Bike for Lhasa Kathmandu?

cookiemonster

I’m doing Lahsa to Kathmandu in April on a supported trip (kit taken in a separate vehicle); 1,200km largely above 4000m. Its mainly “on road” but in places the road will be unbelievably crappy or just poor rutted gravel track – but little in the way of true off-road stuff. I guess the south downs way is similar to the worst of what we’ll see.

I’ve done a few similar trips previously using my (now departed) Spesh Rockhopper which, with some tweaks, was pretty much perfect for the job. So I need a new bike for this trip, and I could just go for another 26” hardtail, but I’m thinking of this build instead:

On One Scandal 29er
Carbon rigid fork
Avid BB7 cable brakes w/ Avid speed levers
Wheels: handbuilt DT TK7.1d rims (700cc) on DT240 hubs
Schwalbe Marathon XR’s 700x40

Also

XT cranks and mech (left over from the spesh)
Easton flat bar and bar ends (left over from the spesh)
Syntace carbon seat post and Spesh Phenom saddle (currently attached to my Roberts Audax)


My main considerations are sufficient comfort even on crappy surfaces for long days in the saddle and reliability. My two worries with the above spec are firstly whether the comfort will be comparable to a 26” short travel hardtail (like a stumpy ht) and that there will be no spares or help with the 29er wheels in Tibet or Nepal (whereas there will be plenty of options with 26”).

What do y’all reckon?

clanton

If there is a support vehicle you can carry enough spares so that shouldn't be a concern.
Comfort wise - we toured on rigid steel bikes (Roberts Roughstuff) over some pretty bad roads in Southern Chile and coped with this - though I did lose the feeling in three of my fingers for about 4 weeks! The Scandal with its bigger wheels should be more comfortable.

amaferanga

Looks good (I have an On One Inbred for rough road touring). I'd go for a good suspension fork though (something with a good reputation for reliability) and I probably wouldn't use a carbon seatpost.

As for spares for the 29er, well all you need are some spare spokes, but if you're worried then add a rim to your spares.

andymiller

Personally I'd go with a 456 or Inbred (I'm another happy On-One owner. But that's mainly because I prefer the comfort of steel.

There might be an advantage going for a 29er if you are tall (more than 5' 10ish) but otherwise a 26" will be stronger. I have a Rigida Sputnik with 36 spokes with a Shimano XTR hub for my rear wheel. A bit heavy and probably over the top but bombproof.

As far as hubs are concerned - on the one hand cartidge bearings are very reliable but if they were to go you definitely couldn't be replaced at the side of the road. Old-fashioned hubs with loose bearings are higher maintenance but you definitely could replace and regrease on the road (although I wouldn't want to have to do it at the side of a road).

I've got no experience of carbon forks but I'm a bit nervous of carbon fibre. There are plenty of good steel forks around that would work with the On-One. Alternatively I'd recommend getting a pair of old-skool Marzocchis from the early noughties - they are dead easy to refurbish and because they rely on oil and springs rather than compressed air they should be reliable for a long haul.

cookiemonster

Hi

Thanks for the replies. I'm not too worried about the carbon forks - these arent lightweight road-style blade forks, but two enormous pillars of composite. My feeling is that I'm much more likely to find a blown seal in a suspension fork (not that that is very likely) than damage to the rigid carbon effort. Likewise the seatpost - carbon is pretty strong stuff

Fair point on the hubs and bearings - im generally more comfortable with reliability and replacablity over adjustment. I guess for the stuff that i do - 3 week trips at most - cartridges are fine, if i were to do a many-month trip then i'd go for XT hubs.

I'll take a couple of spare spokes (hence the handbuilt rather than factory wheels); I guess any damage over and above spokes and im screwed regardles.

I like steel (have a Roberts audax which is lovely), but my take on the scandal over the the steel options was that its cheap (just over £200) and the reviews rate it as a very comfortable ali bike

mmm

andymiller

Oh I was going to say was that one option I had considered with my Hope hubs was taking an axle set up with bearings. If the worst came to the worst you could just whack out the old axle assembly and put in a new one. Ditto the freehub. But then another part of me says that's a bit over the top...

I'd have thought the tour company would be a good source of information on availability of replacement 700c wheels etc. (They might even carry spare wheels or a spare bike).

cookiemonster wrote:

I like steel (have a Roberts audax which is lovely), but my take on the scandal over the the steel options was that its cheap (just over £200) and the reviews rate it as a very comfortable ali bike

mmm

Well yes, but given that a 456 is £157 and an Inbred £137 (29er £158) there's no financial reason for ruling out steel (but of course, it's all down to personal preference at the end of the day).

andrew_s

There's a good set of photos on this site, including a chap called Steve doing the ride on a unicycle.

It looks like an awful lot of the road has been improved since I did it in 2000 when there was only tarmac for the first 80km or so, plus a bit in and around the larger towns. I used rigid forks and 26x1.75, and we had one person on 700c touring wheels - 32 or 35mm. The worst bits were sections being reconstructed, parts of the section in Nepal dropping down from the border (tarmac, but falling apart), and sections of corrugations. The track across between Rongbuk and old Tingri was mostly OK.

cookiemonster

Hi Andrew

Yes - my understanding is thats largely tarmac now, although not fully so. The everest base camp road and the like are still gravel.

