Show us photos of your inappropriate touring bike

[Jamesh]

My first tours in the 1980s (supported, so saddlebags only) were on a Raleigh Weekender, which was much as Freiston and pwa have already suggested. In its favour it had a triple, which was great, and a Huret Duopar Eco, which was occasionally great and then uniquely awful. Apart from that it was steel rims, Weinmann 730 brakes with suicide levers, bendy-axled Normandy (?) hubs, foam bar tape and all the other general horrors of the time.

I would baulk at the idea of riding far on such a bike now, but that was the bike that got me hooked. 35 years later, cycle touring is still about my favourite thing, so it can't have scarred me too badly.

How did the Weekender compare to the routier?
Been thinking of one as a budget robust touring bike?!

Cheers James

[speedsixdave]

...
How did the Weekender compare to the routier?
Been thinking of one as a budget robust touring bike?!

Cheers James

I have no direct experience with the Routier, but...

In middling sizes (21-23") Raleighs of that sort of date were all pretty solid frames. I think the Routier was in their 18-23 tubing (as was the Weekender) which is very unspectacular but fine for a touring bike where weight is not a primary concern. Raleigh knew about geometry in those middling sizes and the Routier should ride pretty nicely, as did the Weekender, especially without too much baggage. I'm not sure how well it would handle a camping load. They are both nice-looking frames with the white head tube and classic head badge.

Things to be wary of with either bike:
(1) Probably 120mm OLD across the back end, possibly 126mm, so too narrow for modern hubs. But not a big job to spring the back end out to 130mm. Certainly true for my Weekender
(2) Might be 27" (630mm) wheels, which are harder to find quality tyres for, though certainly not impossible. SJS Cycles often have Panaracer Paselas in 27" which are decent and will look the part. The good thing about 27" wheels is they will generally have clearance for 27x1 1/4 tyres and mudguards, which are 32mm in new money and thus a very acceptable size in the modern thinking. If you are unlucky the rims will be steel, which is not great, especially if you want to ride in the wet. Certainly true for my Weekender.
(3) If you are used to modern bikes you will probably find the gears (a) awful and (b) much too high, with something like a 40x28 bottom gear (38"). So you might want to budget for something wider and more modern, which takes us back to Point 1. The Weekender had a triple so a better bottom gear.
(4) Whether you are used to modern bikes or not the brakes will probably be terrible, especially with steel rims. Fortunately deep-drop dual-pivot brakes are now cheap and commonplace and vastly better than the old Weinmann 730s.

In summary I think a Routier or Weekender would make a nice-riding light touring bike but you might easily end up spending £200-300 making it more useable, by which time you might be better off finding something more modern in the first place. By the 1990s pretty much all the worst kit was gone from cheap to mid-range bikes - steel rims, Sachs-Huret gears, Weinmann brakes, steel bars - and upgrading became much easier too. For all that we moan about Shimano, they have been flipping brilliant compared to what came before.

[pwa]

For me, no bike is appropriate for touring unless the gear range goes down to the low twenties in inches. Other folk can tour on bikes with higher bottom gears than that if they want to, but for me that is a deal breaker.

This thread was clearly meant to attract photos, but I regret that I don't have pics any of my inappropriate touring bikes in digital form. I retired the last such bike in the mid 80s, since when my tourers have become increasingly appropriate. And each iteration has been mostly cobbled together from old and new bits, so has been unique.

[Mike Sales]

For me, no bike is appropriate for touring unless the gear range goes down to the low twenties in inches. Other folk can tour on bikes with higher bottom gears than that if they want to, but for me that is a deal breaker.

By this criterion a photo of my circa 1980 Dawes Galaxy would qualify as showing an inappropriate bike for touring.. Yet it was understood to be one of the best tourers on the market, and, I think, even recommended by the CTC!
By the time I parted with it I had fitted a cotterless triple, a less wobbly rack and junked the suicide levers. The Weimann centre pulls remained but the Lyotard rat traps and leather saddle had disintegrated. The Simplex plastic gear set was gone too.
I did many miles on this bike, including a trip to Chamonix and back, on which ride I had a course in cotter pin replacement.

