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Mountain bikes have been pressed into service as touring machines for a long time. Old hardtail mountain bikes make great, bristly touring machines, and they're fun to ride. Tires The first thing you'll want to look at are the tires. Most mountain bikes come with knobby tires for riding on dirt and gravel. A set of slicks or semi-slick tires will decrease ...

I would suggest not training or riding on the bike path at higher speeds. If it's allowable in your locality. Get back on the road with the cars! I believe it is safer, although data doesn't exist to support that claim (bike path crashes generally aren't reported). I've had 2 higher speed (25+mph) collisions with pedestrians (Dc Area), both caused by ...

For cycling across China you want a reliable bike that is unlikely to give you trouble, and which can be repaired with "local" resources if it does. Forget about "lighter" wheels -- you want reliable wheels, and a pound less weight (if that) from a lighter wheel will not make any difference. And I'd stay away from a geared hub, unless you can find one that ...

Sounds like you want to use your current V-Brakes, but if getting new brakes, TRP makes mini V-Brakes that are STI lever compatible, sometimes called a brifter (brakes and shifting in one lever). Most V-Brakes have a different pull ratio which is not compatible with brifters. The TRP CX9 is for Shimano STI levers The TRP CX8.4 is for SRAM and Campagnolo ...

There aren't many options out there for cranks shorter than 165mm. Your best bet is to buy a set of longer crankarms and get them shortened at a service like Bikesmith Design. Also, if you are legitimately having knee problems, I'd suggest that you find a professional fit service in your area and have a fitting done. The length of your cranks may not be the ...

The Surly Pacer is a good choice. My first real bike was a one, and I used it for commuting, training rides, and a two-week tour in Europe. Even though it wasn't "ideal" for training rides or touring, it worked great for me until I was able to afford more specialized bikes. The Pacer doesn't come with as many rack bosses as you'll want (one advantage of the ...

The inimitable late Sheldon Brown left us a great post on shifters and gearing and compatibility. The highlights for this kind of swap are: For the bike getting the bar end shifters: Likely no problem. If the rear shifter is indexed but the indexing doesn't match the gearing then you can usually switch to 'friction' mode. May be annoying if you are not ...

Tektro makes relatively inexpensive brake levers for drop handlebars. They have a RL-340 model which works with caliper and cantilever brakes, and a RL-520 model that works with V-brakes. I found this the hard way: I bought a Genesis single-speed cyclocross bike online, and it came equipped with mini V-brakes and the wrong levers. The biggest surprise was ...

Sheldon Brown has a page about adding a second set of handlebars above your first set. It looks terrible: Why not give that a shot? Sounds like it will fulfil your desires.

My main bike (a tandem) is a bit small, and I need to get a taller stem, but in the meantime, I'm using some bar ends similar to this: The ones I've got are bent a bit more, closer to 90 degrees. I've mounted them sticking straight up, which gives me a hand position pretty much parallel to my bars, but a few inches higher. The only picture I've got ...

Your question is very general but I can start the ball rolling by telling you about a short-distance tour I did over a couple of days last summer. Think is was about 350km in the end, on tarmac roads, over 2 1/2 days, staying in hotels overnight. Bike was a road bike, but was an audax bike rather than a racer. It had mudguards, a rack and I had SPD ...

Your hand does look rather cramped in those bars... There are a wide variety of bars available... You have "ergonomic" bars, bars with extra-deep drops... Fairly annoying to experiment, however. Replacing roadster bars is a bit of work; much more involved than say, MTB bars which can be swapped out in few minutes with modern components. Consider getting a ...

I suggest checking out the Space Horse. I have one and am very pleased with it. Most recent version comes with a compact 10 cassette, is a very smooth ride, and quite comfortable. I've taken it off road onto the gravel rails to trails we have around here and the next day loaded it up for a 15 mile commute to work. Solid as a tank. Comfortable. ...

It looks like you're treating it as four positions: tops, hoods, vertical part of drops, horizontal part of drops. Compared to my bike, your bars seem to be rotated forward, and the levers seem high up the bars. It strikes me that you might be able to try rotating your bars back and move the levers further forward. This would make the hood part of your bar ...

Commenting on the first picture: You will never be able to reach levers with that hand position on 'classical shaped' drop bars (they are just designed this way) You have a strange drops, upper curve of he bars is very short and does not allow to change the position of the brake levers, with your big hands you will always be uncomfortable riding those. I ...

I'm not sure of the exact size of your rims, as it doesn't appear that a 28.5 inch tire is mentioned anywhere in Sheldon Brown's rim sizing chart. However, there is mention of a 28 inch wheel which is used on "Indian Rod-brake roadsters". The actual measurement for this rim is 635 mm. 700c wheels have a 622mm BSD. This means that 700c road bike tires are ...

They are all compatible. Generally speaking, 9-speed Shimano mountain bike parts are compatible with one another without. If there's an exception to that rule, I've never seen it. One thing you might want to check is that your frame will be compatible with your top swing front derailleur. It's fairly likely that your touring frame is set up for bottom pull. ...

Unfortunately, Koga insists nowadays on using Shimano Hollowtech bottom brackets. Their quality is are notoriously bad, in comparison to most classic bottom brackets with a square taper. You needn't be worried that you damage the bottom bracket, it probably already is beyond repair. Many of those Hollowtech things are known to have failed within 10000 ...

Hard to say without knowing a bit more. The BB could use a cartridge or could use loose bearings. With loose bearings the situation you describe would generally only happen if one of the cups came loose, in which case the balls could slip out of their races, leaving you grinding metal-to-metal. With a cartridge, if the cups retaining the cartridge get ...

The trick with rim brakes is to get ones with replaceable blocks. In that way you can setup the brakes once so that they have perfect toe-in (small gap at back so they do not squeal) and so that they hit the rim dead-centre (not at an angle, falling off the bottom or hitting the tyre). Then, when the brakes get worn you can simply replace the inserts and not ...

On a very long tour such as this, the cyclist will want to be as self-sufficient as possible. Bike components and accessories are often a trade-off between weight and cost, but touring brings durability and ease of repair to the forefront. This kind of riding is often called loaded touring, and has the strong implication that the cyclist is carrying ...

While we were cycling down the pacific coast of the US, my girlfriend and I met a swiss couple who had been touring the world for 15 months. They didn't move very fast, but they had covered thousands of miles. Here is what I remember from their setup: Front and back racks with Ortlieb panniers (waterproofing is critical) Cyclometer (It's nice to know how ...

This will differ by locality, but in general the rule is that cyclists yield to pedestrians. This means that if you are involved in a collision with a pedestrian there will be a presumption that you were in some way at fault or negligent and will likely have to prove instead that the pedestrian was at fault before any claim for liability can be made.