Touring in France

The route

Three of my bike buddies, aged in the range 50 -70 years asked me in Dec last year if I would like to join them on a cycling trip to France for 15 days starting on the 28th of May 2011. They had based the idea on an organised CTC holiday that runs every year to France but has a limited numbers of participants. We decided to do our trip independently and based our plan on the route and travel arrangements used by the CTC. However we modified our trip to allow for our own stay schedule and daily mileages. One of our group is still working for a living and therefore the trip had to be contained within a 15 day period so that he could return home in time to resume his work. This meant we were not able to fit in a trip that included the full Calais to Montpellier distance. We sat down together for several pre-trip meetings to organise the mileage intervals, stop lengths and hotel booking arrangements. We reckoned that we could handle about a max of 100km per day with a min of 40 taking credit card, panniers and a front bike bag.

The hotels we are staying at are already booked by us and are of the bed and breakfast type. Some are small towny affairs and others are country farmhouse residences that offer patios for outside meals in good weather and the usual labrador dog to clap.  This is the schedule:

France 2011			Date		Dist km
Nemours			28th May		0
St Benoit sur Loire			29th May		71
Tavers			30th May		76
Limeray			31st May		44
Loches			2nd June		50
Celon near Argenton sur Creuse			3rd June		100
Plazanet			4th June		116
Mauriac			5th June		92
Sansac de Marmiesse			6th June		67
Estaing			7th June		81
Mayrueis			8th June		100
Arrigas			10th June		73
Ariane			11th June		70
St Jean De Vedas		Montpellier	12th June		66

The total distance will be 1006 km. Some of the terrain will be very hilly and I have yet to identify precisely where but I know it is going to include long tortuous road work in boiling heat. I hope!...typical Scotsman. At the outset of the plan one of the experienced tourists in the group asked me what bike I was going to take. I replied my usual general purpose racing bike, the one with the steel frame!... strength for the panniers you see!  "Well you'll need a bit of strength to push the gears you have on it" he replied. "Whadya mean" said I...."I have a road triple on it!"   "The gears on your road bike are far too high for touring in France" he said. "What you'll need is a chainwheel with less teeth than your biggest rear sprocket for this trip and that's no mistake".

I thought about this dilemma at great length and......................................(continued in Part 2)

The bike - gearing and other matters

NOTE
The following articles are based on Ian's own experiences as an amateur mechanic and readers are free to take from it what they will.  He is not a professional bike shop mechanic and neither he nor the Club can be held responsible for any information given here.

I thought about this dilemma at great length and realised that road bike architecture produces a restricted range of front chainring/ rear sprocket availability. Changing the gearing over to the lower ratios required for loaded touring is very challenging for all sorts of technical reasons.  I decided that if at the age of 67 I wanted to get in 'some good tours' of this type before I get any older I would need to invest in a proper touring bike to preserve my knees for future use.

To get the extremely low gears for loaded touring these days you have to think about mountain bike technology where front rings are smaller and rear sprockets are larger. Typically MTB chainrings would be 44/32/22T with cassette sprockets 11-34T. Then there is the shifting differences to consider, the amount of cable pull per click of an MTB shifter vs a road shifter and the differing shift ratios and tooth capacity of front and rear derailleur mechs of the two types.

After some research on this I discovered that a pure touring bike is a rare breed indeed. Most tourers nowadays are hybrids of road and mountain bike technology and the skill in building one is to find a way to successfully combine the different technical features without any illicit modifications. A look at the Dawes Galaxy specs yields some interesting combinations to overcome the problems of mountain bike parts fitted to a road type frame. The simpler answer is making sure your touring frame can cope with MTB type wheels, chainset and derailleur mechs rather than trying to mix road and MTB types. For example front mech cages are shorter on an MTB to fit the circumference of the smaller outer ring, otherwise you will get problems shifting up to it. Also the rear axle is wider on an MTB wheel so the frame's rear fork needs to be built or cold set to match this width, usually 135mm, a standard road frame these days has an O.L.D. (over locknut dimension) of 130mm. Then there are makers compatibility issues to consider and those of road STI indexed shifters used with MTB mechs. One way I learned to simplify things here is to use bar end shifters which have an indexing-off switch on the front mech control lever. Threy are also easier to fix when away from bike shops. There is a gaggle of complexity to deal with that with considerable effort could be successfully won over but I reckoned there must be a simpler way to approach the build than to take on every obstacle head on.