[pwa]

For me, no bike is appropriate for touring unless the gear range goes down to the low twenties in inches. Other folk can tour on bikes with higher bottom gears than that if they want to, but for me that is a deal breaker.

By this criterion a photo of my circa 1980 Dawes Galaxy would qualify as showing an inappropriate bike for touring.. Yet it was understood to be one of the best tourers on the market, and, I think, even recommended by the CTC!
By the time I parted with it I had fitted a cotterless triple, a less wobbly rack and junked the suicide levers. The Weimann centre pulls remained but the Lyotard rat traps and leather saddle had disintegrated. The Simplex plastic gear set was gone too.
I did many miles on this bike, including a trip to Chamonix and back, on which ride I had a course in cotter pin replacement.

I do think tourers of that era were inappropriately geared. I remember inching my way over the Cime de la Bonnette road on a 531ST tourer with a bottom gear that was way too high, not realising then that something better was possible. And it did detract from the experience. It wasn't okay. This is how I view touring bikes. I don't look at how they are marketed, but at what they actually are, from a functional point of view.

[Mike Sales]

I don't look at how they are marketed, but at what they actually are, from a functional point of view.

It was not just the marketeers who recommended the Galaxy!

[pwa]

I don't look at how they are marketed, but at what they actually are, from a functional point of view.

It was not just the marketeers who recommended the Galaxy!

It was sold as a "tourer", but by my current standards it fell short. Galaxies at that time seemed good because we knew no better. We didn't know how low gears would be able to go a few years later. I imagine that given a not-too-inappropriate a frameset, such as an old school steel MTB with rigid forks, I could make a better tourer than a 1980 Galaxy, from a functional point of view, with lower gearing, good brakes and the ability to carry a decent load. It isn't the title "tourer" that makes a bike appropriate for touring, it is the bike's functional attributes. My current tourer, built around a Spa frameset, ticks all the boxes with ease, and I'd not go back to my 1980s "tourers" with their inappropriately high bottom gears.

[tatanab]

Galaxies at that time seemed good because we knew no better. We didn't know how low gears would be able to go a few years later.

We DID know better, at least the generation before Galaxy buyers -and to be fair, depending on your exposure to CTC group riding.

I started club riding in1969. By a couple of years later I had learned about what could be done and what might suit me. Off the peg machines like the Galaxy barely existed, and it was normal to assemble a machine to your own tastes. My usual double chainset was 48/36 with a 14-26 freewheel. but when I went on tour to Yorkshire (early 1970s) I geared down to 40/24 on the front. I was able to do this because we used TA or Stronglight cranks which would take those small rings, and those rings were easily available.

Perhaps an amount of knowledge was lost when such a variety of off the peg machines became available in the late 70s and since then. As for the Galaxy, I did not rate it then or since, and certainly none of my club mates did either; but we had the advantage of all that previous knowledge.

[Mike Sales]

I don't look at how they are marketed, but at what they actually are, from a functional point of view.

It was not just the marketeers who recommended the Galaxy!

It was sold as a "tourer", but by my current standards it fell short. Galaxies at that time seemed good because we knew no better.

Quite. I hoped that my listing my modifications to my Galaxy made it clear that I learned better.
I lacked the club advice that Tatanab refers to (I did not come into cycling by that route, but by getting on my boyhood bike and learning as I went along), and I have to say that, as I remember it, a 40x28 bottom was a low gear, for the day. The Galaxy came with guards and rack which was not common. I was very pleased to be able to buy such a thoroughbred! It even had some 531 steel in the frame.
By all of our current standards the 1980 Galaxy falls well short of a recommendable tourer.
My point is that though touring bikes have improved a lot, in its day many people, like me, must have bought a Galaxy and toured happily on it. It's not the bike really, its the pleasure one can get out of wandering across the land on two wheels which is important. In the 19th. century heavy single speed or fixed wheel bikes were a tremendous liberation and introduced many people to their country. Read H.G.Wells's books on the pleasures and education of getting on a bike.
The Galaxy was certainly sold as a tourer, and not just by its makers. As I wrote, it got me to the Alps, and I learned a lot on the way, as anyone who does a good tour will learn.

