YES you can carry that black hole by bike (some exceptions apply)
December 22, 2022 12:59 PM Subscribe
Human Power Load Calculator - Theoretically, a human being can haul a load of almost unlimited size given unlimited time and unlimited equipment. Practically, however, equipment, geography, and time puts limits upon what is physically possible.
going all in on a "kids on bikes" rpg so that i can use this as the encumbrance system
posted by fleacircus at 1:07 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by fleacircus at 1:07 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Kids on Bikes RPG, you say?
Also, I'm reminded of my chronic temptation to get a Bike Travoy. I'm not sure what I'd put on it that would justify the expense, but I'd find a justification, somehow, someday, somewhere.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:40 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, I'm reminded of my chronic temptation to get a Bike Travoy. I'm not sure what I'd put on it that would justify the expense, but I'd find a justification, somehow, someday, somewhere.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:40 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
One limiting factor (for two wheelers) is the ability to maintain balance with heavy (and awkwardly distributed ) loads at low speeds. Some self-balancing systems are under development that I expect will have as big an impact as electric pedal-assist systems.
posted by St. Oops at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by St. Oops at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2022
Fun but misses out on two limits:
1. Go too slow, fall over. I'm a reasonably-skilled mountain biker with some trials experience. Less than walking pace is tricky.
2. Traction limits for rear tyre. Either there is the rider's weight on the tyre which will limit the grip to maybe 10x that force. Or some of the carried load is supported by the tyre, in which case you will need a new wheel because bicycle wheels cannot support much of the load caused by a black hole.
posted by happyinmotion at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
1. Go too slow, fall over. I'm a reasonably-skilled mountain biker with some trials experience. Less than walking pace is tricky.
2. Traction limits for rear tyre. Either there is the rider's weight on the tyre which will limit the grip to maybe 10x that force. Or some of the carried load is supported by the tyre, in which case you will need a new wheel because bicycle wheels cannot support much of the load caused by a black hole.
posted by happyinmotion at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Some kind of… human instrumentality project?
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 1:57 PM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
The idea that equations will keep working the same no matter how high the numbers get is not a great assumption to count on in physics.
posted by straight at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
posted by straight at 2:01 PM on December 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
The respelling of travois as "Travoy" so Americans will know how to pronounce it (and trademark it) really makes my teeth itch.
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:03 PM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 2:03 PM on December 22, 2022 [4 favorites]
So not "Trav-0i." but tra-voy, certainly not Trav-wa.
perhaps a bag of holding could work.
posted by clavdivs at 2:13 PM on December 22, 2022
perhaps a bag of holding could work.
posted by clavdivs at 2:13 PM on December 22, 2022
Having hauled a 250+ lb trailer uphill and on flat trails, the calculator seems roughly correct. Max HP seems a little low, but I guess for someone who isn't a clydesdale or a pro racer it's about right.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:19 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:19 PM on December 22, 2022
Seriously? I'm supposed to pronounce that "tra-voy" and not "tra-vwa"?
posted by adamrice at 2:41 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by adamrice at 2:41 PM on December 22, 2022
The Travoy is a great little trailer! We have had one for over a decade, and we use it even when we aren’t riding but need something to carry crap, like going to a more remote farmer’s market. It has hauled vast quantities of melons, squash, and other farmer’s market hauls home over the years.
More recently (post kid) we splashed out for a Benno CarryOn cargo bike, which has been worth every penny. So much stuff, 1 kid easily, 2 kids in a pinch. I love that over the last 15 years or so, cargo bikes have gone from kinda weird to totally mainstream(at least in some places), with dedicated shops in many cities, and dozens parked in front of urban elementary schools.
posted by rockindata at 3:10 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
More recently (post kid) we splashed out for a Benno CarryOn cargo bike, which has been worth every penny. So much stuff, 1 kid easily, 2 kids in a pinch. I love that over the last 15 years or so, cargo bikes have gone from kinda weird to totally mainstream(at least in some places), with dedicated shops in many cities, and dozens parked in front of urban elementary schools.
posted by rockindata at 3:10 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I didn’t notice initially that this was at bikes at work. I have an OLD bikes at work trailer that I found on Craigslist listed by someone in the Sunset whose roommate had left it behind, and didn’t know how much it was worth. I was out of the scope room and on to a BART train within minutes of it posting. I had a bit of a time getting it home to Berkeley because I had no car and the trailer didn’t come with a hitch, but I managed. After manufacturing a hitch out of scrap aluminum, I was good to go. That thing was (and is) such a fantastic tool for carrying heavy stuff by bike. As long as you take your time, you can go just about anywhere and cart just about anything!
