What he said..
On Nov 24, 2011, at 1:23 PM, David Faller wrote:
>> . I purchased a Rivendell as it handles front loads, rear loads, front and
>> rear loads and doesn't need a load to feel great.. I check the tires once
>> a week.. and carry what I need as an all around bicycle... I change
I like bikes that ride differently. I like my front loader, I like my Saluki, I
love my Riv custom.
Not one of them rides like the other. All of then are fun. Shoot, I even like
my Madone though
I haven't ridden it in more than a year.
For me it's a gestalt thing (to steal an R.Sach's perspective
Thanks, Kelly, for saying what many of us are probably thinking!
Every hobby has a joyous geekery about it, and every hobby shared with
like-mined enthusiasts always gets explored to its extremes. I think
that's normal and, to some degree, part of the fun; but the fun bleeds
right out of it w
It really isn't low trail against every other trail. Yet you couldn't tell
that from this thread. Down the line there are nothing but excuses and defiance
of the experience of others.
Many say their bikes ride great with medium to high trail and have no issues
with front loads... Oh that's
Large and heavily loaded saddlebags do wag but not horribly so; and, at
least on the right bikes, rear panniers affect handling very little even
with rather heavy loads: I was amazed, at least on one of my Rivs, the
first one, at how well I could corner (eg, tight S bends across narrow
wooden bridg
I have a Carradice but haven't used it much yet. My usual saddle bags are
3-liter or so wedges, that are tightly coupled to the saddle.
On Thu, Nov 24, 2011 at 10:43 AM, Jan Heine wrote:
> On Nov 24, 4:17 am, Ken Freeman wrote:
> > My experience with seat bags is that they essentially do not a
On Nov 24, 4:17 am, Ken Freeman wrote:
> My experience with seat bags is that they essentially do not affect
> handling in any way I can detect.
Except when you rise out of the saddle. Then, the load is unsupported,
and tends to be the tail wagging the bike. But that applies to all
rear loads, in
On Nov 23, 10:47 am, William wrote:
> >Imagine trying to carry a heavy backpack. You lean forward. When you
> >remove the backpack, while still leaning forward, you fall over. On
> >the other hand, when you add a backpack and don't lean forward, you
> >also fall over. So does the backpack help or
My experience with seat bags is that they essentially do not affect
handling in any way I can detect. Rear rack trunks OTOH cause problems
nearly no matter what.
On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 7:11 PM, jimD wrote:
> I'll echo Patrick's observation.
> My Riv custom is my most favorite handling bike of
I'll echo Patrick's observation.
My Riv custom is my most favorite handling bike of all time.
I have a Tournesol that's a front loader and fun to ride but takes more
concentration than the Riv.
That having been said, once I ride either bike for several days in a row I get
totally accommodated
to
>Imagine trying to carry a heavy backpack. You lean forward. When you
>remove the backpack, while still leaning forward, you fall over. On
>the other hand, when you add a backpack and don't lean forward, you
>also fall over. So does the backpack help or hurt your balance? It's
>neither, the backpac
I remember putting a Nitto Boxy Bag with bar-clamp rack on a "12 speed"
Fuji Royale and sticking, what, certainly no more than 10 lb in it, and
trying to ride along a narrow road with fastish traffic and no shoulder in
a gusty crosswind. White knuckles! That experience made me sell the Boxy
Bag! De
This was my experience exactly on the Sam Hillborne, both with all the
weight (no more than 35 lb in my case) in the back and even worse when some
of that weight was in the front in a bar bag (Ostrich, firmly attached by
decaleur to stem and front rack). Front low riders did slow the flop a bit
but
On Nov 22, 12:46 pm, William wrote:
> My question is: Does adding a front load to a low trail bike improve that
> bike's handling? Or does it just change it *less negatively* than it does
> a high trail bike?
My new 650B bike handles better with a handlebar bag than without.
Basically, it hand
Same experience here. This was with my Brompton that (I believe) has
an approximately 24mm trail. Without any load (front or back), on the
first ride, it was squirrelly to the point where I had to
conscientiously ride it. However, after a week, it was no big deal.
Certainly, it handled different
Rode w/ 11lbs of bird seed in the front basket of my Atlantis last
Sunday, through the snow for that matter. No problem. I believe the
convenience and practicality of having a basket/bag up front
(especially during a brevet) far out weighs any nominal changes in
handling.
My advice is just to make
On Tue, 2011-11-22 at 12:46 -0800, William wrote:
> I imagine I could go through the various forums to look for the
> answer, but I'll ask anyway. Jan and others have said:
>
>
> 1. a high trail bike can ride very well without a front load
> 2. adding a front load to ANY bike changes the handl
I imagine I could go through the various forums to look for the answer, but
I'll ask anyway. Jan and others have said:
1. a high trail bike can ride very well without a front load
2. adding a front load to ANY bike changes the handling
3. adding a front load to a high trail bike changes the h
On Tue, 2011-11-22 at 11:17 -0800, Rick wrote:
> > You should really spend some time and go through the group archives here and
> > on iBob. There are strong opinions on trail and front bags and front end
> > geometry. The whole topic of front end loading and fork trail can cause very
> > strong o
> You should really spend some time and go through the group archives here and
> on iBob. There are strong opinions on trail and front bags and front end
> geometry. The whole topic of front end loading and fork trail can cause very
> strong opinions among some folks. The best thing to do might b
I just did my first tour this past summer on a 56 Atlantis. The
Atlantis was terrific except for climbing at very low speeds. I was
carrying a lot of weight, about 65 lbs., and some of it was on the
front. I had a riv high rider nitto rack with two loaded panniers and
my wife's sleeping pad ridi
I rode a bike with 57 mm trail and a handlebar bag for years, and tens
of thousands of happy miles. Never thought that there was anything
wrong with it.
