jlmonte

I got my Salsa Marrakesh a couple years ago. I started getting the gear soon after, buying close outs and shopping sales. Workups include learning how the position the pannier so I don’t kick them when I peddle. I’m worry about having enough water, so I test rode a couple of 40oz water bottles on the forks. I was pleased with the handling, though I do need to pack the rear bags and log a few miles. I have backpacking gear to fill the panniers. I have been hoping to ride to a nearby state park to bike camping. The big goal is touring the California coast.

I’m also rethinking if it matter what bike I use for fitness, my road bike or the touring bike with weight? And, are there different skills I should practice? .


Never rode with weight on the fork and front wheel like this.

Tourist in MSN

Riding for exercise, does not really matter which bike you use, you will get exercise. Might burn a few more watts if you did the same route if you used the touring bike which likely weighs more and probably has more rolling friction on the tires, but overall not much difference for the exercise you get. That said, if you do any exercise rides shortly before a trip, if the panniers were loaded you could test and see how they work with your racks and also test your bike fit. Maybe you will hear a squeak that you want to diagnose further before your tour, etc.

Touring, your saddle is important. It is easy to ride on a road bike for an hour or two and think the saddle is great, but after six hours it might feel like a torture device. If you do any long exercise rides, using the the touring bike with the same saddle that you plan to tour on could help tell you if it is the right saddle while you are also seeing if your bike fit still works for you.

If you are still worried about having enough water, the one liter Smartwater bottles and one liter Life WTR bottles fit well in bike regular cages. They are intended to be disposable bottles, but I use them for touring because of their large capacity. I instead use different lids to make it easier to drink out of. Of those brands, the smaller bottles do NOT fit cages well, you should only get the one liter size. They are a bit tall at just short of 12 inches, some smaller frames might have trouble fitting them for that reason.

djb

As mentioned, increasing gradually your riding distances and time is important. You'll get stronger gradually toughen up, and using your touring bike is better because you'll get used to the bike and be able to make small adjustments, if necessary, to seat position for example.

by all means, ride your road bike for fun, I personally like the change up of bikes and riding faster, but your touring bike is the one you'll be on for the trip,so get used to it and the effort to ride a heavier bike with gear for 50,60,70,80 kms .

ride regularly and increase distances.
obvious bonuses to gradually increasing distances is that you 'll get a handle on drinking and eating for given temps.
Force yourself to ride in hot weather, and you'll learn in those conditions to back off effort a bit, and to drink regularly. You obviously are concerned with water, so ride in hot weather and you'll learn and know what you need--- goes without saying that its important to hydrate well in hot riding.

also, simply put, the fitter you are, the more you'll enjoy touring. But don't worry, it's normal to be bagged the first days.

oh, and learn from riding the loaded bike training to get a better handle on REALISTIC daily distances for you.

have fun

Brian25

It sounds like you have yet to ride a full loaded bike. Depending on the final weight, You will find that it does take more muscle to move a loaded bike. I recommend riding it fully loaded every other day to get sufficient muscle recovery. You will definitively not need the two bottles on the front and the three on the frame. I think a frame bag would be more useful. That is just my opinion.

saddlesores

water needed will depend on your specific tour, distance, availability, heat....
thing is, you don't need quick access to water bottles at all times.
one or two should be enough, the rest should be in your saddlebags or
somewhere protected from the sun. hot water is yucky.
you're on a tour, not a race. no problem to take a few minutes every
couple hours or so to switch/refill bottles.

if you need more water/storage space, a frame bag that fits in the
top half of the triangle above the two cages would do.

that 3rd cage under the downtube? if you carry a water bottle, you'll want
some way to support it, especially if you go with a larger bottle. velcro
bands are commonly used. you could also replace that third bottle with
a similarly sized tool kit to carry under the tube.

fietsbob

Ortlieb's top hooks move in their slot tracks ... pushing the hooks forward moves the bags back on the rack/..

jlmonte

I can go north or south 30 miles to visit a State Beach to bike camp. They are close enough that if I go sideways, I can call my wife to bail me out. These are going to be the trial runs this summer. Saddle wise, the Brooks saddle is definitely not my Selle Italia Flight, I've still need to break it in and learn to use the leather dressing.

I hope fun out weighs any unforeseen mishap. I've read that balancing the weight is important, I'm planning to layout gear this week end. My workups will be pretty flat terrain though, I might be cheating myself. There maybe wind though in the late afternoon.