posted by rockindata at 3:18 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by rockindata at 3:18 PM on December 22, 2022
The moment I knew the Dutch had properly engineered their complete streets was their design manual's reasoning from both social, anthropometric, and physical principles, e.g.:
* Streets should be bikeable by all
* A 75 year old woman can generate 30W (or whatever)
* A speed of 12 km/h must be maintained to keep balance on a bicycle
* Therefore the maximum grade on bike paths is X.X% for an old woman to keep her balance
posted by anthill at 3:19 PM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
* Streets should be bikeable by all
* A 75 year old woman can generate 30W (or whatever)
* A speed of 12 km/h must be maintained to keep balance on a bicycle
* Therefore the maximum grade on bike paths is X.X% for an old woman to keep her balance
posted by anthill at 3:19 PM on December 22, 2022 [7 favorites]
This works better if you throw away the requirement that the vehicle be a two-wheeled bicycle, and allow 3-wheeled things that don't need to be balanced.
I've noticed while traveling to places where bicycles are used more as utility and general transportation and less as recreational devices, that there's a certain size/weight where they tend to grow a third wheel anyway.
E.g. cycle rickshaws almost universally have three wheels, as do many ice cream and other food-storage conveyances (the latter generally in a reverse-trike configuration).
When freed from the need to balance, the operator can put their full power and body weight into each pedaling movement, and also don't have to worry about maintaining a minimum speed without falling over. So that's just good sense.
But... the idea that you can just scale this infinitely is, uh, a bit off. (If only engineering worked like that.) As you increase the load and adjust the powertrain gear ratio to compensate, maintaining your 30W input RPM, eventually there will start to be energy losses that become significant. Maybe it's reasonably linear within the realm of "things that can be supported on 1 or 2 bicycle rims and tires", but if you want to move more than that, suddenly you'd need different tires, different rims, different bearings, etc. These would almost certainly have greater parasitic losses on the system, and your overall speed won't just be a function of that 30W input anymore. I'm imagining pedaling a bike that had the wheel bearings from my old Jeep (the only automotive wheel bearings I've ever personally replaced, not because it's a pinnacle of engineering or anything) and I'd bet you'd lose a watt or so through each of those.
Therefore the maximum grade on bike paths is X.X% for an old woman to keep her balance
This is amazing and exactly how streets should be engineered.
posted by Kadin2048 at 3:58 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
I've noticed while traveling to places where bicycles are used more as utility and general transportation and less as recreational devices, that there's a certain size/weight where they tend to grow a third wheel anyway.
E.g. cycle rickshaws almost universally have three wheels, as do many ice cream and other food-storage conveyances (the latter generally in a reverse-trike configuration).
When freed from the need to balance, the operator can put their full power and body weight into each pedaling movement, and also don't have to worry about maintaining a minimum speed without falling over. So that's just good sense.
But... the idea that you can just scale this infinitely is, uh, a bit off. (If only engineering worked like that.) As you increase the load and adjust the powertrain gear ratio to compensate, maintaining your 30W input RPM, eventually there will start to be energy losses that become significant. Maybe it's reasonably linear within the realm of "things that can be supported on 1 or 2 bicycle rims and tires", but if you want to move more than that, suddenly you'd need different tires, different rims, different bearings, etc. These would almost certainly have greater parasitic losses on the system, and your overall speed won't just be a function of that 30W input anymore. I'm imagining pedaling a bike that had the wheel bearings from my old Jeep (the only automotive wheel bearings I've ever personally replaced, not because it's a pinnacle of engineering or anything) and I'd bet you'd lose a watt or so through each of those.
Therefore the maximum grade on bike paths is X.X% for an old woman to keep her balance
This is amazing and exactly how streets should be engineered.
posted by Kadin2048 at 3:58 PM on December 22, 2022 [3 favorites]
Tips:
- You can go as slow as you please on a trike
- You can haul more weight/go faster with a tandem
- Never tell the "you must have a truck" people that you're not actually showing up with a truck. It will just confuse them.
Some of my own personal hauling highlights:
Longest haul: 16' canoe off the back of a tandem recumbent
First haul in a burley bike trailer: An old computer monitor. I had just gotten a free bike trailer off craigslist, and I figured I could probably haul the monitor on my bike rack, but I brought the trailer along because I had it. And was converted for life. It was so easy! Just throw it in and you're off and riding!
First notable haul on a bikes at work trailer: Huge heavy metal aviary
Most fragile haul: two full-size commercial sheet cakes or maybe the drywall or maybe all those windows or maybe that solar hot water heater panel. Probably the sheet cakes.
