January 8, 2012
What we are thinking now (again)
It is truly mid-winter now in our rain forest home. That means low light levels, rain, cool temperatures, seasonal colds.
The family have all returned to their own homes across the continent, and the Christmas decorations have been taken down.
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Still, a small light burns at planning central and the Grampies are slowly getting ready to go again.
The Beef
Our thinking opens today, though, with some further (though small) Bike Friday gripes. Our biggest beef from when we bought the two New World Tourists was that Bike Friday had made a base configuration of lower quality components (but not at giveaway price by any means) and then charged premium prices for any upgrades. We found this hard to swallow, but came to terms with it, and put in a rainbow photo to mark our departure from Eugene. (See page "Don't Worry, Be Happy).
Now, we are worried by this again - just a little. Take this example: The stock chain for our bikes is the KMC Z-51. A quick look online shows this to be pretty much the cheapest chain one can buy. But after nothing more than the transport home on the bike rack, our chains were about to rust out! Looking at the reviews on the Mountain Equipment Co-op site produced more than one comment like:
A one-season chain for indoor-kept bikes.
This bike chain goes rusty as soon as it gets damp, oil or no oil. I currently have 3 bikes, 2 with this chain installed last summer and 1 beater with the stock chain (10 years old at least).
I store them outside. They get rained on. These chains rusted so bad over the winter that they are both seized SOLID. The 10 year old stock chain, barely oiled, is still running smooth. The original chain on one of the other bikes lasted years as well, I wish I hadn't replaced it!
What are these made of? Recycled soup cans?
Rust has already cropped up on other spots on our bikes: A bolt in the rear rack, the bolt of the kick stand, and significantly, the collar where the removable stem connects to the headset. Even the Z shaped hex key helpfully provided and attached to the water bottle holder corroded and dripped rust stain down the bike. These are smallish points and can be fixed mostly with a can of Rustoleum paint, but really!
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p.s. About the chains - I pulled them, scrubbed with a wire brush and solvent, dried, and soaked in Pedro's Syn-Lube. They still seem to be rusting though stored out of the rain. We will be throwing the chains from our new $2000 Bike Fridays in the garbage!
The Leap
We took the leap and bought our air tickets for Europe. We used a sort of agent, canadianaffair.ca, that charters flights to/from Britain from the carrier Air Transat. From Montreal to London in May and return on the same route in September cost $897 each. Since we naturally have to see Avi and Violet in Missoula and Amelia in Montreal before leaving, we had thoughts of using a combination of bicycle and train to cross over to Montreal before leaving and to return to Vancouver Island the same way in September. We are not sure about that now, and may end up just flying to Montreal (after swinging around to Montana by van). We just want to avoid getting biked or travelled out before we start biking and travelling!
Skyping out to New Zealand
We put in a call to Trish Graham in New Zealand the other day. Trish is the author on Crazyguy of "A River Route through Europe searching for a good cup of coffee" among others. It was great to hear the actual voice behind the blog that we had read carefully, and Trish was able to add many valuable tips. One of these was about the British map seller http://www.stanfords.co.uk/ From this site we listed and will order the four map sets that cover the Eurovelo 6 from the Atlantic to Vienna. We also found some maps for down the Rhine, at least to Frankfurt, and for the Inn Bike Trail (recommended by Trish) (Passau to beyond Innsbruck) and the Enns Cycle Route (Enns to Radstadt). We want to do them all!
Speaking of cycle maps, we also found Sustrans (http://www.sustransshop.co.uk/products/search_results) the British cycling specialists. Britain seems to have an extensive network of cycle routes. We love ones that sound special, like the "Way of the Roses" or the "CTC". We want to do those, too!
Forty-five minutes of phone time to New Zealand cost $1.10 (less than one Euro!) on Skype. One of our better touring investments so far!
Ortlieb
We got our Ortlieb bags out of their boxes and went through the process of figuring out how the mounts work and adjusting the bags for our racks. Although we have no experience with other makes to compare to, we found mounting these bags to be very flexible - with a lot of easy adjustability - and the final result to be easy on and off and very secure when on. The mounting cable for the handlebar bag, often maligned online, seemed very sturdy and made adjusting the levelness of the handlebar bag precise and easy.
At first the Ortlieb map case seemed clumsy, with the velcro closure hard to deal with. But now we have gotten the hang of it, and this too seems super.
Our only Ortlieb problem had been a warp in the top of one handlebar bag. However after some small amount of foot dragging and claims that "they are all (or mostly) like that", bikebagshop.com accepted the one bag back and sent a replacement.
So guess what? We are happy about bags!
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