop $$$$ on a LHT or Co-Motion Pangea with 26inch wheels.

I'm currently planning on doing option A until my current bike gets stolen or damaged beyond repair.

Thanks everyone for your help and happy holidays!

Losligato

If the green monsta works, don't mess with success. Have you used the bike for heavy touring? If so, I would apply the money toward the trip.

saddlesores

whereabouts in southeast asia?
700c are rarely seen outside of the major cities.
when you do see 'em, they're lime-green 23mm tires on fixies for
schoolkids, or narrow racing tires for the local club riders.

standard is 26", and even then not much selection in the
countryside. mostly your basic knobbly tractor tires.
tubes are hard to find in many places.

few people (mostly kids and peasants) ride bikes, few know
where to find a bike shop. most shops are tiny department
store bike vendors.

you'll need to do some planning beforehand. contact some
bike shops in the big cities.......bangkok, chiang mai, yangon,
siem reap, phnom penh, ho chi minh city. they should be
able to source what you need and express delivery to your
brokedown location.

damo010

You can get most 700 tires in Thailand especially in the north because cycling is getting very popular here. in my local shop you can get 23mm up to 40mm and order other stuff too. when touring in Laos i found zero 700 or 26" its all 24" so the 26" is everywhere is a myth. Oh and 650B is everywhere here to and I'm a strong believer this is the goldilocks zone for touring too :-)

mev

I haven't yet been in South America, but my overall impressions from many places elsewhere in developing world:

1) Surprising what you can get in the largest cities, e.g. Santiago, Buenos Aires, Bangkok, Bangalore, Delhi, etc. Becoming more of a global market.
2) While tires or wheels might be found in the countryside, they aren't necessarily the highest quality or durability. If one is traveling with loaded touring might be possible to limp to next place, but might well be replacing again in larger cities.
3) Failures are relatively rare, having more durable components helps.
4) Shipping is sometimes very expensive and depending on the country, things can get lost in customs or be difficult to get through unless you know local language and bureaucracy well or have someone to courier or someone local who knows the system well.

Based on all that, I've toured on 700c in developing world and would so again, particularly if I have a bike that works well. My three part approach for failures in rough order is: (1) make sure equipment is durable and well set up before I leave, carry an extra tire or two if needed (2) if failure happens I can't fix locally, get myself and bicycle to a larger city and see if I can solve it there (3) worst case, plan on flying back from larger city back to US and bringing back what I need.

Hermes1

700c tires are rarely seen outside of major cities and 26" are the standard. So considering your trip plans, I would stay with 26" so you can be reasonably assured of being able to replace them if or as needed.

BigAura

For the kind of epic adventure you're looking at I'd recommend sticking with tradition and going with a 26" wheeled touring bike. A branded new super-upgraded LHT would still be under $2000. The Co-Motion is awesome but at $4000 it's pricey. Starting out with a rocking solid bike will save you from a lot of worry. Although equipment failures can be part of the adventure they can also be demoralizing (especially if early-on) and costly.

-> If I were you I'd sell the Fuji and invest in the 26" tourer.

Squeezebox

If you're going out for years, who cares about the price of the bicycle? Durability is all that counts. I'ld go with the Co-Motion. Sounds like 26" tires are a bit easier to get.
IMHO

fietsbob

Or Bike Friday .. 406 20" wheels also common around the world..

hohenheim

Thanks everyone for the replies! As of now I'm leaving toward selling the fuji. Mostly because the money id potentially save on transporting my bike from country to country using the couplers would eventually save me big time.

Doug64

You might want to consider how you plan to pack a coupled bike if that is what you end up with. In order to get the bike into a case meeting the airline's criteria for checked baggage, the racks and fenders need to be removed along with other components to allow your bike to fit in the case. Think about how you are going to carry the racks and fenders, plus all you other gear.