Rather than go and buy a tourer complete from the bike shop I thought that I would take on the technical challenges, if possible build one intelligently with minimum effort after due consideration and learn something about touring machines on the way, just in case of breakdown in foreign parts. I then investigated a 'Bob Jackson World tour' frame, from 'off the peg' as it has everything on it you would need. Mudguard, carrier, cantilever bosses, brake bridges and option of 135mm spaced rear forks for MTB wheels and a delivery in time for my trip. Using an off-the-peg design with the essential rear fork modification described enabled the use of an MTB drivetrain, preserving the chainline for MTB and thus achieving some degree of ultra-low gearing and at the same time the infrequently used high gears to give a wide selection from 17 to 108 inches.

Thus began a build project beginning with, I hope, a sensible choice of parts, economical sourcing and cost budgeting. The theme was to buy not the lightest and most expensive but what is needed from an appropriate standpoint. Thus ultra-light parts were out and components chosen for a rugged quality and functional standpoint were the priority for the build. I decided on Shimano Deore for the drivetrain and hubs, 700c Mavic A719 touring rims with butted SS spokes, 32mm Continental Touring Plus tyres and Tektro Oryx cantilever brakes. The saddle needed to be comfortable so I bought a Sportourer Gel Flow model which afforded a little more bum width than I am using. The stem ,bars and seatpost all FSA manufacture and the headset an FSA Orbit X to fit the one inch dia A-head threadless steerer on the frame. To facilitate assembly I had to buy a Park BBT-9 spanner for the BB assembly and a star nut punch for the headset.

For those who are excited by the sight of naked bikes some photographs of the build follow. For more details refer to the text.

Ian and I were great fans of the late Sheldon Brown, cycling guru and eccentric; whose website is posthumously maintained as a service to his many followers.
Hence the reference below.  Jim R.

Now just to prove that the spirit of 'Sheldon' is still with me I tackled a wee problem that has been bugging me for a while. This was concerning how to use a front bike lamp with a bar bag on your bike. It stands to reason that a bar bag will obscure a bar mounted light. Now in the past when we had our 'Scot' frames built some of us had a boss brazed on to the fork to accept a lamp bracket and sometimes Rattray's supplied one sprayed the same colour as the frame attached to the boss. All painted at once. Nowadays you'd be hard pushed to get something like this and these old fork lamp brackets and bosses are all but extinct. What you get now is a LED lamp with programmable modes of operation, flash rate, constant, etc. mounted on a bar clamp by means of either a plastic belt or a finger screw.

To overcome the bar bag problem you must look at various adapters (mainly found in the USA). In the UK these brackets are very difficult if not impossible to source. You can get a bracket that sticks up over the bar bag, mounted on the headset and clamping under the A-head cap. You can also get a very neat solution by Paul Components USA called the 'Gino' which is a little drum shaped cup that bolts on to a touring bike front pannier boss. Your lamp handlebar clamp fits this adapter very well and lets you mount your front light on the front fork similar to the old traditional method. The 'Gino' costs 19 dollars but is not available, as far as I know, in the UK. The source I checked out was Sheldon's place of work, 'Harris Cyclery', and they had a minimum order cost for international shipping of 50 dollars. So you would need to buy 3 plus postage to ship to the UK. 