Most chickens: 3 (one per bucket)
Heaviest: probably that one time we got like a half-yard of compost, or all those free sand bags
Most food: probably gleaning 100+ pounds at a hazelnut orchard and then hauling it from Salem back to Portland
Most satisfying: that one time someone said "hey do you know anyone with a truck? my car that can haul anything can't haul this massive hunk of furniture", or maybe that time some one with an injured hip hitched a ride on the back of the recumbent tandem to make it to the bottle deposit returns store across the car parking lot before it closed so I gave up my seat and she rode side-saddle and made it in time
On furniture: yes you can haul couches by bike. Lot of fun to tow and be towed.
Fond memory: moving slowly down a street with some friends on a quiet night taking turns lying on the mattress and looking up at the stars.
Most frequent: carbon matter for the compost toilet (sawdust, coffee chaff)...
Most likely to result in cooing: my dog
posted by aniola at 4:18 PM on December 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
- You can go as slow as you please on a trike
- You can haul more weight/go faster with a tandem
- Never tell the "you must have a truck" people that you're not actually showing up with a truck. It will just confuse them.
Some of my own personal hauling highlights:
Longest haul: 16' canoe off the back of a tandem recumbent
First haul in a burley bike trailer: An old computer monitor. I had just gotten a free bike trailer off craigslist, and I figured I could probably haul the monitor on my bike rack, but I brought the trailer along because I had it. And was converted for life. It was so easy! Just throw it in and you're off and riding!
First notable haul on a bikes at work trailer: Huge heavy metal aviary
Most fragile haul: two full-size commercial sheet cakes or maybe the drywall or maybe all those windows or maybe that solar hot water heater panel. Probably the sheet cakes.
Most chickens: 3 (one per bucket)
Heaviest: probably that one time we got like a half-yard of compost, or all those free sand bags
Most food: probably gleaning 100+ pounds at a hazelnut orchard and then hauling it from Salem back to Portland
Most satisfying: that one time someone said "hey do you know anyone with a truck? my car that can haul anything can't haul this massive hunk of furniture", or maybe that time some one with an injured hip hitched a ride on the back of the recumbent tandem to make it to the bottle deposit returns store across the car parking lot before it closed so I gave up my seat and she rode side-saddle and made it in time
On furniture: yes you can haul couches by bike. Lot of fun to tow and be towed.
Fond memory: moving slowly down a street with some friends on a quiet night taking turns lying on the mattress and looking up at the stars.
Most frequent: carbon matter for the compost toilet (sawdust, coffee chaff)...
Most likely to result in cooing: my dog
posted by aniola at 4:18 PM on December 22, 2022 [11 favorites]
Having recently moved to a tadpole trike due to neck issues, those scaling issues are definitely a thing. While extremely stable, it's quite heavy, and also harder to get moving because you can't use your body weight for extra force on the pedals, like you can when starting from a stop on a regular bike. I typically go through three gears just crossing an intersection when starting from a full stop! So there's a lot more effort that goes into stop-and-go. In theory, at the higher end of speed, it starts to pay off due to lower wind resistance, but 1) I'm not in good enough shape to reach that breakpoint very easily, and 2) city traffic often forces stops before you get there. It's a bit academic right now, I put the bike in storage for the winter because it was way too expensive to trash with winter riding. Maybe in the spring I'll get in good enough shape to have a better payoff on the power curve.
posted by notoriety public at 4:20 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by notoriety public at 4:20 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
When I was a study abroad student in the Netherlands, I named my bike the silver bullet because I was the best at hauling beer. I could fit two cases on the back and one on the front plus two more sixers or 4 bottle of wine in saddle bags. Other Americans could not get more than one case (24 glass bottles) or had accidents while carrying them.
Although the Dutch hauled lots of stuff by bike, many of the student houses had weekly wholesale deliveries of cases of beer, soda. And sparkling water. The services also took back the empties also made some extra money by bring back cases when other students were too lazy after the party.
I local bar here in southern CA does a keg haul. I can take two 5 gallon keg on my touring bike. But the big thre wheelers will take two full kegs.
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:04 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Although the Dutch hauled lots of stuff by bike, many of the student houses had weekly wholesale deliveries of cases of beer, soda. And sparkling water. The services also took back the empties also made some extra money by bring back cases when other students were too lazy after the party.
I local bar here in southern CA does a keg haul. I can take two 5 gallon keg on my touring bike. But the big thre wheelers will take two full kegs.
posted by CostcoCultist at 6:04 PM on December 22, 2022 [2 favorites]
Bicycling is all fun and games until you are going uphill in the rain with a headwind, then hey join the club..
posted by ovvl at 7:02 PM on December 22, 2022
posted by ovvl at 7:02 PM on December 22, 2022
uphill in the rain with a headwind
This one time I was on a bike tour in the midwest and we got to the top of this hill and saw windmills in the farthest distance up the top of the next hill. I was like "aww, how quaint!".
