135 rear drop out spacing for a touring bike ?

[Smiley]

Our fellow Forumite Jeremy has convinced me to have my coupled steel serotta touring rig built with 135 drop out spacing so Jeremy can build me a 20 % strong rear wheel without any significant weight penalty. Anyone else have this done or knows of it being done, My wifes Surly is built at 132.5 mm spacing so that it can use MTB or road hubs.
I just got the green light to have the bike and I am in negotiations with Easton for the EC 90 x fork that can handle canti's as well as having fender mounts too boot. All I need to to have my fit checked and I'll be ordering a steel Uniscalsi soon ( I may wait till the raffle is opened for the Sachs frame since I have a ticket in that pot ).

[ergott]

It's a great idea. There is no shortage of 135mm hubs out there. It's something I've thought of for my next bike.

[Bradford]

My IF Independence touring bike has 135 spacing. I use XT hub.

If by touring you mean you are going to be riding this bike with panniers, than you absolutely need 135 spacing and the stronger wheel. You are not as big as I am, but I crush wheels weak wheels when I tour. And if you are out on a tour, broken spokes are a miserable pain in the butt.

If this is a touring bike that you are going to use for touring with panniers, than you don't want anything to do with a carbon fork. Although a carbon fork makes sense for a road bike, I wouldn't consider anything but steel on a touring bike. Not only do I trust the steel more, you need a fork with braze ons for fenders and front low riders (you know, those little holes in the fork blades). You can get a nice one from IF, or I'm sure there are others around or you can have one made.

Other things I'd consider. If there is enough space between the seat tube and the rear wheel, make sure there is a pump peg behind the seat tube. A full touring bike has a plenty of room back there for a pump. You will want a full size frame pump and that is the best place to keep it. Also, make sure you have watter bottle bosses on the underside of the down tube for a third bottle. I always ride with 3 bottles while touring and I use it for my headlight battery when commuting.

[ergott]

If you want to really go the reliable route, get it built up with 140mm for a Phil Wood hub. They make a 140mm and have proven themselves to be one of the most durable, beautiful hubs out there. The hub will outlast the frame. It will be the only wheels you need.

<Tech Notes – Front Axle Cap Design The one piece front axle end caps are machined from surgical quality stainless steel bar. The caps thread onto the axle and are broached to accept either a 5mm (QR) or 8mm (Bolt) hex wrench. A contact diameter of the front cap is19mm for Touring / Tandem / MTB hubs and 15.5mm for Road / Track / BMX hubs. The Q-R cap has a 9mm diameter tip that securely fits into standard front dropouts.>

[Smiley]

Serotta aka Kelly Bedford and I will be considering everything . Bradford you should check out www.eastonbike.com and look over their new EC 90 x fork yest with fender mounts. I think Serotta will build the frame with the longest chainstays they make but I don't know about the pump behind the rear wheel I was thinking below the TT.

[Bradford]

Bradford you should check out www.eastonbike.com and look over their new EC 90 x fork yest with fender mounts.

If you are not going to be using front lowriders, it looks like a nice fork. But if you want to go on an unsupported tour, you'll need a fork with holes in the blades to mount the lowriders. You wouldn't want to use the clamp option, there are too many ways that can go wrong.

[Too Tall]

I'll throw a fly in the ointment...present company excluded....get a straight blade custom steel cross fork.

[sg8357]

Rivendell Atlantis, an All Rounder, 135 rear spacing.
Rivendell, Rambouillet and Romulus, road bikes, 132.5 iirc.
My regular road bike, 135 with XTR hubs. DA hubs are 10 speed only
these days, XTR work with 10/9/8. If you are really dish averse use
the Velocity off center rims, Synergry for fat tires, Aerohead for skinny.

Depending on how tall you are you might want to consider 559 or 584
wheels to get better geometry with fat tires. 35mm 700c tires can
make for a lot of tco in small to mid sizes.

Scott G.