Okay, so we have baulked at our import sourcing method, so we are left looking at a very simple device that could, with a bit of lateral thinking be contrived from something lying unused in the garage tool box. Scratching my head over this I stumbled upon a drawer with plumbing and garden hose parts and picked out a plastic hose union. Now the bar bracket supplied with my 'Raleigh' light is made to fit on 31.8mm oversize bars with rubber shims to reduce it for standard diameter bars. The hose union was 1 inch dia (25.4mm) so packing with the rubber shim supplied with the lamp bracket, the assembly fitted neatly on to the threaded union and the threads pressed into the rubber shim holding it very tight. See pictures. This proved to be a promising solution which emulates the Gino perfectly at no cost. I think plastic hose unions are fairly cheap items these days.

 

To be continued....

I did an interesting wee experiment in connection with the chainstay angle of my frame. I observed that the plate on the back of the front derailleur cage had an engraving on it. It said 'FD-M591 chainstay angle 66-69 degrees'. Following this I learned that there are two versions of Shimano's FD-M591 front mech, one for 63-66 degrees and the other for 66-69 degrees. I wasn't aware of this until now. This choice seems to be very badly advertised and I was quite miffed at not realising this variation of mech design sooner to check which version I should buy. Anyway I did a check on my frame by taking a picture 'flat-on' so that the hollow space through the BB spindle was visible and took a photograph. I printed this picture out on paper and measured the chainstay angle with a protractor I found in my desk. It works out to be exactly 66 degrees. This means either version of the derailleur would do, so there is nothing for me to be concerned about. I was aware that it was OK anyway because I had tried it out with a manual trial using my finger and thumb to move the cage across the chainwheels against the spring to determine any possible obstructions.

The whole point of mentioning this subject to readers is 'caution'  Please be aware that in some cases the bottom part of the cage of an MTB mech could hit the chainstay on your touring or road frame as it moves in toward the 'granny' position. These mechs have to be lower set to enable the slope of the chain to miss the bottom of the cage when the 'granny' or inner ring is selected. MTB frames generally have a lower slope on the chainstay to accommodate this. Always determine first the chainstay angle, then get the correct mech to suit it.

Sometimes with touring bikes bought from a shop the front mech is a 'road type' to get over this problem but the MTB type rings are larger, usually 48/36/26T to let the combination work smoothly.

Here is a further picture to show how important 'chainstay angle' is. You can see on the frame that 66 degrees just makes it in terms of clearance. The picture shows the front mech cage in the inner ring position and the clearance is about 3mm or 1/8"  This angle comes into either category for the two available Shimano FD-M591 front mech specs.

From what I can see out in the web forums no-one has examined this subject in such detail as to answer queries clearly and definitively.

 

Headset Fitting

The headset supplied with my Bob Jackson frame, on request, was an FSA Orbit X designed for a 1" diameter steel column. BJ fitted this for me FOC to save me pressing the cups into the frame. All that was necessary was to fit the compression split ring to the upper bearing and fit the sealing ring on top. The fork came with about five inches of surplus length on the steerer tube and this requires to be trimmed away.

The next stage was to measure the bar height required. I used my other bike as a reference and measured from the front wheel spindle to the top cap of the steerer. I decided to modify my position to suit touring which normally has the bars level with the saddle. What I did was to add some additional height to the reference measurement by a combination of raising the column and swapping the stem round to get an additional rise. Between these two modifications I obtained a level saddle- to- bar position. Once this was established I added a number of 10mm spacers along with the stem to achieve this new height and marked a line on the column with a pencil. I then disassembled the forks and measured in a direction toward the crown from my 'height' line so that the tube would be cut 3mm shorter. This was to ensure a space existed below the top of the steerer. See photo 'compression gap'. Most stems are oversize usually for 1-1/8" steerers so a shim is required in this instance to take up the slack. (See shim for 1" steerer). Part of the column height allows for the inclusion of a drop hanger for cantilever brakes. In the UK it is difficult to source a front drop hanger with a cable adjuster built-in. Most bikes that use cantilevers are mountain bikes that have adjusters on the brake levers so the hangers have no need of a cable adjuster. With the 'rare breed' of a touring bike we normally use road levers which do not have cable adjusters, so most tourers go without, meaning that spanners become necessary for a cable adjustment on the front brake. Rear cable adjusters are found on the frame centrepull bridge so no issue there. I managed to source a Tektro part number 1274AT which is a front hanger version with a cable adjuster built in but only available in the US. I managed to source the item from Jenson Cycles of Riverside California and they shipped it by FedEx to me for 18 quid in total. Three times the cost of the UK's adjusterless version. However it's what is required to make a bike 'whole' sometimes. (See pictures Jenson and Tektro)