Yup, never road a loaded bike, and just riding a couple times along a road bike route (unloaded) noticed being passed like an Amish buggy on the Autobahn (well might be a little exaggerated). My biggest worry is getting in late and recovery/ rest for the next day. If I do 70 miles in 5-6 hours on my road bike, I 'm currious what my touring baseline will be. Then again, I'ts not a race so 10 hours enjoying the scenery should not matter, right?

I was thinking I would carry freeze dried food, on the epic tour and need gallons of water to last me. Beginning to realize I'm not in the back country. I need to put the brakes on more spending, so might try and borrow a frame bag. Agree that I might want to re-purpose the down tube cage.

Ah, Counter intuitive, I will check my install because I was more focused on the single lower hook to prevent the pannier from swinging out.

All, nice list. Better than trial and error. There are other concerns like over packing (I tend to favor redundancy), and theft prevention. One thing at a time though!

Tourist in MSN

Good point. Sorry about the bad photo.




If you ask 100 Brooks owners what the best way to break in a Brooks is, you will get about 75 answers. So, I am not saying that my thoughts are uniform, I am sure they are not. But make sure when your saddle is new and you have not applied any treatment to it yet, that you do not get rained on. If it gets wet and you ride it, it can stretch too much. But once you get it about 70 to 80 percent of where you want it, apply Proofide, top and bottom. I set the saddle in the sun with Proofide on it to warm it up, the Proofide is absorbed better and easier to rub into the leather. The Proofide is an excellent water repellent, after you have treated it you should still use a rain cover on rainy days, but it is less likely to be damaged. I apply more Proofide before each of my longer (multi-week) tours. I also always put the rain cover on it at night in case of dew. Leave the adjustment bolt where it is, only tighten it if it gets wet and stretched out, and then only tighten it a little bit at a time.

​​​​​​​

jlmonte

Seeing as I had no knowledge and was in most likelihood going to fail to learn the lesson, I will take your advice to heart. I used the little Proofide packet that came with the bike. The bike lives in the garage, but the saddle was originally blue and is now black. I bought a tin of Proofide, and will use it as you suggested.

Also, I now recognize the Smart bottles and had become familar with the compatability with Sawyer water filters. That might be the way to go since I wory about Tap water. Worse case filter tap water for cooking.

I test road loaded at 54.5 lbs.
Bike 33lbs. 1oz.
Water on forks each 3lbs. 9oz.
Rt Pannier 7lbs.
Lt Pannier 7lbs, 3oz

Stable enough, with the load of water bottle up front. I never really concerned my self with fore-&-aft balance, but the steering feels less solide without the bottles.
Lastly, I guess I could have anticipated a difference, but compared to my Specialized Roubaix, at just under 20lbs, I will need to acquire an appreciation for it's utility.

PS. Dare I put a Kick Stand, aftter all those years believing kick stands are evil?

Tourist in MSN

If you put a bit of Proofide on the saddle already, that just means that the break in period is a bit longer. I trust you have a rain cover for it, if not you can buy them separately, or if you have any of those shower caps that motels sometimes give away, some people use those instead of genuine saddle rain covers.

You may have figured this out already, but maybe not. There is a reason why bicyclists decades ago always wore black bike shorts with their leather saddles. A long day when you are sweating, if your shorts are a light color, some of the leather stain can transfer to the shorts.

djb

Don't put on any more proofide, too much overly softens the leather, just ride and ride

with rain, put a plastic bag over it when riding off you don't have an official better fitting rain cover, that what's I did for years before getting the proper one, but no matter, simply don't let it get rained on. Small price to pay attention to if you end up loving yours as much as my various leather Brooks.

Miele Man

Way back in the 1980s I started putting two kickstands on my logging/mining road touring bike. One was between the chain stays behind the seattube and the other was chainstay/seatstay mounted one. I carried to jar lids to put under the legs of the kickstands on soft ground. It worked extremely well. Here are two images of my friend's bike with the same two kickstand setup.




Cheers

Tourist in MSN

Many manufacturers will void a warranty on a bike frame if you use a kickstand.

I use kickstands on two of my touring bikes and rando bike, those three all have steel frames and I think the frames are sufficiently robust. My third touring bike has a titanium frame and I choose to not use a kickstand on it because I do not want to risk damage to the frame. And I have a few other bikes that lack a stand, but for example my road bike I do not find a need for a stand on that bike. But a touring bike when you stop to put on rain gear or something like that is a lot more convenient if you have a kickstand.

