Advice needed on panniers with my bike.

azzerb

I have been an active cyclist for the past 6 months roughly, and i have decided that i want to do LEJOG next year (going to buy a book on it, then buy all the maps etc)

However, i bought a Giant SCR 3 6 months ago, not thinking that I'd want to tour, an article in cycling plus says that it has rack eyelets, but they're awkward to get to. I could buy a touring specific bike, but this would mean postponing it until the year after.

I'm considering buying Tortec Expedition

Has anybody used this rack with this bike? Or even used this bike for touring before? I weigh between 70-73kg on average, so would the bike cope comfortably with this weight?

Thanks.

amaferanga

I did a 2 week tour on an SCR2.0 last year carrying camping gear. No problems with the rack I used (Blackburn mtn), but the gearing was a tad high for steeper hills. You might find the Cornwall hills quite a challenge. I suppose you could put an mtb cassette on the back to lower the gearing a bit, but you'd need to replace the derailleur with an mtb one as well.

A couple of things though - you should swap the back wheel for something stronger as the stock rear wheel definitely isn't up to touring loads. I used a cheapish homebuilt wheel - Mavic A319 on a Tiagra hub. And the brake calipers are crap. Some decent shimano ones instead of the the crappy no name brakes will make a big difference.

azzerb

amaferanga wrote:

I did a 2 week tour on an SCR2.0 last year carrying camping gear. No problems with the rack I used (Blackburn mtn), but the gearing was a tad high for steeper hills. You might find the Cornwall hills quite a challenge. I suppose you could put an mtb cassette on the back to lower the gearing a bit, but you'd need to replace the derailleur with an mtb one as well.

A couple of things though - you should swap the back wheel for something stronger as the stock rear wheel definitely isn't up to touring loads. I used a cheapish homebuilt wheel - Mavic A319 on a Tiagra hub. And the brake calipers are crap. Some decent shimano ones instead of the the crappy no name brakes will make a big difference.

Thanks a lot. I suspected that the original wheels wouldn't stand a chance with the weights etc. Hadn't thought about the gear ratio's, but i could try cycling the hills around here (Derbyshire) with the kit on to see how much of an effort it would be, and if it is too hard, swap the kit off my mtb. Have already swapped the brake calipers as they seemed really weak.

Ashley_R

Met a couple of LEJOG'ers last summer doing it on full carbon road bikes, they had a Topeak saddlebag system that was mounted off the seat tube, still held a fair bit of kit, if you really cut things down one of these might work

cpeachey

Keep your luggage to a minimum. If you lack touring experience you will probably take too much. 1 rear pannier should be large enough for all your regular clothes. A second pannier might just carry food, maps, tools etc.
Chris