Lighweight Touring Bike

Hello everyone,

for a while I've been dreaming about touring down the US pacific coast.
To realize this plan I decided to take a frame building course and build the frame with assistance from a local framebuilder.

I want to travel as light as possible, while camping most of the time and taking a room every other day. The list of clothes and equipment should be as short as possible.

I will use two racks on my bike. The front lowrider rack will have two panniers that will store most of the equipment. On the rear will be tent and sleeping bag + a small backup pannier for supplies.
Handlebar bag will store camera, phone, etc and a saddle bag for tools and spares. Maybe I'll add a frame bag, but I have to test the setup and find out if I need it.
The frame has already been designed: http://www.bikecad.ca/1390842862316

The setup will have a compact crankset + 12-36t cassette.
I'm thinking Sram Force crankset/shifters/front derailleur + X9 long rear derailleur. I will also use mechanical disc brakes (BB7).
... no decision for the remaining parts yet.

I'm also considering S&S Couplers, but not sure yet if the benefits outweigh the costs. Any opinions?

The frame building will start in 3 weeks so there won't be much progress here until then.

who is building the frame?

Me ;)

... under the supervision of www.totembikes.com/

very cool; do enjoy. Done a framebuilding course before or first time with blowtorch in hand?

did a course before but didn't do any brazing.
the frame builder preferred to do it himself ... has been building frames over 40 years and was a bit stubborn.
it was more of history lesson with many interesting anecdotes, but I was ok with that.

When are you going on your trip? I too am riding the coast, well only SF to LA... Which I appreciate isn't the best that the coast can offer

maybe in June ... if I get the bike ready in time and am done with my bachelor thesis by then.
alternatively in autumn or next year.
going next year would be ideal, as I can save some money for parts and equipment.

Sub'd! I can't see me copying the frame building bit but I've also got Pacific Coast dreams, with a trip planned from my brother's in Vancour down to SF. Probably 2015 though. Inspire me. :-)

ok ... started building today ... got quite far.
fork almost done and all tubes prepared for brazing.

tuuuubes

dropouts

tube mitering

... in action

bending seat stays

forks in jig

so hot >_>

???

So you went for the coupler?

Very cool project.

Out of curiousity if you were after a light-weight tourer did you ever consider a CAAD10? ;)

This will be awesome, I'd love to do a trip like yours, the SS couplers should mean you could fit the bike in your tent (rain, opportunistic thieves)

got a lot farther with the frame today.
almost done ... only a few more details to do tomorrow.

first brazing trys

monster jig

frame gets aligned

not much left to do

Looking very good.

What are your plans for the forks?

no plans ... they are already done ... picture 6 in the other post

nice pics

and done:

(well except filing and cleaning the fillets)

Nice work and a great plan, sounds epic!

noice, I really like the fork!

Nice. You putting routing stuff on there for dynamo cables? Dynamos are your friend.

not sure yet about the cable routing.
using lowrider rack in front (maybe tubus tara) and will run the cable on it, with the light mounted on the front end.
for the rear light I'll probably just use a battery light. dynamo cable would be annoying when taking the couplers apart.

I highly recommended dynamo, there are some great one about, like one with a switch mounted on the handlebar with a USB port for charging phone, Garmin and the like.

You can have small cable guide on the inside of the fork to keep it tidy.

It looking excellent, BB look surprisingly high.

oh yeah ... definitely going for a dynamo with front light.

Would like the option of having an usb port as well. I have to see what options are out there. I quite like the 'plug' for the steerer tube.
Adding cable guides as soon as I know what I'll use is no problem fortunately.

Here you go.

Cheaper from Rosebikes.

thanks.
the setup with the handlebar switch seems a lot more practical than the Plug.
I can easily take it off for shorter rides, when I don't need the switch/usb.

My review's slightly out of date - there's a new version (same name etc), with the only difference being the USB cable is now permanently wired into the main light unit, rather than via a plug.

This rather knackers it for recumbents (the wire won't reach the handlebars and you can't add an extension any more), but probably improves life for uprights as the water ingress issue some people experienced will go away.

Very good light, but it is big...