Surly specifically has cautioned that a kickstand on a LHT on the chainstays behind the bottom bracket can crush the chainstays. They seemed to add this caution after their first frame re-design. I had a first year of production LHT that had very robust chainstays at that location and I had a side stand mounted there. I think I heard somewhere that Surly makes a kickstand plate as an accessory but I am not sure about that.

The stand I use when I use one is mounted near the rear dropout on the left side made by Greenfield. The screws regularly loosen as the plastic pieces between the stand and frame deform, I used blue threadlocker to make sure I do not lose any bolts. If your front wheel rolls from being on non-horizontal ground, the bike can roll off the stand, so I have an elastic on my handlebar i can use to put a "parking brake" on the front wheel.




There is a commercial product called a Clickstand.
Click-Stand Home Page

I have made a few similar stands for my bikes that do not have a kickstand, I used tent poles cut to length. And instead of putting it under the top tube, I put it in a small pocket formed by the seat stays and seat tube. Photo is my Backroad, the touring bike that I do not have a kickstand on.



But some frames do not have a convenient pocket like that.

Miele Man

A number of years ago I was seriously thinking about getting a 26" wheels Surly LHT. What killed that sale for me was that at the time Surly did indeed say that using a kickstand on that bike would void the frame warranty. I figured that if I couldn't put a kickstand on a frame then I didn't trust that frame at all. they might have been a good frame but I NEED a kickstand on my touring bikes. I do not like to lay my loaded touring bike down on its side and in many areas where I ride there are no handy trees or posts to laen the bike against. that's show in the images I posted up thread.

Cheers

jlmonte

I double check the Marrakesh specs and it proudly highlights the kickstand plate. Salsa doesn’t make one, but I’ve seen a double legl Velo Orange Porteur Double Kickstand, I’m curious about.

@Tourist in MSN Mentioned an elastic as a parking break for the front wheel, reminds me of the Rhode Gear Flickstand that I have, but won’t fit the Salsa’s larger diameter down tube.

So I will look into kickstands, and added to the list (to devise) a procedure to care for the Brooks saddle

Next to practice are the bar end non-index shifters and triple cranks. Getting use to selecting gears, and how weight factors in getting up a hill. The current 20lbs. of gear baseline, doesn’t include food, stove fuel, clothes, Teva sandals, sleeping bag, and electronics.

Tourist in MSN

Non-index shfters?

I assume you mean friction front and indexed rear. On the front, it takes a while but muscle memory takes over and you know by feel where you want the front shift lever to be after you shifted to the middle ring.

Miele Man

Gently rolling hills are a great place to practice using non-index shifters especially the rear one. I take people to an area with a gently incline and they can practice shifting there. There's enough of a grade that they can feel the need to to shift but not so much of a grade that they can't recover from a missed shift.

Is your rear shifter also friction only (non-index)? If it is, practice will soon have you making nice clean shifts either front or rear. Just remember to ease up on the pedals just as you make the shift. That'll make shifting faster and less strenuous on the equipment.

BTW, I personally prefer a kickstand that clamps to the rear of the frame at the seatstay.chainstay area. Such a kickstand alows me to put it down and lean the bike and then turn the cranks whic is neat if I need to check the drivetrain for any reason - such as the barend shifter for the rear derailleur getting bumped against the toptube and thus the bike not being precisely in gear. Here's an image of one of my bikes with the chainstay/seatstay kickstand.



Good luck and cheers.

jlmonte

Ah correct, the rear is index. After riding around I realize it's the triple cranks that is throwing me off. I'll need to review the gear ratios / inches, Off the cuff, I 'll keep it in the middle ring and use the middle 5 cogs in general. Use big ring with the 3 small cogs for down hill, and small ring and 2 big cogs for hills. Deciding which way to throw the shifter has me always thinking. Down tube shifters had me throwing forward and back. Now it's up or down (It's a joystick thing). Not a big deal, though I find it interesting.

I realized I have a chain stay kick stand on my E-bike, which is a heavy bike. It has braze-ons to attach the stand. I agree it works well, though I feel I have to use the Salsa featured kickstand plate. I also have to confess, I'm always bumping the shifters when walking or handling the bike.

I stumbled across the 1liter Smart Water, and bought 2. I did a couple laps around the block and now have a baseline training configuration. If the State Beaches open for camping, I might be a few weeks away from a trial run.

jlmonte

After an evening workup ride, I took a couple photos.




