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hippy
My glittery Straggler has served me well commuting and touring over the last 7 years and will be my bike for this trip too. During the first lockdown I made some changes to make it more ‘world tour’ appropriate and inadvertently ended up changing almost everything but the frame.
Went from drops to loop bars with microshift thumbies and Avid speed dial levers and bb7’s.
New SON 28 dynamo wheel and a matching Hope rear. Got a great deal on old style Hope Tech Enduro rims and had everything built up by Arkane Wheelworks. 40mm Marathon Mondial tyres just about fit under my old mudguards and will hopefully provide enough cushioning.
Swapped the CX drivechain to GRX 2x10 to lower the gearing but annoyingly the cranks don’t use standard bcd spacing (which I didn’t realise at the time). I had hoped to have an option of installing a smaller inner ring if needed but that’s not going to be an option. Currently have 30/36 as the lowest gear but could maybe bump the cassette up to a 40 if I need lower gearing.
Luggage will be Ortlieb Sport Rollers (the smaller ones) front and back, a homemade Fabio’s Chest style saddle bag and basket bag.
My partner’s bike is a Soma Saga (basically Disc Trucker geometry but with a proper sized heat tube) built up with matching components to my Straggler. 26” wheels with 2” Mondial for her, I’m definitely a bit jealous of the extra tute width on her bike.
Her luggage will be Ortlieb Sport Rollers up front and Back Rollers on the rear with a smallBigXTop bar bag and Wizard Works stem pouch.
Photos are off our first longer tour (2 weeks) in Japan in 2016 with my Straggler in it’s drop bar config and then the Outer Hebrides last summer in both bikes’ final forms.