[palincss]

Our fellow Forumite Jeremy has convinced me to have my coupled steel serotta touring rig built with 135 drop out spacing so Jeremy can build me a 20 % strong rear wheel without any significant weight penalty. Anyone else have this done or knows of it being done, My wifes Surly is built at 132.5 mm spacing so that it can use MTB or road hubs.
I just got the green light to have the bike and I am in negotiations with Easton for the EC 90 x fork that can handle canti's as well as having fender mounts too boot. All I need to to have my fit checked and I'll be ordering a steel Uniscalsi soon ( I may wait till the raffle is opened for the Sachs frame since I have a ticket in that pot ).

The Bruce Gordon Rock 'n Road Tour touring bikes have had 135 spacing for at least the past 10 years. I bought mine in 1995, came with XT front and rear hubs.

[palincss]

Rivendell Atlantis, an All Rounder, 135 rear spacing.
Rivendell, Rambouillet and Romulus, road bikes, 132.5 iirc.
My regular road bike, 135 with XTR hubs. DA hubs are 10 speed only
these days, XTR work with 10/9/8. If you are really dish averse use
the Velocity off center rims, Synergry for fat tires, Aerohead for skinny.

Depending on how tall you are you might want to consider 559 or 584
wheels to get better geometry with fat tires. 35mm 700c tires can
make for a lot of tco in small to mid sizes.

Scott G.

Apropos of cassettes, low gears make a whole lot of sense on a loaded touring bike. When I say "low" I mean really low gears. 22 front, 32 or 34 rear would not be considered at all unusual. 10 speed setups give you lots of closely spaced gears in the high and mid ranges, which are of limited value in loaded touring (you slow down very fast with a heavy load, so you need larger jumps between gears) but appear to be limited to a 27 or 28T large sprocket and, because of their design, cannot be customized by removing small outer sprockets and adding larger ones from MTB cassettes behind the largest sprocket.

[Eric E]

Bradford is right, IMHO. If you will be carrying more than 30 lbs, a combination of front and rear panniers is MUCH better than just rear panniers. This balances the rig very nicely. In fact, many experienced credit card tourers feel that if you are carrying only 2 pannier, they should be front panniers, not rear panniers. So, unless there is a way to attache panniers to your fork, you are sacrificing your ride stability and quality if you can't mount fron panniers. Alternatively, you can go with a bob-like trailer, which I've heard are good for high winds (Wyoming) but lousy at higher speeds (downhills).

Our Serotta Ti Rapid Tours with extra stiff tubing (for our weight) are just wonderful light touring bikes. Personally, I think that cantilever brakes are unnecessary (at least for me at 170 lbs + 50 lbs gear). We run 700-27 ruffy-tuffy tires with standard Campy brakes when touring - on our last tour from Eugene to Bozeman, we had NO FLATS on our 4 tires despite very rough roads and high temps (Devil's Canyon).

As for pumps, we love the Topeak road morph with the gauge. They weigh about the same as a full sized frame pump but are easier to pump since they mimick a floor pump and the flexible hose puts less stress on the tube valve. The hoses do wear out, but when I inquired about buying a repalcement from Topeak, they simply sent me a new one - no charge! The only negative is that you may want to calibrate the gauge - some of mine have read low.

Happy trails, Eric

[Bradford]

As for pumps, we love the Topeak road morph with the gauge. They weigh about the same as a full sized frame pump but are easier to pump since they mimick a floor pump and the flexible hose puts less stress on the tube valve.

Although this sounds suspiciously like payback, Eric is right on the pump. I have three road morphs for my other bikes. I went to the road morph as soon as it came out because I've ripped the stem off of a tube using my Zephel. Remember, when touring, you are days or weeks away from your home pump, so you will be pumping up your tires with your frame pump ever other day at a minimum. This actually puts me in a bit of a bind; the Zephel fits so nicely behind the seat tube, but one of my road morphs would be better. I'll probably attach a morph to the touring bike with some pump straps before I go on my next tour.

