Are touring bikes old fashioned?

[cycle tramp]

Well, it's more of a yes really.... already the uci have broken the gender equality act by stipulating that the route length for women is shorter than that of men...

And to be fair if you've removed bikes which don't have drops, tandems, recumbents and road bikes, then you what you are left with are a diamond frames made out of a variety of materials spanning a couple of wheel sizes...

..much like road bikes I expect the uci to begin to tighten the regulations in the future, even to the speciation of top tube design..

Firstly, this is way off topic from the original "Are touring bikes old fashioned?" aim of the thread and secondly, you're wrong on everything else you've posted.

Equality Act 2010 doesn't apply (at least not in full) to sports where issues of distance / time have long been separately mandated and age group separation is common. eg tennis is best of 3 for women, best of 5 for men. There's a big debate in running about distance in some of the events (arguing against making all distances equal for all branches of the sport) and cycling has an interesting mix of equality (like the recent changes to track sprint and pursuit) vs "inequality" in MTB and road in terms of distance covered. That debate isn't really for this thread though.

And the UCI have already stated quite openly that they have no intention on restricting the evolving format of gravel.
https://off.road.cc/content/feature/gra ... know-11073

The UCI are also not remotely involved in any aspect of touring bike design so quite why it's been brought up is a mystery. I know it's always been the popular thing to slag off the big bad governing body but it's got no relevance to this thread.

Er..I'm not though, am I? The marathon is the same distance for both sexes, I'm pretty sure the iron man is the same distance for both sexes and American gravel bike tours are the same distance for both sexes, but yet the uci seems not to understand this... and I'm pretty sure that the 1000 metres spirit for men is the same length for women too... please, correct me if i'm wrong here...If not by the letter of the law the uci have done so in spirit and against the practices of other sporting standards.
However if it makes you happier I can change my claim to a more accurate one which is the uci is an ingrained sexist organisation as they clearly don't believe that, despite all evidence to the contrary, women can't complete with men on a level playing field.

As for the other thing.. er, I did some googling and the uci appears to have written dropped bars only.. so yeah, despite them saying they 'don't want to make any restrictions' they already have.. so goodbye surly open bars, goodbye Jeff Jones, goodbye velo orange clunker bars..
Yeah, sure they don't want to restrict the evolution of the gravel bike.... but, going on experience rather than hope, its not looking.. but y'know if we were American native Indians and the white man said they only wanted a little part of the land to build a hut, yeah, we'd believe them, too.
..actually, y'know what.. its popular to slagg off thieves. Its popular to say; this was never your thing.. you didn't invest in it and you've not nurtured it and yet you took it anyway. You took it because you could..
As for being way off topic.. am I bothered?

[Cowsham]

Thanks peeps I'll start doing a bit of measuring. I'd think the crown top tube and down tube will be strong enough for any abuse I'd throw at it with a rigid fork. Just need hardware options thanks djb for the first anyway.

[djb]

Thanks peeps I'll start doing a bit of measuring. I'd think the crown top tube and down tube will be strong enough for any abuse I'd throw at it with a rigid fork. Just need hardware options thanks djb for the first anyway.

no problem, all the best finding out the "devil is in the details" stuff.

[mattheus]

The UCI are also not remotely involved in any aspect of touring bike design so quite why it's been brought up is a mystery. I know it's always been the popular thing to slag off the big bad governing body but it's got no relevance to this thread.

Oh my. Hook line and sinker ...

[GideonReade]

Did someone say off topic?

For my pennyworth, isn't this thread an authentic pub evening debate? I can almost smell real ale and wet dog. This thread's surely going to Ushuaia and down the shops and everywhere in between.

Another pint anyone?

[scragend]

Did someone say off topic?

For my pennyworth, isn't this thread an authentic pub evening debate? I can almost smell real ale and wet dog. This thread's surely going to Ushuaia and down the shops and everywhere in between.

Another pint anyone?

Are pints of real ale and wet dogs old fashioned...