My wife has a coupled Co-Motion touring bike, and we have not uncoupled it for any flying trip. It just was not worth the hassle. Her bike has 700c wheels which makes it even more of a challenge. Based on our experience with her bike, I'm not sure that I would get couplers, if I was getting a new bike (I'm not).

robow

See if you can find the forum member (nancy sv) and her family's touring adventure thread on this forum as they traveled from Alaska to the tip of South America. I remember her stating that they would only use 26" tires in the future because finding 700c tires and wheels down there was really tough. Plus she would be an excellent resource for information on epic journeys (especially if you plan on hauling your two children with you). Best of luck.

Family on Bikes

mstateglfr 

No disagreement on the whole argument of 26" being more available in other countries/continents. I have no experience, and what Ive read confirms 26" is more available.

With that said, itd be a tough one for me to accept...I ride a 64cm frame and 26" wheels would look nuts. Appearance isnt all, yes, but man it would look wonky.
The pic below is a 62cm LHT, so 64 would be that much more circus clown goofy.




To actually discuss the issue- would bringing a 700c foldable tire and a tire boot not be enough? If a tire gets a hole in it, boot it. if the hole gets worse or its too significant to boot, use the spare. you still have a boot in case something happens to either of the new 2 current tires.
In the meantime, once you use the spare tire, then you order a new tire either by calling ahead to the closest upcoming bike shop or by ordering it online and shipping ahead somewhere. Call home and have someone send a preboxed folding tire to you if the internet would take longer or be more expensive.

This wouldnt be the most convenient to do- have to plan part of a trip around receiving a tire, but with a spare, the odds of 2 tires failing just seem low. Or carry 2 folding tires. Having a bike which fits and you love is a really important part of the overall touring equation. Also, spending anywhere from $1200 - 2200 on a new touring bike just to get 26' wheels may be out of the question for many.

Of course, all that is perception since I havent ridden much less toured in other countries.

saddlesores

it's more than just tires. it's a total lack of just about everything you would want in some
places.

had some wheel problems in myanmar.......need more tubes (they have goatheads!
who knew!), but the only ones in the first dozen shops had british valve, not the
same as french or american valves. don't check the package, you find out when
your pump doesn't fit.

blew a few spokes, not enough spares.....no 26" spokes anywhere. most wheels
there are 28". might in emergency cut off the elbow and bend them to fit, but....
finally found one shop in mandalay that had some trashed mtb wheels for reuse
and one pack of new spokes, only 5mm too long.
(cool cast-iron truing stand in the photo!)

patch kits in cambodia or laos? forget it, at least outside the capital cities.
you can find someone to vulcanize your tube.

700c tubes? no way. ran low on 26" tubes in central laos, stopped at so many
shops and markets....no spares. finally found one little stall behind the chicken
slaughtering bench at the farmers' market, had one super-heavy vinyl(?) 26"
tube. fortunately didn't need it....but tried it when i got back home....no good.

folding tire, spare tubes, boot, patch kit (plenty of patches, and several small
tubes of glue) more spare tubes, and spokes to fit both wheels, both sides.

oh, and do drill your rims to accept schraeder valves, and use the little insert
thingy.




i guess in an emergency you could buy a crappy rear wheel off some local
dude (plenty of huffy quality mtb's around).

Tourist in MSN

I have never toured outside of North America, so I have nothing to offer on 700c/26 inch debate.

But I will say that there are some fine 26 inch bikes out there, you listed the LHT which I consider to be on the low $ end and the Co Motions which are on the high $ end. There are a lot in between, do not rule out Thorn, a company in the UK. I have two Thorn 26 inch bikes, very happy with both. The Sherpa is good for moderate loads, teh Raven is similar in capability to the Sherpa but uses a Rohloff instead of derailleurs, the Nomad is very solid for expedition use with a Rohloff.

The amount of weight you carry is going to determine what kind of bike you need, I do not mean wheel size, but frame strength. You should load down the Fuji and see how it handles with the weight you might want for a round the world trip.

imi

I assume you mean Dunlop valves?
If so, one neat thing about them is that you can pump them with the thin nozzle from an air compressor. Theres no need for an adapter or even to be in contact with the valve, just blow it in.

saddlesores

yeah, hard to keep the terminology straight. a presta is a french valve, a shraeder is
an american valve, a british or dunlop is a woods.

ok. well, at that point i think i was several hundred miles from the nearest
air compressor. not that i could have asked for one, not speaking much more than
"where's the w.c.?" in burmese.

here's a fun fact. burmese road markers are in 1/8 mile segments. furlongs.
freaking furlongs.

imi

^^^ and I thought I already knew everything!