And then started trying to zip down the hill. I was in my easiest gears and working like I was climbing a steep mountain. I would rather climb a mountain. Climbing a mountain you expect it to be slow.
I have never looked at windmills the same way again. They are now warning signs.
posted by aniola at 7:30 PM on December 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
This one time I was on a bike tour in the midwest and we got to the top of this hill and saw windmills in the farthest distance up the top of the next hill. I was like "aww, how quaint!".
And then started trying to zip down the hill. I was in my easiest gears and working like I was climbing a steep mountain. I would rather climb a mountain. Climbing a mountain you expect it to be slow.
I have never looked at windmills the same way again. They are now warning signs.
posted by aniola at 7:30 PM on December 22, 2022 [6 favorites]
uphill in the rain with a headwind
Cycling NZ's South Island in '90 I ended up with a good buch of other cyclists and after a few days they knew I knew the road ahead, so I'd be talking about this awesome and scenic downhill. But I knew it only in good weather ... we all ended up in lowest gear, grinding down this steep road into one of the strongests winds I've ever pedalled in to. No one saw anything as it was thickest clag with rain.
posted by unearthed at 10:20 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Cycling NZ's South Island in '90 I ended up with a good buch of other cyclists and after a few days they knew I knew the road ahead, so I'd be talking about this awesome and scenic downhill. But I knew it only in good weather ... we all ended up in lowest gear, grinding down this steep road into one of the strongests winds I've ever pedalled in to. No one saw anything as it was thickest clag with rain.
posted by unearthed at 10:20 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
I built a 150 lb recumbent 2 man bike that I have hauled 100's of lbs of cargo in ,it is a silly thing since I used a 40lb wood spoked model T wheel for the rear wheel since I thought it looked cool. I have also completed the Kinetic Sculpture race on it twice.
posted by boilermonster at 10:29 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by boilermonster at 10:29 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
steep road into one of the strongests winds I've ever pedalled in to. No one saw anything as it was thickest clag with rain.
Unearthed I feel your pain. My honeymoon included a cycling tour along the west coast of Ireland. The last few hours of our longest day of cycling were along a lake, directly into a moist headwind, pushing in our lowest gear even though it wasn't really uphill.
But hey we made it though that, which means or marriage will make it through anything right? It was a supported tour so our bags were waiting for us at the next hotel.
Later on that same trip we headed to Amsterdam and had a lovely afternoon drinking beer and watch a lot of heavily loaded bikes go by.
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:38 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Unearthed I feel your pain. My honeymoon included a cycling tour along the west coast of Ireland. The last few hours of our longest day of cycling were along a lake, directly into a moist headwind, pushing in our lowest gear even though it wasn't really uphill.
But hey we made it though that, which means or marriage will make it through anything right? It was a supported tour so our bags were waiting for us at the next hotel.
Later on that same trip we headed to Amsterdam and had a lovely afternoon drinking beer and watch a lot of heavily loaded bikes go by.
posted by CostcoCultist at 10:38 PM on December 22, 2022 [1 favorite]
Youtube: Ultra low gearing. A custom bike just for climbing the 32% grade Fargo Street. Double reduction gearing: a tiny front chainring feeds another front pair of chainrings, giving an extremely low 7.5 inch gearing. It's an easy spin up the hill for the rider. But it's probably quicker to just walk up the hill.
I wouldn't be able to stay upright at anywhere near that extremely low speed, the rider has great balance. This would work better on a trike.
He could slowly tow a car with this bike on level ground. That's assuming the tire had enough traction.
~~~
It's the opposite of the bike that was used to set the 184 mph (!) bicycle speed record a few years ago. That bike can't be pedaled at normal bicycle speeds -- see the reporter give it a parking lot try.
posted by jjj606 at 9:16 AM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I wouldn't be able to stay upright at anywhere near that extremely low speed, the rider has great balance. This would work better on a trike.
He could slowly tow a car with this bike on level ground. That's assuming the tire had enough traction.
~~~
It's the opposite of the bike that was used to set the 184 mph (!) bicycle speed record a few years ago. That bike can't be pedaled at normal bicycle speeds -- see the reporter give it a parking lot try.
posted by jjj606 at 9:16 AM on December 23, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'd like to see a new type of biking world record. Instead of getting towed by a car to get up to a speed your gears can use, get towed by some other world record setting bicyclist on a bike that gets you up to speed. Lot less drafting but seems like it could still be something of a boost.
posted by aniola at 9:45 AM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by aniola at 9:45 AM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Aniola, you may be interested in Keirin racing if you haven't heard of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keirin
It made an appearance in the Olympics recently. I was so confused why there were weird motorcycle-bicycles on a velodrome track when I first saw it.
posted by loquacious at 10:07 AM on December 23, 2022
It made an appearance in the Olympics recently. I was so confused why there were weird motorcycle-bicycles on a velodrome track when I first saw it.
posted by loquacious at 10:07 AM on December 23, 2022
In cycling - especially couriers - there is a phrase: The Carry Shit Olympics.