Now that I think of it, forget about the pump peg and through a morph in the bottom of your panniers.

And since gearing came up, I run 26-40-51 up front and a 13-34 SRAM cassette on the back with bar ends. Low gearing works great for loaded tours, but for commuting, errands, and other low or no loaded riding, I like the 40 and 51. (How can I make the jump from 26 to 40 you ask? Friction my friend, friction. Index on the right, friction on the left).

As for tires, 700x28 Top Tours for light riding, 700x37s for loaded touring. I think I'm going to switch out the 28s for 700x28 Gator skins in the spring though.

[Peter]

I've ridden "overwidth" hubs on my commuter bikes for the last 10 years and they DEFINITELY are low maintenance.

First, I had a 130mm Bullseye hub with 7 speed freewheels. When I converted to 9 speed and a new frame, it was 135mm and a Phil Wood cassette hub. I use panniers most of the time, and 26mm tires. In both cases, the wheels just don't go out of true.

I've also had good experience with Ritchey OCR rims. The left vs. right spoke tension is very even and the wheels really last.

[jerk]

just to confuse you guys, the jerk's new audax bike is going to have 126 spacing and maxi-car hubs.

jerk

[Grant McLean]

Serotta aka Kelly Bedford and I will be considering everything . Bradford you should check out www.eastonbike.com and look over their new EC 90 x fork yest with fender mounts. I think Serotta will build the frame with the longest chainstays they make but I don't know about the pump behind the rear wheel I was thinking below the TT.


is 43mm enough rake?

-g

[ericspin]

Well hear is my take. My Comotion Americano (badass full on tourer) has a tandem rear hub - 143mm I believe. And I definitely agree with the steel fork. I have toured with this thing fully loaded, front and rear panniers chock full and it is amazing how heavy your bike can get. As for gearing I agree with LOW. My Americano has MTB transmission - XT front and XTR rear and when I am running fully loaded the 24-34-46 gearing feels just right, especially on a dirt or gravel road.

[Serotta PETE]

Have about 200 miles on my Ti version that Kelly and Mike (CYCLESPORT) built up for me. IT has Ultegra Triple 10 and I am really enjoying it. THe first trip will be SOLVANG with SPOKES> Have Ceramic Open (MAVIC) 36 spoke on it.

Even got a friend from NJ to order a steel one. He should have it is about three weeks. Kelly and Mike are doing the design.

I am not a tent type camper on trips so I just got the normal 130 spacing and it was built for responsiveness in regard to angles and am using the F3 fork.

Could not be happier with the ride.


PETE

[coylifut]

I'll throw a fly in the ointment...present company excluded....get a straight blade custom steel cross fork.

why straight blade?

[scrooge]

Although this sounds suspiciously like payback, Eric is right on the pump. I have three road morphs for my other bikes. I went to the road morph as soon as it came out because I've ripped the stem off of a tube using my Zephel. Remember, when touring, you are days or weeks away from your home pump, so you will be pumping up your tires with your frame pump ever other day at a minimum. This actually puts me in a bit of a bind; the Zephel fits so nicely behind the seat tube, but one of my road morphs would be better. I'll probably attach a morph to the touring bike with some pump straps before I go on my next tour.

Now that I think of it, forget about the pump peg and through a morph in the bottom of your panniers.



Or you could do what I've done: Ride with a BOB trailer and just strap a floor pump to the top :D Not the lightest way to go, but dependable!

[Ray]

just to confuse you guys, the jerk's new audax bike is going to have 126 spacing and maxi-car hubs.

jerk
Nice - how many gears? 6 speed freewheel?

-Ray

[palincss]

is 43mm enough rake?

-g


Well, how much geometric trail do you want?

Here's a link to Kogswell's geometric trail calculator:
http://kogswell.com/trail.php

Note that geometric trail works in conjunction with pneumatic trail that comes from your tires. Wide low pressure tires have more pneumatic trail, which lets you have less geometric trail should you want that.