[slowster]

I think it's called suspension corrected fork. Or is that the frame?

Both frame and fork. By way of example, the Surly Ogre was originally a suspension corrected design, but several years ago Surly decided to make it a rigid specific design. The differences in the designs of the forks and the frames are visible in the two photographs below.

Frames and rigid forks that are suspension corrected will be designed to enable the frame to be fitted with a suspension fork with a *specific* amount of travel. Thus the suspension corrected Surly Ogre was a 29er designed to allow an 80mm travel fork to be fitted, i.e. the A-C measurement of the rigid suspension corrected fork corresponded to an 80mm travel fork.

The specifications of the two different rigid forks are on Surly's website here - https://surlybikes.com/bikes/legacy/ogre_2016#spec-geo. The A-C of the suspension corrected fork was 468mm, and of the non-suspension corrected fork is 447mm. So if someone has a 29er MTB with 80mm travel and 43mm fork offset, an old Ogre suspension corrected fork (or another fork with very similar measurements), is likely to be a suitable swap.

I'd think the crown top tube and down tube will be strong enough for any abuse I'd throw at it with a rigid fork.

Bear in mind that fitting a (significantly) longer or shorter fork will do more than just potentially alter stresses on the down tube/head tube junction.

A longer fork will, I think, result in slower steering due to the shallower head angle (assuming same fork offset). It will also raise the bottom bracket, reduce the seat angle and increase bar height. A shorter fork will do the opposite. Many of these might not be show stoppers and/or might be worked around, but I suspect that you would find a steeper head angle due to a shorter fork might make the steering unacceptably quick/twitchy.

Suspension corrected with longer A-C fork, and a shorter head tube/steeper down tube:


Rigid specific:

[Cowsham]

Thank you for that explanation of suspension corrected slowster

[Cowsham]

I'll measure from the bottom of the crown ( headstock ) to the centre of the axle.

[Cugel]

Did someone say off topic?

For my pennyworth, isn't this thread an authentic pub evening debate? I can almost smell real ale and wet dog. This thread's surely going to Ushuaia and down the shops and everywhere in between.

Another pint anyone?

Are pints of real ale and wet dogs old fashioned...

Many beers of a certain paucity in their qualities were often given the very descriptive alternative name of, "A pint of wet dog". Watery, a thin brown colour and often tasting like something out of a puddle sieved through the hair of a dog well in need of a bath.

The only way to get them supped, those pints, was to also have a pub pork growler, which growly-pies were the only thing that could impart a bit of character to the wet dog. One hoped the growler was free of large lung and intestine lumps.

Sometimes the actual damp canine accompanying the pub habitue had to finish off the last of the growler and even the last inch of the wet dog "beer". A terrible case of dog-eats-dog, especially later on when the dog-et sludge in it's stomach began to produce the gases eventually manifesting as dogphart!

Cugel

[mattheus]

It's a mystery how the traditional British Boozah died out, isn't it?

[GideonReade]

It's a mystery how the traditional British Boozah died out, isn't it?

Those aspects no great loss, I guess. And irrespective of pub quality, I suspect the loss of pubs over the last decades, subject of much wailing and gnashing of teeth, is amply compensated by growth in often excellent cafes. More often open while out on a bike, too.

Well off topic, tee hee:

"Are touring inns old fashioned?".

[Nearholmer]

Remaining OT, I read H G Wells cycling novella “Wheels of Chance” back in the summer, and he gives the impression that cyclists used pubs then much as we do cafes now. The protagonists are forever stopping at pubs for soft drinks and light meals, and c1900 I don’t think there were licensing laws limiting pub opening hours. HGW knew his stuff in that he was a keen cyclist himself.

[rareposter]

Stumbled across this article at the weekend:

https://tomsbiketrip.com/is-the-touring-bike-dying-out/

It's from Tom's Bike Blog - the same blog that the OP of this thread, BikeBuddha, was basing a lot of his buying decisions on WAY back at the start of this thread!

