In 2011 I rode my bike from Alaska to Mexico. Now that i've finished off my uni degrees and, wanting to avoid a whole bunch of responsibility, I am going to head out on another big touring ride. Should be fun. I leave in about 3 weeks and will hike the Bibbulman track in WA. I've been wanting to do this for a while. Then I am riding back from Perth to Adelaide (sorta home for me), stopping in to raid the fridge, then off around the coast to Sydney. In Sydney I will meet up with a good friend and we will ride our bikes to East Timor.
The Australian section of the route looks like this:
Should total around ~9000km once all is said and done.
The plan after that, I think, is to get on a plane and fly to Bali, because cheap, and work our way to Hato Builico in East Timor, which my riding partner has been working to raise a bit of money for. It seems like a beautiful place and as good a destination as any. I am still looking into the best way to get to there, but it seems as if there are plenty of ferries from Ende, on the island of Flores, to Kupang in West Timor. So far all I have is an "A" and a "B" but i'll get there.
On my last trip I took a Salsa Fargo. It was and is a good bike, but I much prefer the handling of the original, non-suspension corrected version of the bike, so I have retired it to townie duties and will take a new bike, a Surly Troll.
26in wheels are more common in SE Asia, so will be easier to source, the smaller wheels will hopefully get the bike a little lower and more balanced. The smaller wheels should also make it a little stiffer and more precise when descending under load. I also really like the design of the dropouts, the 5 bottle mounts, and have a real soft spot for surlys (the bike I did my first 24hr solo on and was a surly - never should've sold it!). I think they look cool and they are all built tough.
The key parts on it will be 36 spoke wheels built with Shimano hubs - in my view a necessity for loaded touring and a weak point on the stock build. I will use Mavic ex721 rims with a machined braking track incase I do need to use rim brakes due to a mechanical failure at some point. I wish I could find some Rigida rims locally as I have heard very good things about them and I would prefer double eyelets. I would also like a narrower rim to work a little better with narrower tyres (1.5in touring tyres can get a little squirmy on wide rims). Nevertheless, I have always had good luck with mavic rims so i'll run them. DT swiss competition spokes and brass nipples, of course.
Cable disc brakes are excellent for touring IME - they work really well on long descents and in the rain, and a pair of brake pads will last ~15,000km or so. Avid BB7s.
Titec J-bars because it is really nice to have 3 or 4 hand positions. I can't find a homepage for Titec so I guess they went bust? Dunno. I have these bars and like them heaps for touring.
Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres because they're the best tyre ever.
That's pretty much it for now. I'm looking forward to going on a nice hike and then grinding across the Nullarbor. Not too much in the way of off-road riding but hopefully there will be some dirt at some point.
The Australian section of the route looks like this:
Should total around ~9000km once all is said and done.
The plan after that, I think, is to get on a plane and fly to Bali, because cheap, and work our way to Hato Builico in East Timor, which my riding partner has been working to raise a bit of money for. It seems like a beautiful place and as good a destination as any. I am still looking into the best way to get to there, but it seems as if there are plenty of ferries from Ende, on the island of Flores, to Kupang in West Timor. So far all I have is an "A" and a "B" but i'll get there.
On my last trip I took a Salsa Fargo. It was and is a good bike, but I much prefer the handling of the original, non-suspension corrected version of the bike, so I have retired it to townie duties and will take a new bike, a Surly Troll.
26in wheels are more common in SE Asia, so will be easier to source, the smaller wheels will hopefully get the bike a little lower and more balanced. The smaller wheels should also make it a little stiffer and more precise when descending under load. I also really like the design of the dropouts, the 5 bottle mounts, and have a real soft spot for surlys (the bike I did my first 24hr solo on and was a surly - never should've sold it!). I think they look cool and they are all built tough.
The key parts on it will be 36 spoke wheels built with Shimano hubs - in my view a necessity for loaded touring and a weak point on the stock build. I will use Mavic ex721 rims with a machined braking track incase I do need to use rim brakes due to a mechanical failure at some point. I wish I could find some Rigida rims locally as I have heard very good things about them and I would prefer double eyelets. I would also like a narrower rim to work a little better with narrower tyres (1.5in touring tyres can get a little squirmy on wide rims). Nevertheless, I have always had good luck with mavic rims so i'll run them. DT swiss competition spokes and brass nipples, of course.
Cable disc brakes are excellent for touring IME - they work really well on long descents and in the rain, and a pair of brake pads will last ~15,000km or so. Avid BB7s.
Titec J-bars because it is really nice to have 3 or 4 hand positions. I can't find a homepage for Titec so I guess they went bust? Dunno. I have these bars and like them heaps for touring.
Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres because they're the best tyre ever.
That's pretty much it for now. I'm looking forward to going on a nice hike and then grinding across the Nullarbor. Not too much in the way of off-road riding but hopefully there will be some dirt at some point.
