I posted earlier on this wonderful thread (and thanks again, Kelly!), presenting all the bikes we’ve toured on for the last 20 years.  I thought I’d stop there but coincidentally today I came across a photo of an old photo I haven’t seen for a long time, from my solo tour from Durango to Denver in 1992.  The photos were still prints in an old album, and I’ve been digitizing them as a small archival project while we’re waiting for the next tour to come around.  Here’s my ride at the time, which unfortunately we only see a small fraction of:

After deciding to post this photo, I couldn’t remember whether this was a Trek 420 or 520 (although it’s clearly a 420, as you can see if you zoom in enough); so I researched the journals of our next tour looking for enlightenment.  The next autumn, Rocky and I took our first tour of Europe - a large loop that began and ended in Paris, by way of Burgundy, Switzerland, Grimsel Pass, the Italian Levante, Provence, and then north through Central France - by our standards at the time, a Very Big Adventure.  I didn’t need to reread the journal hunting for photos of this bike, because I knew right where to look: in Lapalisse.

There’s a story here, one of the most memorable of our touring lives and one I always like to be reminded of.  After 5 weeks and almost 2,000 miles on the road, my derailleur fell apart 30 kilometers south of the nearest town, Lapalisse.  We were unable to get it replaced (a long story on its own - if you’re curious, you’re invited to read the journal).  By extreme good luck though, just a few miles earlier we passed the last significant climb of the tour.  We were still over 250 miles from Paris, but it worked reasonably well to remove the derailleur, shorten the chain and convert the bike to a one speed for the remainder of the tour.

Oh, and in the same photo is Rachael’s bike at the time, a lovely green Bianchi Volpe.  There’s a story there too.  I think it was just a few months earlier that we upgraded her to a Volpe (from her entry level Bridgestone) in preparation for this tour.  But this isn’t that Volpe.  This is her second one.  She owned her first one for less than an hour, and got roughly three miles of use out of it.  After buying it in South Salem she biked downtown, got a haircut, and came out to find that her cable had been cut.

That Peugeot was my bike in high school (purple PX10). Unfortunately it was stolen before I ever got a chance to tour. My ‘first tour’ bike was an Elswick Stag that I bought in Bath (England) for a four month ‘post-uni-grad’ voyage of discovery through Europe. It would be an archeological dig through boxes of photo’s to try to find a picture of that one. That was my only ride from 1982 through to 1990 when both Kirsten and I got our Dawes Super Galaxy’s in Glasgow. These were fantastic touring and commuting bikes that we used until they got replaced in 2015 with our Tout Terrain’s. Kirsten gave her’s away to a friends daughter and with a little refurbishment and TLC it’s still going strong. Mine is still hanging in the garage, sadly neglected after it’s last work commute in 2015. managed to find a few scanned pic’s from some of tours on the Super Galaxy’s.

Kelly, 

At this point in time I have only one bike, so it is also my best and most favourite bike. I found it on ebay - $50 and only the frame was recoverable, the rest of the bike was rusted seized and sadly had to be discarded. I successfully cold set the rear dropouts to 135mm and sent it to the powdercoaters for a sandblast and new skin of paint. 

In full basket-packing mode, waiting for me to get off my duff and head out on another adventure...

It turned out to be a 1987 Kuwahara mountain bike frame, fully lugged triple and quad butted 4130 chrome moly.  I repurposed it into an expedition grade touring bike. The Japanaese made/make very good bike frames. I've owned it for about 15 years and it's been through about 4 complete rebuilds. It has faithfully carried me on many adventures, without complaint and will continue to do so until my riding days are over. 

Thanks for providing us the opportunity to feature our bikes... 

Great photos!  We also did the Ventoux climb when it was hot and it’s  a killer! 

I remember reading it.  In fact, we were following your route (the first half, anyway, since Al could only get 3 weeks off) and met someone else also following your route.  And I think you also purchased commercial photos to commemorate the achievement.

Jeff your single speed appears to only have a front brake.

Is it fixed wheel?

Mike

Hi Mike,

Yes, there's a front brake only. I've never missed having a rear brake in over 10,000 miles riding the bike. It's mostly a matter of aesthetics; I don't want an unsightly rear brake cable marring the looks of the bike ;)

It's a freewheel, not a fixed gear. I've ridden fixed gear bikes just a little bit, and didn't enjoy it.

The front chain ring is 48 teeth. The rear has a 16 tooth cog on one side, and a 19 tooth cog on the other side. Most of the time I ride with the 48x16 gear, unless I'm somewhere where it's very hilly, and then I flip the wheel over to get the slightly easier 48x19 gear.

Jeff

Hi Jeff

Aesthsetics - A bloke that rides with us sometimes always has the latest gear and the last time I saw him he told us that his latest did not have any cables, di2 shifting and hydro disc brakes operated by bluetooth signals!

I use my front brake 99% of the time but it is nice to know that there is a back up for emergencies. Modern brake cables seldom fail and with a rim brake everything is visible so a quick eye check each time before you start riding and all is well.

When we were in lock down last year and only allowed to travel within a 5km radius of home I dusted off my fixed wheel and rode it a lot. Now that we are going into winter here down under I will start riding it again. BTW it has two brakes because it is a converted steel road bike frame. I ride a much lower gear than you 42 X 18 and 19. I have to brake sometimes on steep downhills!

Mike

Here is the only photo of me and my bike from my May 11-24 bike tour from Carson City, Nevada (USA) to Merced, California. The main theme was to visit historic silver and gold mining towns, but the route also crosses many rivers in deep canyons. The photo shows the road on both sides of the Merced river canyon. Journal coming soon...

Kelly I initially thought you meant ‘post’ as in freight as a package. Such a timely request as my Thorn Sherpa was just packed by a wonderful mechanic Mark Feldman in Perth.

In preparation for returning it home from Perth. So here are two photos. One of the bike ready to post, and the other of it in touring rig.