I've done some seriously overloaded bike touring, notably about 10 years ago when I lost my apartment, packed up nearly everything else I owned that would be useful for living on a bike and biking off into the non-figurative sunset.
During those 2-3 years my bike had something like 80-100 pounds of stuff on it before I added water or food. I had two large panniers on the front, a large handlebar bag, some home made 30 liter plastic tote pannier boxes on the back rack and a roll top waterproof duffel bag in the 40-50 liter range, plus other stuff strapped outside of storage. This is about the equivalent of 3 large back country backpacker bags worth of gear and stuff.
I honestly don't regret overpacking for that adventure because I was poor and I spent like 2-3 weeks sorting, packing and checking my lists over and over again and there's nothing I didn't end up using. And I had a lot of stuff most people wouldn't be carrying on a bike tour because it was my home. I mean I had plastic organizer boxes full of stuff like safety pins, binder clips and so much more, and I used all of it.
And, yeah, I definitely had to get off and walk my overloaded bike up a lot of hills. It happens.
Late last summer I finally broke that frame after what was probably more than 50,000 miles and 10 years of hard riding, loaded and unloaded, including about 3,000 miles of being an overpowered DIY ebike at the end and hauling groceries. The bike was a very nice beefy aluminum frame from Redline with a flat bar cockpit that was somewhere between a tour/adventure bike, a cyclocross bike, a grown up 700c old school mountain bike with skinnier tires.
Basically it was a gravel bike about ten years ahead of it's time before gravel bikes became the hot new thing.
The final blow was probably from a group ride I went on and was following some riders on much more off road capable hardtail and full squish MTBs a single track that I was really familiar with and I hit a pothole way, way too hard and fast - like I thought I was going to snap a fork kind of hit.
About a week or two later I was doing a grocery and errand run in town and I had just bombed a major on road hill at about 35-40 MPH. I went grocery shopping, loaded up my bags, noticed it felt really noodly and then about 500 feet later the downtube snapped while I was going about 2 miles an hour. Which was the best of all possible places for it to fail, as opposed to during that 40 MPH hill bomb just minutes before it failed.
I ended up writing to my mom and stepdad to ask if they could buy me a new frame because bikes are my only form of transportation and it's an essential part of my mental health self care, and I ended up with a Surly Disc Trucker frame set, the quick release axle version one generation earlier than the current model with through axles.
But even with the financial help it was a challenge. I totally lucked out because Surlys have been back logged and hard to find for most of the pandemic. My quest to find the right frame and size involved calling almost every single bike shop in Washington State, talking to my local shops to see if they could order me a frame, looking for used bikes and frames until I found one available at a shop in Seattle.
And it just so happened that some friends were coming out to my area to visit the next day, so they were able to go to the shop and pick it up for me before it was gone.
And I was able to rebuild and do my first full bike build on a bare frame. I was able to move my cockpit, racks, ebike mid drive kit and everything right over to the new frame and get rolling within a week. It was such a perfect fit and upgrade that a lot of people didn't realize I had a whole new frame because it was a really similar color, and the frame style and geometry is nearly identical, at least visually.
That bike is amazing and an absolute beast of a touring/gravel ebike. I can easily hit 30-40 MPH on a flat on throttle alone, though I have also dialed back my drive train for much better climbing power. With the BBSHD mid drive and my gear range I can climb up hills so steep that they would be challenging even with a proper motorcycle because I have way, way more low speed torque and power to weight ratio.
I've crawled up steep and heavily rutted power line roads and singletracks that you would have to send at high speed on a motorcycle and hope you didn't yeet yourself right off the bike or road because they're too bumpy, but with the ebike I can pick and crawl my way over the sketchy terrain like a rock crawling truck, and with my weight on the back wheel I have all kinds of traction even on 700x38c touring tires.
When I have a really heavy load of groceries on it the curb weight with my fat ass on it has to be pushing 450-500 pounds. Yeah, this is seriously pushing it even for a Surly Trucker but I take it easy when I'm loaded up and the bike can handle it.