GamblerGORD53

Whatever size you get use Schwalb Marathon Plus. ONLY ... The chance of not going 7,000 miles is slim to none.
Carry a spare anyway. I drill for schrader the second I get new rims. I was in Vietnam and China 4200 miles and saw only one 700c by 35 tire, in Ho Chi Minh. There was an American style LBS there, run by Americans of course. The mail duty gouge was 40%. Chengdu had a full Specialized store.

The local new derailler bikes seemed to be many 27.5". That is like 650B 584mm ??
Rohloff and chain case is the way to go. I had zero nail flats. Maybe I just have a good eye, evaded 50 or so. ha

LeeG

"Multi-year"

it's quite possible the bike you start with may not be the bike you finish with regardless of wheel size. If the existing bike is perfect, with you and your load relatively light for the frame AND the largest tire size is adequate for the roads with only wheels needing an upgrade I could see heading out with that bike with the idea it may be replaced by whatever you find along the way. Don't bother with fancy wheels just robust ones. Low cost Shimano hubs and Rhynolites should do it. If you and total load are in the 275lb+ range I'd sell the Fuji and go for beastier bikes in 26" wheels.

LeeG

+1

axolotl

I've toured in SE Asia as well as Chile, however none of these tours were longer than a month, not a multi-year affair that you're planning. I was riding a mountain bike with 26" wheels in northern Patagonia in both Chile & Argentina. I rode on both paved and unpaved roads there. I was not on the Carretera Austral, however. The paved roads in both countries were pretty good. Most of the unpaved roads were OK, too, though I recall one or two roads which made me happy I had brought my mountain bike. I would expect that the Carretera Austral would have harsher conditions. You might want to search or post on the PanAm Riders Google group:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/panam-riders

I have found that the roads in developing countries are often surprisingly good. Two countries I toured in that had pretty bad paved roads were Costa Rica and Sri Lanka, though the road quality in Sri Lanka was extremely variable; some great, some awful.

In SE Asia, I rode my Bike Friday with 20" wheels in Laos & Thailand. Most of the roads were excellent in both countries. I rode a touring bike with 700c wheels in Malaysia & Singapore before I got my Bike Friday, and the roads were good there.

jargo432

Sounds like a lot of rough roads. Have you considered a Surly Troll?

Troll | Bikes | Surly Bikes

veganbikes

It was probably some combined wisdom from folks here but if you are in the middle of nowhere you are probably screwed and will have to order from the interwebs or have it sent by a friend.

However getting a hand built wheel would be a good place to start. Someone like Bill Mould or Peter White would be great options for wheel builders as they both have a ton of experience and know-how to get something built up right for tours like yours. Bring tubes and patch kits and maybe save power food wrappers or dollar bills to use as tire boots and have two spare tires in your bags as well as some spokes and maybe a fiberfix spoke.

The most important thing that probably most anyone here would say is make sure your bike is in top working order. Everything is properly tuned and replaced and tested before you leave. What that would entail is tuning up the bike, replacing wear items (save stuff that isn't totally worn and use it when you get back), riding them for a little bit to make sure things are ok and then getting one final tune if needed. Make sure whatever backups or spares you have are new and unused so you can rely on them. Old patched tubes you have laying about and dried out glue won't inspire confidence. Just make sure the plastic cap is on the end so it won't poke holes in your new tube.

While on the road especially for your tires is keep them properly inflated and maybe check every so often for pokey stuff. Look over the rest of the bike as well and if you see something that looks like it is going wrong try and fix it if you can or seek help before the problem gets worse and derails your tour down behind the smallest chainring.

However Co-Motions are pretty dang nice so... ; )