Once I had received all the parts I assembled the column once again and checked the height. Always 'measure twice and cut once' is what I heard so be warned! I then disassembled and put the column on my workbench with a tube cutter (see photo Cutting a steerer tube). The tube holder tool ensures you get a right angled cut. I used a 24 tpi hacksaw blade for this steerer. I had some experience with cutting carbon steerer a while ago and I used a 36 tpi for that particular job. I also wore a mask and goggles as carbon dust is not good for your lungs. With this steel job  I used only the goggles in case of slivers flying. To finish I smoothed off the tube edge circumference with a file and completed using fine emery paper.

The headset also came with a device called a 'star nut' often referred to as a 'star fangled nut'. This is often used with 'steel' steering columns and comprises of a circle of spring steel 'leaves' that jam inside the tube when pressed in with a fitting tool ( Park TNS-1 ) to the required depth. The depth is automatically set by the tool. The top cap bolt threads into the centre of the star nut and pulls the fork and column upwards through the small compression gap as you tighten it. This is called 'pre-load'. The nut is adjusted until the steering column turns free without play. After that you simply tighten the stem clamp bolts to the required torque. Once the stem has been secured the pre-loading becomes redundant. The star nut is meant to be non-removable so a fitting tool is necessary to ensure accurate depth and orientation.

Here is a picture of the assembled column (see photo Assembled steerer). It is necessary to leave a spacer on top to retain the 1" top cap as the stem clamp is too wide at 1-1/8"

"I was out with the group (CTC) today meeting up at Lanark. We cycled out to Biggar and back to Lanark then I cycled home. Total mileage 74.5 
However because I have been busy indoors building the bike and on the net looking for parts as far as California ( brake drop hanger with barrel adjuster. Can't get one with a barrel adjuster in the UK). I had been neglecting training and ended up hammered today but still alive. 

I got a call when I got home to say that one of the guys, John age 71 going with us to France had been hit by a car from behind on his way to Lanark today. I wondered why he wasn't there. The upshot is that he has a multiple ankle fracture and will be out of our trip as he will be six weeks in plaster. The police and paramedics attended and he has a couple of witnesses. This took place on the hill at Kirkfieldbank while he was climbing up it. Apparently the elderly driver didn't move out to the right to overtake reportedly saying that other cars were coming downhill.

We are looking for a replacement for our trip now and have contacted a retired from work club member who had previously expressed an interest. We are waiting for a reply. Otherwise it'll cost us more at the hotels."

Front Mech

Here is some stuff on gears. My last section covered the frame angles particularly the chainstay angle with the seatube. I explained that there were two MTB front mechs available from Shimano that covered 63-66 and 66-69 degree frame builds. My BJ frame fell exactly into a 66 degree build which meant either gear type would do. The usual stock one is the 66-69 which was what I ended up with. Anyway as the pictures showed the gear cage of the front mech just made it for clearance, otherwise it would have fouled against the chainstay on the smallest ring. In some cases touring bikes have been commercially built with a road front mech to get over the problem where the frame didn't fit with MTB front mechs available at the time. Example: I think a Shimano Tiagra front mech was used with the Dawes Galaxy Tourer but the penalty was that it needed a bigger outer ring to make it work. So in these cases a triple MTB set-up of 48/36/24T was used instead.