And locally there are these fun, casual group gravel rides I go on and I use my bike's ebike power and cargo capacity to carry stuff for the group, like extra tools, extra water, snacks to share, and sometimes I carry one of my camping stoves or burners and a whole mess kit to make hot tea or coffee to share with people on the ride. The ebike part is also useful for managing group logistics because I can zoom ahead of the pack to ask the leaders to pause for a regroup or stay behind to help with flats or mechanical issues.
posted by loquacious at 10:54 AM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
I've done some seriously overloaded bike touring, notably about 10 years ago when I lost my apartment, packed up nearly everything else I owned that would be useful for living on a bike and biking off into the non-figurative sunset.
During those 2-3 years my bike had something like 80-100 pounds of stuff on it before I added water or food. I had two large panniers on the front, a large handlebar bag, some home made 30 liter plastic tote pannier boxes on the back rack and a roll top waterproof duffel bag in the 40-50 liter range, plus other stuff strapped outside of storage. This is about the equivalent of 3 large back country backpacker bags worth of gear and stuff.
I honestly don't regret overpacking for that adventure because I was poor and I spent like 2-3 weeks sorting, packing and checking my lists over and over again and there's nothing I didn't end up using. And I had a lot of stuff most people wouldn't be carrying on a bike tour because it was my home. I mean I had plastic organizer boxes full of stuff like safety pins, binder clips and so much more, and I used all of it.
And, yeah, I definitely had to get off and walk my overloaded bike up a lot of hills. It happens.
Late last summer I finally broke that frame after what was probably more than 50,000 miles and 10 years of hard riding, loaded and unloaded, including about 3,000 miles of being an overpowered DIY ebike at the end and hauling groceries. The bike was a very nice beefy aluminum frame from Redline with a flat bar cockpit that was somewhere between a tour/adventure bike, a cyclocross bike, a grown up 700c old school mountain bike with skinnier tires.
Basically it was a gravel bike about ten years ahead of it's time before gravel bikes became the hot new thing.
The final blow was probably from a group ride I went on and was following some riders on much more off road capable hardtail and full squish MTBs a single track that I was really familiar with and I hit a pothole way, way too hard and fast - like I thought I was going to snap a fork kind of hit.
About a week or two later I was doing a grocery and errand run in town and I had just bombed a major on road hill at about 35-40 MPH. I went grocery shopping, loaded up my bags, noticed it felt really noodly and then about 500 feet later the downtube snapped while I was going about 2 miles an hour. Which was the best of all possible places for it to fail, as opposed to during that 40 MPH hill bomb just minutes before it failed.
I ended up writing to my mom and stepdad to ask if they could buy me a new frame because bikes are my only form of transportation and it's an essential part of my mental health self care, and I ended up with a Surly Disc Trucker frame set, the quick release axle version one generation earlier than the current model with through axles.
But even with the financial help it was a challenge. I totally lucked out because Surlys have been back logged and hard to find for most of the pandemic. My quest to find the right frame and size involved calling almost every single bike shop in Washington State, talking to my local shops to see if they could order me a frame, looking for used bikes and frames until I found one available at a shop in Seattle.
And it just so happened that some friends were coming out to my area to visit the next day, so they were able to go to the shop and pick it up for me before it was gone.
And I was able to rebuild and do my first full bike build on a bare frame. I was able to move my cockpit, racks, ebike mid drive kit and everything right over to the new frame and get rolling within a week. It was such a perfect fit and upgrade that a lot of people didn't realize I had a whole new frame because it was a really similar color, and the frame style and geometry is nearly identical, at least visually.
That bike is amazing and an absolute beast of a touring/gravel ebike. I can easily hit 30-40 MPH on a flat on throttle alone, though I have also dialed back my drive train for much better climbing power. With the BBSHD mid drive and my gear range I can climb up hills so steep that they would be challenging even with a proper motorcycle because I have way, way more low speed torque and power to weight ratio.
I've crawled up steep and heavily rutted power line roads and singletracks that you would have to send at high speed on a motorcycle and hope you didn't yeet yourself right off the bike or road because they're too bumpy, but with the ebike I can pick and crawl my way over the sketchy terrain like a rock crawling truck, and with my weight on the back wheel I have all kinds of traction even on 700x38c touring tires.
When I have a really heavy load of groceries on it the curb weight with my fat ass on it has to be pushing 450-500 pounds. Yeah, this is seriously pushing it even for a Surly Trucker but I take it easy when I'm loaded up and the bike can handle it.
And locally there are these fun, casual group gravel rides I go on and I use my bike's ebike power and cargo capacity to carry stuff for the group, like extra tools, extra water, snacks to share, and sometimes I carry one of my camping stoves or burners and a whole mess kit to make hot tea or coffee to share with people on the ride. The ebike part is also useful for managing group logistics because I can zoom ahead of the pack to ask the leaders to pause for a regroup or stay behind to help with flats or mechanical issues.
posted by loquacious at 10:54 AM on December 23, 2022 [4 favorites]
Totes jelly, loquacious, I aspire to having a Disc Trucker someday.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:57 PM on December 23, 2022
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:57 PM on December 23, 2022
Totes jelly, loquacious, I aspire to having a Disc Trucker someday.