And some of the stuff in it is also related to the recent thread (and the much older thread linked within it) to the Dawes Sardar:
viewtopic.php?t=154215

Is the touring bike so old fashioned that it's dying out altogether or is it simply evolving slowly into gravel and/or bikepacking...?

[GideonReade]

I've seen some things that just seem to make sense for touring:
Mounts and racks that are much more solid and designed to be mounted from day one. See a Trek 1120 or a Pipedream A.L.I.C.E fork etc.
Geometry which takes a lead from mountain bikes rather than twitchy road bikes.
Internal frame or hub gears (only the cost puts me off).

Despite advancing age, I try to keep my mind open to new ideas (as commented above, I happily tour on Ti and carbon - yes moving on too), but I check innovations against half a century of touring experience and what I remember of my university studies and early work as a design engineer. Intrigued by the above comment, I thought I'd better take a look at this Trek 1120. Here's a picture of the rear rack, designed to be mounted from day one.

Frankly I'm not impressed. You don't need to be an engineer to know that the best way to support a load is to stand it on something. That's why conventional rear carriers have legs, bolted to the rear frame ends. Original attachment there was via the axle nuts: strong but inconvenient. Then for much of recent memory, carriers were attached via the mudguard eyes or extra 'braze-ons' the same 5mm size, which frankly aint big enough. M5 rack bolts are notorious for rattling loose and better designed touring frames now have 6mm carrier eyes. But 5mm will do if the load is moderate, the way is smooth and the tightness checked often.

I digress. Supporting a load on what engineers call a cantilever, like a shelf bracket sticking out from a wall, is second best, something you do only when you can't put a prop directly under it - as would be the case on a full-suspension frame. A cantilever structure must be heavier, or else it may fail. It seems like we have a bit of both here. Before I get onto that however, let's look at the attachments. The horizontal distance from the load C-of-G to those bolts is two or three times the distance between the top and bottom bolts, so if you do the simple maths of bending moments, the force upon them is two or three times that carried by the legs of a conventional carrier. The top ones at least should be M6, even though the rated carrying capacity of this rack is only 12kg, but they appear to be the same size as bottle cage bolts on the same bike, so only M5.

The measure of luggage efficiency is the ratio of weight carried to self-weight. This 12kg capacity rear rack has a RRP of £88 and weighs 701g (according to this review), so it's efficiency is 17:1. I'll compare it to the Racktime Light-It: a much cheaper conventional rear rack that's likewise welded from large diameter alloy tubes, costs £55 (here), carries 20kg and weighs only 600g. So it's almost twice as efficient at 33:1 and is lighter regardless of how little you want to carry. Being a German rather than US/UK product it is of course designed for attachment by M6 bolts at the rear ends (M5 is fine for the upper seatstay attachments of conventional carriers).

Is this rather inefficient Trek design at least strong enough? I've expressed my doubts over the attachments and it seems there is indeed a problem. Whilst trying to discover the weight of the 1120 rack (which Trek don't mention) I came across this comment in Singletrack forum:

The rack design or it’s attachment points are prone to causing frame cracking. I’ve read that on the latest versions welded lugs are used throughout rather than just on the upper mounting points. There’s a rack mod which uses vertical bontrager rack legs to spread the weight more.

What did I say? Put a prop under it!

The Trek 1120 frame does also have conventional rack eyes at the rear dropouts, but sadly only M5 sized. So much for "more solid" then. Appearances can indeed be deceptive.

The Trek 1120 front carrier also lacks the weight-saving prop it could so easily have. And as for Pipedream Alice's fork, I'm not convinced that a lot more trail is a good thing, given that's what gives women's bikes their notoriously floppy steering, when lazy manufacturers specify the same fork across the whole range, only giving the smaller sizes shallower head angles.

It's not a unique approach. Is this any better? It's probably cheaper...
https://www.decathlon.co.uk/p/touring-b ... 266bcc0aa0