Bike Touring in Extreme Areas
8 April 2007 | touring, how-to | No Comments
I want to touch quickly upon looking at your bike in terms of how you would fix it if you were deep in a foreign country with no special parts or mechanics available. Why would you do this? Because if you don’t you may have to leave your bike once you’ve got mechanical problems. I will go through groups of parts and analyze what could go wrong. This, in turn, should help you decide what components to have on your bike for this sort of trip.
Keep in mind, most places in the world will be close to something you need. Some places will not be close to a good selection of mechanics or parts. My only rule for picking parts is KISS, or Keep It Simple, Stupid.
Let’s start with the headset, handlebars area: What could go wrong? Well, the shifters could malfunction, for starters. Of course, the best solution is to use the part with the simplest mechanism which is bar end shifters that use a click/friction setting. Easy to use, hard to break. The brake levers are very simple, so easy to fix. What’s left? The neck and the headset. I like the threadless for it’s simplicity, but there is always a possibility of a stripped bolt, so I suggest keeping with you a few hex bolts that would fit various items such as neck or seatpost clamp.
Now wheels are a tough call. What if you bend the rim? You definitely can’t carry and extra rim. You can go as tough as possible, though, which means 36 spokes minimum on each rim. You should also go with a schrader valve tube because the rim hole is the largest you will need. It’s much easier to go from larger to smaller. The wheel size is important, too. Go with with a metric 700C rather than a 26" wheel that are common on a mountain. Spoke breaks are not uncommon. A few spokes in your parts kit will definitely save the day if you know how to thread the wheel.
Hubs, axels, and cassettes are a tough subject to tackle. My thinking on this is to consider that you may temporarily need to keep the bike in a single gear for a day or two if the cassette gets bent or something of this nature. I bring an extra rear axel and a single speed sprocket that can be used if the rear derailleur fails. As well, you will definitely want to bring a bunch of spacers to make up any width difference of foreign parts that you may have to put on. There is not much that can be done with bent hubs or rims except that you would try kicking them or bending them back to a rideable shape.
Also, great tire is critical. My tire of choice is the Conti. Top Touring. I’ve never had a flat. I have seen sidewalls fail for various reasons, and in this case good electrical tape and paper come in handy. You use these tools to cover any sidewall failure, and this seems to work as an indefinite fix.
Cranks and bottom brackets have been reliable for me, except I don’t believe that the spindle style crank would be the easiest to work on in a pinch. In fact the spindle cranks will strip immediately if they accidentally slip away from the bottom bracket. I suggest using the conventional square spindel bottom brackets and cranks and carry whatever cone wrench or tool you need to remove the crank. These cranks won’t strip, even if they come loose. If you have stripped spindle cranks and there is no way of replacing these, then plan B is drastic but effective: you need to drill into the crank and force a hex bolt down onto the spindle so it won’t move. Or, epoxy the crank arm to the bottom bracket if epoxy is available.
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