Rear Mech

One of the things racers don't like is a rear mech with a very long cage. Besides looking decidedly 'non-racing' they don't change as fast as a normal length cage mech. On a road bike if you want to use a triple setup you can get away with a medium cage mech which looks a bit more acceptable. However if you need ultra low gears for mountainous places like France and you are touring then you have to swallow your vanity and fit a long cage rear mech. Otherwise you won't have enough chain to get round that big 34T cog on the rear and you couldn't take up the slack on a 22T front granny. So there it is, you can see this on my picture of the bike when adjusting the indexing. Now here's a word about what to use for indexing levers. You can't use road indexers with MTB gear trains because of the differing cable pulls and shift ratios of the MTB mechs both front and rear. MTB mechs need MTB shifters, not 'road' and neither the twain shall work. Using standard road type brake levers (Shimano R400) with separate bar end shifters solves the problem. As far as I can determine Shimano only make one type of bar end shifter now, the Dura Ace SL-BS77 and this 9s version works well with the chosen Deore M591 MTB gear mechs. The front shifter is 'friction only' so no issues arise with it. The rear shifter is both friction and index (it has switch) and this means that any emergency on-the-road misalignment and or 'clatter' can be switched out until you get time to re-calibrate the indexing system in the comfort of back at home. I set the drivetrain up on a workstand in accordance with Shimano's instructions and the rear indexing worked perfectly. This MTB Deore setup allows the chainline to be as Shimano intended at 50mm provided you can fit wheels with MTB 135mm O.L.D. (over locknut dimension) hubs. Keeping within the Deore groupset makes this easy to achieve.

A note from Ian on progress so far:

"I have been out on the Bob Jackson tourer a couple of times for short runs of 20 miles or so inbetween showers. This is a completely different animal to what I am used to. It feels solid and rattle-free but much slower. I wouldn't like to sprint with it but then that is not what its designed to do. I think it is more the 32mm touring tyres that produce this 'treacle' effect as they are silent and soft running due to a lot of tread and rubber. Having said that it feels very secure on cornering and the cantilever brakes are awesome. You need to exercise a bit of care with them as they are 'fierce' to say the least. This is a bike built for steady riding all day and where hills are concerned there is a huge number of easy gears to make it gentle on the knees. It has to be ridden differently and I'll have the hang of it eventually".

A note on the use of the Shimano road 9 speed front bar end shifters Dura Ace SL-BS77 with an MTB gear train. Folk might wonder why these levers should work with MTB front and rear mechs when Shimano road shifters won't index with them.  The answer is that officially they don't. A warning on the SL-B77 packaging says that these levers can only be used with Dura Ace road mechs and nothing else. Why do they work then with MTB stuff? Well a fluke really! They work by reason of historical circumstances and MTB mech development.  Remember that racers used Dura Ace bar end shifters for road use some considerable time ago and these levers have been kept in production to satisfy demand. A demand that comes today from a different source to use with today's MTB equipment. Shimano haven't bothered to change the tech notes on the box. They just work that's all. Because the front shifter is friction only it helps the situation. The MTB rear mech is the only part that needs to comply with the lever indexing and it does it very well.

Shift ratio

This refers to the ratio of the amount of cable pull per click of the shifter to the cage distance moved at right angles to the axis of the sprockets or rings. The amount of cage movement in response to the cable pull distance is determined by the geometry of the mech's parallelogram and is relevant to both front and rear gear designs. Each click has to pull enough cable to cause the mech movement to match the sprocket pitch (rear) or the ring pitch (front) hence the issue of compatibility with shifters and mechs.

Brakes

I decided on Tektro cantilever brakes because they seem to be the most popular choice on touring bikes. However there are many to choose from out there nothwithstanding Shimano's offerings. Tektro is a US company but apart from the drop hanger with cable adjuster built in, I spoke about previously, every other spare seems to be available here in the UK. These brakes require bosses to be brazed on your frame so they are limited to frames having this facility. The advantage is that the leverage is greater due to the centrepull design and the brake shoes are longer giving more contact area with the rim. All this to ensure you can stop quickly with luggage. I have heard that these brakes suffer from 'squeal' and the way to minimise or eradicate this annoyance is to adjust the pads to 'toe-in'. This means setting the pad angle so that the front of the pad makes contact with the rim first on application. Then the remainder touches on greater pressure. This is explained in the setup instructions and is not difficult.