I am reminded of H.W.Tilman. He was asked how to get on an expedition.
"Put on your boots and go."
He thought a worthwhile expedition could be organised on the back of an envelope.

[PDQ Mobile]

I am reminded of H.W.Tilman. He was asked how to get on an expedition.
"Put on your boots and go."
He thought a worthwhile expedition could be organised on the back of an envelope.

Funny, he just came up in conversation about the Barmouth Bridge.
Which is again open for walkers and cyclists until the 7th Jan ( it's been closed to everything because of reconstruction efforts and the railway remains closed ).

Tilman "nails grade one"!
I enjoyed some of the books.


Anyway further to your earlier New Year wishes;
pm ddim ar gael- blwyddyn newydd dda.

[pwa]

Galaxies at that time seemed good because we knew no better. We didn't know how low gears would be able to go a few years later.

We DID know better, at least the generation before Galaxy buyers -and to be fair, depending on your exposure to CTC group riding.

I started club riding in1969. By a couple of years later I had learned about what could be done and what might suit me. Off the peg machines like the Galaxy barely existed, and it was normal to assemble a machine to your own tastes. My usual double chainset was 48/36 with a 14-26 freewheel. but when I went on tour to Yorkshire (early 1970s) I geared down to 40/24 on the front. I was able to do this because we used TA or Stronglight cranks which would take those small rings, and those rings were easily available.

Perhaps an amount of knowledge was lost when such a variety of off the peg machines became available in the late 70s and since then. As for the Galaxy, I did not rate it then or since, and certainly none of my club mates did either; but we had the advantage of all that previous knowledge.

I wish I had known you in the mid 80s when I was assembling a tourer with only the race-orientated LBS for guidance. My chainset was something like 52/42. I now know what touring gears should be, and I put a 40/24 on my wife's bike to give her the low gear options she needs. It is details like this that dictate whether a bike is appropriate for touring, not what it says on the top tube. I would expect Mike's Galaxy became an "appropriate" tourer as he modified it.

[simonineaston]

If I'd have taken any photos of the time I took a Brilliant Micro up to The Lakes, I'd have posted one here for sure. It was not a happy experience. In fairness to the Micro, it folded up small and was light to carry. I'd bought it specifically to carry on to a French TGV the year before and it performed well enough - the cycle from the train station to my friend's place was mainly along a nicely kept cycle lane. So the next year, I though I'd try the same idea to go up to Lakeland and use the Micro to head out to a variety of fell walks. But navigating Cumbria's winding, narrow, car-heavy lanes was another matter and the unpleasantness of struggling with the Micro's questionable stability and lack of suspension was key in my buying a Brompton. You live & learn.

[Cowsham]

Sorry.

Raleigh Chopper.
Rundlestone Cross.JPG
Gorse.jpg

Your chopper was the first thing that came to mind when I saw the title of this thread -- definitely inappropriate on many levels !

[Cowsham]

Continuing the small wheel theme, here is my home built ‘mini-bike’. The pic was taken on the Furka Pass (7969 ft) on route from Basel to Como. That morning I had crossed the Grimsel Pass and was heading to the Oberalp Pass before turning south over the Lukmanierpass. I was 66 at the time. There is a trend on the continent to drive to the foot of a pass before riding to the summit. Older riders get a lift to the top and ride down. No doubt the many roadies that passed me on the climbs thought my steed most in-appropriate, but it suited me fine.

2010_019.jpg

A square frame -- now that's thinking outside ' and inside ' the box. Think of the stuff you could pack in there.

[Mike Sales]

I am reminded of H.W.Tilman. He was asked how to get on an expedition.
"Put on your boots and go."
He thought a worthwhile expedition could be organised on the back of an envelope.

Funny, he just came up in conversation about the Barmouth Bridge.
Which is again open for walkers and cyclists until the 7th Jan ( it's been closed to everything because of reconstruction efforts and the railway remains closed ).

Tilman "nails grade one"!
I enjoyed some of the books.


Anyway further to your earlier New Year wishes;
pm ddim ar gael- blwyddyn newydd dda.

J.R.L. Anderon's biography High Mountains and Cold Seas, is worth reading, especially as it tells the life without Tilman's reticence.