My wife and I rode the Washington and Oregon Sierra Cascades Route a few years ago. It rained a couple of times. We could have easily avoided riding in the rain by cowering in a restaurant or by staying in camp. Every year is different in the mountains. There are climatic standards, but year to year it could be wet or dry. Whether you use fenders or not ultimately depends on how much you care to tolerate picking little bits of gravel out of your hair.
Could I offer some unsolicited advice? If not STOP READING HERE. : ) I can't imagine touring on 55 BB's. To each his own. I much prefer 50 Schwalbe Marathon Supremes; They're much lighter than BB's and they work just fine for the Sierra Cascades Route - even on the optional dirt sections. Also, if you're riding a Riv with 700c's you might find as I did that larger tires don't fit well in public trans bike racks or in Amtrak boxes. On some tours, we've made use of public trans buses that run between coast towns and in larger cities. We've found this approach to work great when we'd prefer not to ride in traffic or when one of us is ill or injured and we'd still like to make some miles. I once spent a bus ride really sketched out with my Bombadil precariously bungeed to the front of a coastal bus. Traveling is so easy with the Amtrak boxes that require minimal disassembly that we've used that mode of travel many times. I've since switched to a 26r Long Haul Trucker so that I can run big tires and have a slightly more compact bike for public transport. Using public transportation might not be in your plan, but it's a nice option that is facilitated by smaller diameter tires. FYI, my Atlantis fit just fine in racks and boxes with 37 and 40 mm tires. If you haven't already considered it, don't bother packing a full sized spare for the big tires you are running; it takes up space unnecessarily for Stateside touring. In thousands of miles of touring in the US, I've only destroyed a couple of tires unexpectedly. Every other tire problem gave me plenty of notice. However, large, 700c Schwalbes are far from common in LBS's. So, do buy a full-sized spare (I've found that Schwalbe is often out of stock on some tires.) Leave it at home packaged and ready to go with someone reliable. In these days of 2 day and overnight shipping, you can easily have a tire sent to a bike shop or PO. When I was touring on 700 c's y wife and I packed just one spare between us - a 32 or 35 mm Pasela to fit her Heron and my Riv. We never needed to use it in a total of 6 to 8 months of touring. If I had damaged a tire, I simply would of run the small tire on the front and the large tire on the rear until I could get a replacement. Dave -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