Oh man, I know it. I've been wanting an LHT ever since it came out something like 15 years ago and I'm very fortunate to have this bike. I ended up getting a hell of a deal on the bare frame, too, like $300 below list MSRP because it was the slightly older quick release version of the Disc Trucker, and then saved I don't even know how much in parts and labor building it up myself and just moving all my old parts and components over to it and it went super easy.
Everything went on so easy and snappy it was like playing with Legos, which is a testament to the build quality and tolerances. Even just putting wheels on feels really precise and there's no fussing around with dropout spread or spring.
Honestly, I still miss my rim brakes because a good pair of V-brakes with Kool Stop salmons has massive hassle free stopping power even in wet weather, but I'm learning to appreciate disc brakes. They're definitely less hassle to adjust once you know how because you're not dealing with opposing springs or friction from dirt build up on the bosses.
They've already saved my butt on one of the group rides where I taco-ed my front wheel and one of my bike mechanic friends help bash it back into shape just well enough to ride home, and you can't really do that with rim brakes without disconnecting the brakes or loosening them up so much that they're useless, and theoretically I should go through less rims/wheels from the high friction compound of Kool Stops weakening the sidewalls of the rims through wear and tear.
Which is good because I tend to go through wheels like a can of Pringles. I destroy wheels so often I generally try to keep a spare set on hand.
Something else I didn't expect at all about the Disc Trucker is even though it's slightly heavier than my aluminum frame, it's something like 30-40% more efficient and I have no idea why. Same drive train, same components, even the same chain and cassette and derailleur and same wheels. Same everything except for switching to disc brakes since my wheels were disc ready. (I have wattage meters on the ebike computer so it's pretty easy to see and log the increased range and reduced watts needed to go.)
The only things I can think of is that the steel is more compliant, springy and cushy than the aluminum frame, and it just seems or feels like the alignment between front and rear dropouts and the bottom bracket is just a lot more precise so there's less wasted energy or something along those lines.
Cruising down hills is just absolutely lovely because my fat ass falls like a brick. There's a few parts of my regular rides and routes where I can effectively just coast without any pedal or drive input for miles because I can just coast over the small rises and hills the whole way thanks to mass and momentum.
Steel is real and I'm absolutely loving the plusher, smoother ride. It's not as whippy as the Redline was, but that's fine, a bike can only get so whippy with all the crap I carry around. It's like, oh, the difference between a super stiff track-tuned Porsche and a plush but fast BMW M5 tuned for the Autobahn. The Redline was definitely "faster" and more nimble on singletracks but it was about as comfortable as riding a metal fence gate, but the Trucker definitely hauls loads better and is a lot less punishing to ride.
posted by loquacious at 4:19 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Oh man, I know it. I've been wanting an LHT ever since it came out something like 15 years ago and I'm very fortunate to have this bike. I ended up getting a hell of a deal on the bare frame, too, like $300 below list MSRP because it was the slightly older quick release version of the Disc Trucker, and then saved I don't even know how much in parts and labor building it up myself and just moving all my old parts and components over to it and it went super easy.
Everything went on so easy and snappy it was like playing with Legos, which is a testament to the build quality and tolerances. Even just putting wheels on feels really precise and there's no fussing around with dropout spread or spring.
Honestly, I still miss my rim brakes because a good pair of V-brakes with Kool Stop salmons has massive hassle free stopping power even in wet weather, but I'm learning to appreciate disc brakes. They're definitely less hassle to adjust once you know how because you're not dealing with opposing springs or friction from dirt build up on the bosses.
They've already saved my butt on one of the group rides where I taco-ed my front wheel and one of my bike mechanic friends help bash it back into shape just well enough to ride home, and you can't really do that with rim brakes without disconnecting the brakes or loosening them up so much that they're useless, and theoretically I should go through less rims/wheels from the high friction compound of Kool Stops weakening the sidewalls of the rims through wear and tear.
Which is good because I tend to go through wheels like a can of Pringles. I destroy wheels so often I generally try to keep a spare set on hand.
Something else I didn't expect at all about the Disc Trucker is even though it's slightly heavier than my aluminum frame, it's something like 30-40% more efficient and I have no idea why. Same drive train, same components, even the same chain and cassette and derailleur and same wheels. Same everything except for switching to disc brakes since my wheels were disc ready. (I have wattage meters on the ebike computer so it's pretty easy to see and log the increased range and reduced watts needed to go.)