I chose to use 'Kool Stop' pads in place of the original brake blocks supplied. These alternative pads are coloured salmon pink and dark grey and are supposed to be more efficient. The pads slide on the shoes and are secured with a pin.

Another feature of Bob Jackson's frame can be seen in the picture. The mudguards I fitted were 42mm wide SKS black and you can see that they fasten to the frame under the 'pseudo' brake bridge. I say 'pseudo' because it is no longer a brake bridge on this frame as the brake bolt drilling doesn't exist. The guard fastener boss is underneath the bridge. This eliminates the guard securing clip that used to fatigue often and leave your mudguard wobbling about.

Taping bars

With bar end shifters the usual method of running cables is to exit the cable just at the lower hook before the bend. I tried this but hated my fingers touching the cable housings. I also hated washing lines coming out as well. I read a blog about this on-line and the writer described how he managed to route the cables all the way from the shifters up the bars and down to the respective gear mechs pointing out that the additional cable friction wasn't an issue. I thought I would try this more usual method common with racing bikes. After measuring out the housings to allow the the bars to turn in both directions I cut the lengths of gear and brake cable housings to size. Everything looked great until I realised that after fitting the the inner rear gear cable it was too short to allow a proper wide loop of housing at the rear mech. You need to observe the correct dressing of gear and brake housings to avoid tight bends or too much slack. The Park Tool website assists with this by showing you the correct lengths to use. The inner gear cable issue was solved by using a tandem cable. I then secured all the cable housings together onto the bars with electrical tape and finished off with a cork ribbon. I remembered to tape from the inside of the bar ends. See the Park Tool website to avoid confusion on this issue.

I chose a Tubus Cargo carrier which is made from molybdenum steel. I read an article about the necessity for a strong carrier and that structural failure could end a holiday so I did not need further convincing. This carrier is very expensive at 75 quid or so at best price but I reckon its worth it. Here it is with a 'Busch and Muller' rear LED 'Toplight' carrier lamp fitted. Like the carrier this rear light is German made and expensive but I read that it was waterproof and reliable. This model is static and does not flash which is something to do with German lighting laws. I chose to include an additional flashing rear light but as you often get from the UK it's not secure enough to have on your bike permanently as the plastic seatpost clip looks as though it might wear and come loose eventually.

At Last!

Here it is, the Bob Jackson Tourer finally assembled. I took it out for a short run of 15 miles from Chapelton, Glassford and round the village of Quarter on a nice dry day, on two separate occasions to see that everything was holding together and working properly. I was pleasantly surprised to hear no rattles at all thanks to the quality stainless steel fasteners used. The cantilever brakes worked perfectly although a little fierce at first until you get the feel of them. On the down side a touring bike like this is a different animal. It's not for sprinting away. The 32mm tyres although secure and comfortable to ride, corner well but are sluggish. and The stronger built wheels are devoid of that sense of liveliness that you get on your racer. The raised bar height is very comfortable and the compact bar design I used from FSA provides a comfortable reach for the shifters. The sportourer GEL saddle I used is wider that usual but too much. It has a hole in the seat for 'man preservation' and is very comfortable. Having lots of lower gears means you can pedal up any hill or tackle a headwind relentlessly. Just don't think you'll go fast!  Horses for courses. However when you see your Ortlieb panniers filled to capacity you begin to understand why the bike is built the way it is. It's going to be a lot heavier no matter what components you build it with. It needs to be strong, reliable and comfortable and when you use it you 'tour' which means taking your time to enjoy your surroundings, taking some photographs and engage with the locals.

That's it folks!

Ian leaves to-night (27 May) for France.  He is carrying a small recorder with a memory stick with him and.of course, his camera. Watch this space for his thoughts on his adventures.