Then I rode a few low-trail bikes (also with handlebar bags), and I
found that they were significantly better even with a lightly loaded
bag. The
Kelly, I don't think you should suggest the pro-low-trail story is just
rhetoric, much less outright say so. Just as your experience with front
loads, which nobody is belittling and hence is here respected, my
experience is in favor of reduced trail with front loads. I don't say it
because of any
I've never experienced any problems with front loading a moderate to
high trail bicycle. I've used handlebar bags for about the last 35
years on bikes that have these geometries. I'm sorry, but the low-
trail mantra just isn't supported by my own personal experience.
Jim Cloud
Tucson, AZ
On Nov
Shifty:
Hope you got enough info on your bag question to help you sort it
out. Trail discussions tend to get somewhat, eh, lively. But take
heart: it's only geometry, not a religious experience.
dougP
On Nov 21, 4:30 pm, Kelly Sleeper wrote:
> >It's not only harsh, it's a grotesque distortion
>It's not only harsh, it's a grotesque distortion and exaggeration of
>what has been said. Go ahead and slay the straw man if you like, but
>don't forget it's a straw man and has little to no relationship to
>what's actually been said.
Steve ... actually the sentence below actually stated it was
Thanks for the comparison, Mojo! For those wanting to try the same
thing on a budget, note that the Cross Check fork is about 1cm longer
A-to-C than the LHT fork, which should make it just about "Frame
Neutral" after having a builder re-rake it for the LHT. The recent CC
forks have the lowrider b
On Mon, 2011-11-21 at 08:47 -0600, Tim McNamara wrote:
> Glad this worked out for you, and it's nice to have a situation for
> comparison where there is one primary variable different.
>
> But you mention something that I have read elsewhere, which is that "high
> trail" bikes (around 60 mm) can
On Mon, 2011-11-21 at 07:52 -0800, Kelly Sleeper wrote:
> Aside from the hundreds / thousands of bikes that must all be handling
> terrible and the people riding them are just to dumb to realize it (as low
> trail propaganda would suggest) or maybe it's not that big of a deal.
>
> I know th
Tim,
I actually didn't say the high trail bike 'can't change direction in mid
turn.' The term I have often heard about high trails bikes is it corners
'as if it is on rails.' I put that in quotes because it is oft used and I
mostly agree with the description. That doesn't mean a high trail bik
Aside from the hundreds / thousands of bikes that must all be handling terrible
and the people riding them are just to dumb to realize it (as low trail
propaganda would suggest) or maybe it's not that big of a deal.
I know the above is harsh. And not all of the harsh is from this thread an
Glad this worked out for you, and it's nice to have a situation for comparison
where there is one primary variable different.
But you mention something that I have read elsewhere, which is that "high
trail" bikes (around 60 mm) can't change direction in mid turn. This is not my
experience; ind
I have held off this topic, but perhaps I have a some experience to share.
I bought a Tom Matchak fork to fit my utility vehicle, a Surly Long Haul
Trucker.
http://tommatchakcycles.blogspot.com/2007/03/frame-neutral-replacement-fork.html
I did this because this bike is my tourer and grocery haul
I've ridden a Rambouillet with about 10 pounds in a handlebar bag
mounted directly on the handlebars, "high up," for thousands of miles.
I've also ridden a low-trail bike with about 10 pounds in a handlebar
bag mounted on a front rack "low down" directly over the front fender
for thousands of mile
Enjoy experimenting. This is a good group to discuss it with, because we
like this stuff. For a serious analysis look to Bicycle Quarterly. But
your experience must be your own. I am very pleased at how my Quickbeam
handles front loads, compared to a 1997 Cannondale F-1000 mountain bike
converted
and before anyone mentions it: fenders would solve this problem but
here in Kentucky (and it probably applies to the folks in Texas) we normally
don't use fenders because we normally don't need them - except on rare
occasions when it rains really really hard.
On Nov 19, 2011, at 8:01 PM
I agree and I forgot to mention that my Homer also lets it's front wheel
flop over when parked but is very stable with the Berthoud bag at any speed -
except zero. I run 700cm wheels and 28mm Conti 4 Season tires.
A funny side note: on PBP on the return, I stopped to pee. I had the bike
b
Thanks for your replies. I plan to simulate the bag + weight as mentioned.
We just got a couple of inches of snow here today in Minneapolis. I hope to
test the idea in a few days after a brief. Then, like other hard cores in
the area, will go through the ritual of installing studded tires on our
I have noticed differences. I set my Trek 610 with it's modified
high-trail (58 mm trail, 28 mm 700c Gators) fork with a front rack and
tested riding it with about 10# up front. It was controllable and rideable
for 30 milers, but only with two hands firmly on the bars. One handed it
was sketchy
My A. Homer Hilsen is a 58cm with 650B wheels. According to the Riv Geo
charts that bike has a 71 degree headtube angle and 49mm of rake. That
calculates out to 63mm of trail and 19mm of flop with my 38mm tires. I
only run it with a handlebar bag. The Marks rack weighs about a pound and
the
Not all Rivendell bikes are the same, but they tend to have a narrow
range of trail, depending on how extreme you get with tire sizes.
Weight on the front will change the feel of any bike, some more, some
less.
Some recent experimental results on my bikes. On my Bleriot prototype
(theoretically 71
Shifty:
+1 for getting an inexpensive front bag to see how you react to front
weight.
Consider your answers to a couple of questions:
Why do you want the bag in the front?
How sensitive are you to changes in a bike? Do you really notice any
difference between say 32 & 35 mm tires or when you add
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