Tijmen's Bikes and Related Projects

These are cracking! Great stuff.

Mood board.

I'm scheming on a long tour next year.

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I sometimes need to force myself to test my other bags, so the frame bag stays at home for a bit.

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I know a guy who does some nice cages that might fit your bike

I heard they're out of stock.

True

https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/397775/#comment17451078
:-)

Would they not overlap as the mounts are already lowered?

Well, the frame is made before I designed the cages. But it looks to me that the seat tube cage can be a tad lower and that the DT cage is a King drop cage. So mimy cage will definitely fit. We also had the prototypes mounted at Bespoked last year. So I know they fit 😂

Ah well yeah that will do it.

I still need to sell my pair. I was thinking the other morning there is no better looking steel side loading cage, and might even beat the mandible as best steel cage

The down tube has a King drop cage to compensate for it not being a side loader. I tried to design the frame to be "normal", i.e. not a bag maker's fever dream of a highly bag specific bike. I wanted it to be a platform as close as possible to what my customers ride (albeit a bit nicer :O).

Did a big steel vs carbon showdown in the Czech Republic. Not sure who won, we were just glad to reach the hotel after a cold and rainy day.

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Different pavement for different bikes?

Was it like this the whole ride?

No, we both got equally Komooted. Lots of soggy bushwhacking.

soggy bushwhacking

Mmmmm

Lots of soggy bushwhacking.

would you say you were both cruising?

It was bear country, so we were a bit careful.

Strong rec for riding in Bohemian Switzerland.

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‘You (carbon/ Lycra) vs the guy she told you not to worry about (good vibes steel and fun shirt)’

We're on some Romeo and Juliette thing, it is possible to ride together! Particularly because he was not only faster on the climbs but also a better bike handler on the descents.

Oh yes, the funny perfume bottle hilltop building!
Liberec is also quite nice.
Riding there is really nice.
We did Dresden-Liberec-Jelenia Gora-Görlitz once.
Did you ride Karkonosze Pass of TCR fame?

We started in Pirna, slept just short of Liberec, skirted around Liberec to pick up some brake pads at the Decathlon and then rode home via Jested and Děčín. So we didn't make it into Poland, I'll put it on the list though!

After June's tour, I had 2 customers in rapid succession ask for bags for the Great Divide. That triggered major "one day I'll do big tours like that" fantasising and shortly after I realised I'm self employed and I shouldn't stick to fantasising. However, Great Divide seems a fairly serious undertaking, and I haven't even seen that much of Europe, so I'll save that for my 40s.

Instead, I'm now pretty set on riding from Porto to Geneva from ±15.05 till 15.06 next year. Still a decent distance, covering lots of amazing biotopes (vague plan is Picos de Europa, cross the Pyrenees via Andorra, make it up through France via the Massif Central), and not quite as far away (read: expensive).

When winter comes around there will be plenty of rambling here about camping gear, clothing and most importantly the route (and mostest importantliest the bags). However, the main question for the feasibility is what I can cover per day, I'm currently counting on 100k and 2000m of climbing per day. That's a bit less than what I did on the last two days on my own in France (115km), and even less than what we did last weekend (125km). These last two days left me feeling pretty knackered, but all the riding happened between 10 and 18. On a long tour the riding window is closer to 8-20 with some packing discipline in the morning, which means lower average speed and longer breaks throughout the day.

I'm fairly optimistic, and worst comes to worst I can just do the last bit by train.

The route as it stands, although I'd probably want to see the coast near Biarritz or Bilbao:

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That triggered major "one day I'll do big tours like that" fantasising and shortly after I realised I'm self employed and I shouldn't stick to fantasising

very relatable content. Excited for related bag content!

One stop shop for dyneema carrying solutions. With some laser engraving action.

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