The only things I can think of is that the steel is more compliant, springy and cushy than the aluminum frame, and it just seems or feels like the alignment between front and rear dropouts and the bottom bracket is just a lot more precise so there's less wasted energy or something along those lines.
Cruising down hills is just absolutely lovely because my fat ass falls like a brick. There's a few parts of my regular rides and routes where I can effectively just coast without any pedal or drive input for miles because I can just coast over the small rises and hills the whole way thanks to mass and momentum.
Steel is real and I'm absolutely loving the plusher, smoother ride. It's not as whippy as the Redline was, but that's fine, a bike can only get so whippy with all the crap I carry around. It's like, oh, the difference between a super stiff track-tuned Porsche and a plush but fast BMW M5 tuned for the Autobahn. The Redline was definitely "faster" and more nimble on singletracks but it was about as comfortable as riding a metal fence gate, but the Trucker definitely hauls loads better and is a lot less punishing to ride.
posted by loquacious at 4:19 PM on December 23, 2022 [1 favorite]
Me and the wife spent 12 years in SF riding bikes everywhere. She still uses her small LHT, with her fully customized super narrow cockpit with friction shifters. She is a front rack and rear panniers kind of person, I am a frame packing and trailer fan. The LHT is an amazing ride, I am waiting for availability so I can trade in 2 bikes I never use.
I’ve ridden too many bikes to remember, but did most of my hauling on a Cross Check and later an Ogre with the fattest tires and burliest trailer they could fit. Surlys somehow end up being the ones I keep (right now I just ride a Bridge Club, but I don’t love it, it is the only Surly I could find after the Ogre was stolen).
Before you could just buy wide range casetes, I used to build mine from used parts and Sheldon Brown’s calculator. Every two weeks I would carry a hundred or so pounds of stuff from a dozen miles south of SF to the Western Addition. After a few times it became easy to balance at a decent spin rate on the granny gear.
We did a full move except the mattress by on the bikes. I also set up a stealth beer dispensing system on the trailer to take to GGP. Between the two full kegs, CO2 tanks and the other hardware, the food and the dogs it must have been over 150 pounds, and I made it to the top of the hill in the middle of the park.
Right now I can’t ride with any effort because of a busted knee, some days it hurts just to walk, and I feel angry and sad every time I have to fire up the car just to go get groceries a couple of miles away. My options right now are to spend money on a surgery or on an electric assisted bike, and it is a difficult decision.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:34 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I’ve ridden too many bikes to remember, but did most of my hauling on a Cross Check and later an Ogre with the fattest tires and burliest trailer they could fit. Surlys somehow end up being the ones I keep (right now I just ride a Bridge Club, but I don’t love it, it is the only Surly I could find after the Ogre was stolen).
Before you could just buy wide range casetes, I used to build mine from used parts and Sheldon Brown’s calculator. Every two weeks I would carry a hundred or so pounds of stuff from a dozen miles south of SF to the Western Addition. After a few times it became easy to balance at a decent spin rate on the granny gear.
We did a full move except the mattress by on the bikes. I also set up a stealth beer dispensing system on the trailer to take to GGP. Between the two full kegs, CO2 tanks and the other hardware, the food and the dogs it must have been over 150 pounds, and I made it to the top of the hill in the middle of the park.
Right now I can’t ride with any effort because of a busted knee, some days it hurts just to walk, and I feel angry and sad every time I have to fire up the car just to go get groceries a couple of miles away. My options right now are to spend money on a surgery or on an electric assisted bike, and it is a difficult decision.
posted by Dr. Curare at 1:34 PM on December 25, 2022 [1 favorite]
I've done a full move about 7km from downtown to the west end. This load was the mattress, box spring and bedding, on a cool February day. Here's a pic from another load, of many.
I don't have a pic, but one load was so heavy I came to a standstill halfway up the ramp out of the condo's underground parking lot. I unclipped and barely pushed it up the rest.
Later that year I walked 140 lbs of wood from the local lumber yard to home, about 1km away.
posted by ecco at 3:28 PM on December 25, 2022
I don't have a pic, but one load was so heavy I came to a standstill halfway up the ramp out of the condo's underground parking lot. I unclipped and barely pushed it up the rest.
Later that year I walked 140 lbs of wood from the local lumber yard to home, about 1km away.
posted by ecco at 3:28 PM on December 25, 2022
Wow jjj606, my best was pdealling hard down a 15 mile clay hill in Alaska 1990 - I got up to 110kmh / 68mph - and I was just in lycra shorts and singlet, I backed off when I felt I was floating on the airstream.
posted by unearthed at 11:06 PM on January 3, 2023
posted by unearthed at 11:06 PM on January 3, 2023
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