More Lessons Learned

Posted by Neil

See post below about a practice run with a fully loaded bike.

I went out early morning on Sunday and rode 23.8 miles from Mold to Ruthin and back (including finishing the ride by extending it around the Mold by-pass).  In 23.8 miles there were around 500m of climbing involved, so not a bad bit of exercise and the climbing was more densely than it will be on our L2P days.

I had found that the clamping mechanism for the seat mounted pannier rack works far better if you replace the hand camlock with an M6 allen bolt with spring washer.  Thus equipped and tightened up robustly, it would seem not to need any stablising by tie-wrapping down to the rear hub mounts.  The lower part of the panniers is secured onto the rack side frames with velco straps - very easy to fit and remove.   And so it proved.  With the modest 7-8 kg of load evenly distributed, and tested over both potholes and at up to 37.5 mph, it remained tightly clamped, stable and was no threat to other road users nor to the rear wheel.  That's a great result and means that I can go back to a standard skewer through the rear hub.

I originally guessed that the panniers I'm using were about 15 litres each in capacity, but having seen them packed, I think they're more like 20 litres each.  Anyway, its plenty for our planned kit list, even when packing a pair of crocs (which I didn't even need to fill out with socks or the like), so no problems there.  I did wrap everything in crinkly carrier bags for the larger items and zip top bags for the smaller and more sensitive items such as my iPod and the toilet paper (wet toilet paper, not much use really).  No rain en route this weekend, so I can't report on the efficacy of this approach.

Its suprising how much the weight affects the ride - not so much in the stability of the bike (I thought this might be a problem, given how high the panniers ride on the seatpost rack, but it wasn't), but in terms of how much more effort is required to ride the bike.  Pretty much every hill needed one cog lower in the gears, some 2 cogs lower.  Good job I never have to use bottom gear on this route with an unladen bike!  Doesn't seem to go downhill any faster though, I think the extra drag must be balancing out the benefits of more mass being dragged down by gravity.

Only one area that needs any changes (other than ditching the crocs which I think are a bit of a luxury), and that's to the corners of the mounting bracket.  If Stuart's OK with this, I need to shave off a couple of millimetres of the front corners of the bracket - my inner thigh just touches them very briefly on each turn of the pedals - not enough to cause any abrasions, but just enough to be a bit annoying.

A very worthwhile exercise I think - I've only got a small adjustment to make, I found that I can ride the bike fine with no handling issues (but a little bit more effort) and that everything fits in the panniers I'm taking.  Best thing is just having the confidence, well in advance, to know that all is going to go well for the bike and the luggage.

No problems with the mechanicals either - new tyres, chain, gear adjustments etc. all fairing well.  And the brake pads are now well and truly "run-in", given the ride down the Clwyd Gate.  Oh, and I found out yesterday that if you joing the Clwyd Gate climb at Llanbedr DC (which I have been doing for my early morning 90 minute hill route of late), that you're already 30%+ of the way up the climb and its much harder if you start from Ruthin!