Spare spokes prevent a non-drive side chain stay kickstand. I wonder how essential are spare spoke. In particular on the freehub side means extra tools.

Never seen this until I purchased this Fuji Ambient 27,5+



Braze-on for kickstand




Chain stay kick stand on Fuji Ebike.

Tourist in MSN

It takes a while to figure it out. But it becomes second nature.

I have a triple and 8 speed cassette on three of my bikes. I have gotten into the habit of avoiding the two most cross chained gears for each chainring, so for example when I am on the smallest chainring I avoid the two smallest sprockets. And when on the middle chainring I avoid the outermost and innermost sprockets. Thus I regularly use 18 of the possible 24 gears. You however were suggesting you may try to only use 10 gears on a regular basis.

Some people do not like triples, I think they find it hard to shift to the middle chainring or something like that, but I prefer a triple to give me a much broader range from top gear to bottom. But I am an engineer, I calculated out the gear ratios, given any gear I know how to get to the next higher or next lower gear, but I think most of the population find that a bit too complicated to remember.

If you put your right hand on the rear shifter, after a while you can tell by feel of the lever position approximately where you are on the cassette. That I find to be a big advantage to bar end shifters, as I can more easily avoid cross chaining without looking at where the chain is on the cassette or which chainring I am on.

djb

JL, all of what tourist wrote is spot on, and especially the underlined part about roughly how many gears to use in each chainring.
it's ask about not overly angling your chain, known as crosschaining...crosschaining is less efficient and wears the chain faster, why it's not recommended.

and yes, using these shifters and triple will quickly become natural. It's fairly basic.
some people however have problems driving a standard car, and forget to shift or have car in wrong gear. I know a few drivers like this and they've been driving for 40 years, so for that type of person there's not much hope.

I'm not Ann engineer, but early in my teens I had motorcycles, with sequential gearboxes and no gear indicator, so you had to keep in mind what gear you were in, so to me shifting is completely natural as is keeping track where I am in the shift pattern.

just keep at it, follow the simple gear suggestions tmsn suggested, and that's it.

Tourist in MSN

I carry my spare spokes inside the seatpost. Hold them in with a wine cork. The plastic corks do not shrink like the real corks do, so the plastic ones are less likely to fall out. On my road bike, I did not have a cork big enough but a short sleeve made from an inch long piece of inner tube stretched over the cork was adequate to get a tight fit. Some seatposts are too short, especially on 700c bikes, the spokes on my 26 inch bikes are shorter and fit in the seatposts better.

That said, I have never broken a spoke on a wheel I built, but I still carry the spokes anyway. I carry the tools to pull off the cassette, just in case. Some people instead carry a Fiber Fix thingy that will act as an emergency spoke.

I plan to add some zip ties to the seatposts, that looks like a good place to carry some spare zip ties. But that is more recent, I have been doing the cork thing for spokes for over a decade.

GamblerGORD53

Pretty nice bike there. I sure wouldn't use anything but regular shoes and flat pedals. Things can happen in 1/4 of a second.
Water bottles won't matter much for a 2 day trip, I mostly use old gatorade bottles around home for day rides. And 1 actually has gatorade for all day rides. LOL..
But on tour, I have 3 thermos bottles. I just bought bigger 18 oz ones for next trip. The bigger the opening the better. They have a nice built in handle. Ice will keep cold most of the day, even at 38C. I also start the day with 2 or 3 bottles of juice or ade.
Regular bottle holders totally suck with most bottles. So I made my own with CF and made to fit a sock for padding.
Most of my bike is homemade, wrap around KS and all. LOL

jlmonte

So far I'm happy with it. The pedles are CrankBrothers. Double Shot model, that are flat on one side clip-in on the other. The thing about shoes, I have been doing my workup rides (in the neighborhhod) with Teva sandles, Been lucky, I guess, so your advice does not fall on deaf ears, as I do have proper shoe.

I've loaded the bike with water to start my workups, I've gotton good feedback as I trial and error through my preparation.

jefnvk

One thing no one ever mentions? If you don't have a phone stuck on your handlebars giving you turn by turn routes, practice navigation. It is one thing to ride a bike up and down a route or area you know, it is completely different doing it on a paper map in an area you are unfamiliar with. Out of everything I thought I prepared for on my first big tour, that was the one that screwed me over that I had never really considered.