I take it you were fine in 2000 on rigid forks? Didnt have 6 months of physio when you got home?

I had actually just decided to go get something similar to my rockhopper, another short travel 26" hardtail, but after looking at the unicycle, I'm thinking **** it, 29er Scandal with rigid forks it is. I just have to decide on the wheels, and I'll stick some 1.6" travel contacts on it (better for tarmac that the xr's)

Cheers

Jon

GyatsoLa

That set up looks good. I did that ride (fully loaded) on an On One Inbred with Rohloff gear and XR's about 5 years ago. I think the roads should be better now than when I did it, there was a lot of road works going on, but I believe the last stretch into Nepal is still quite poor. I met quite a few people on supported tours which were on much lighter bikes, including quite lightweight xc full suspension bikes (I saw one group that I reckon had about £20k worth of bikes with them!). While you are aware I presume that you will not get a replacement 29er rim there, I think its quite a good option for roads like that so long as you are aware that if one goes, your trip is over.

Just one point - you might still get Marathon XR's in the shops, but they've been withdrawn from production by Schwalbe. They have been replaced with a number of different tyres - the Dureme, Extreme and Supreme (various levels of grip).

cookiemonster

GyatsoLa wrote:

While you are aware I presume that you will not get a replacement 29er rim there, I think its quite a good option for roads like that so long as you are aware that if one goes, your trip is over.

yep, its a balance - if i take a few spokes and the wheels are harry rowland-built quality then i guess theres a low chance of terminal problems, less than that of failure of hydraulic brakes or suspension forks (which are also pretty much unrepairable in the middle of nowhere). On short trips there's a point at which if something bad happens, like your frame somehow gets snapped in half, then there's little you can do. If I was doing a multi-month trip, then yes I'd be on 26"

Tyres - yep, I saw the new range; I cant decide whether to go for travel contacts with their fantastically improved rolling on tarmac compared to xr's (i used them for syria and lebanon) or xr's which were faultless in the indian himalayas on the immensely crappy roads....

GyatsoLa

A good place for advice btw is the Spinn Cafe in Lhasa - its run by a Hong Kong guy who is a very keen tourer:

http://www.spinn.cn/en/

Apparently the first batch of the Schwalbe Extreme tyres didn't do so well, there were complaints, but Schwalbe now say its all sorted, so if you want something grippier or lighter then they might be a decent choice.

RimTape

If you are set on a 29er then I guess there is no point suggesting otherwise!

It has been pointed out about the issue of spares etc.

However personally I would choose a 26" hardtail with suspension forks but thats just my preference.

It is worth pointing out that the Schwalbe Marathon XR or whatever they call the new models are designed for long haul loaded touring, and you are not riding loaded up. I would prefer to ride a lighter tyre (the XRs weigh over a Kilo each) and have a more pleasant ride. You could take a folding spare tyre.

BB7s good choice...

Cheers
Velox

GyatsoLa

Thats a good point by Rimtape - I agree that the XR's are a little heavy duty for unloaded touring. You can get tough tyres for half the weight (and yes, you really will notice the difference).

Since you are supported, an interesting option would be to have a fairly tough high pressure tyre on the rear, with a choice of a grippy low pressure tyre and a road tyre for the front. Its a bit of hassle changing them around, but it would make the riding a lot more enjoyable - lighter tyres really do make a big difference.

pascoa341

maybe a voodoo wanga would do the trick, also quite a tourer-like mtb frame?

cookiemonster

Well I'm not totally set on a 29er, just exploring the idea as I think there may be merit in it. The only downside I can see is the spares issue which can be mitigated through a solid build and spare spokes. On previous similar trips I've used a short travel 26" and found it fine - however the majority of the time you dont need the suspension fork which you're carting around with you and the 29er will likely roll over crap roads a bit better than the 26. My thinking also is a 29er with a good carbon fork will have enough give to soften crappy roads on long fast downhills.

I'm leaning towards a build of the Sun Ringle EQ27 rim on an XT or DT240 hub (I like DT's, but I dont think the cost is justified)

Tyres - yep the XR's are probably overkill for this kind of thing, but work well on unbelievably crap roads; I'd probably still use them (or whatever the new version is called) for the Indian Himalayas or the 'stans - i.e. you're basically riding off road through rubble and potholes. I've used the travel contacts when the roads are in better condition and you want something that'll roll well. If there's something between the two from the new schwalbe range I'd prob go for that (really couldnt face changing tyres on the road for different conditions and the road quality tends to change too quickly - good tarmac to the top of a pass, then mud and rock for three miles, then back to tarmac, etc)

Cheers

Jon

gert_lush

I did Lhasa Kathmandu last April with KE (most amazing trip ever!!!!!!) I personally used my spec FSR XC mainly because my hardtail died beforehand the FSR was almost brand new. Yes it was bulky and a bit heavy but i'm pretty fit and locked out is wasn't too bad, and was great for the rutted roads around base camp and for the impromptu "lets just ride off the side of the mountain and hope we end up at a road" moments. I would in retrospect take a steel framed hardtail with shortish travel forks, the lighter the better.

people on out trip all had hardtails ranging from a nice light carbon scott, to a Rohloff eqipped Thorn raven tour. out of the 8 of us riding we had 1 puncture and 1 freewheel die and that was it so pretty good really.

The road is now paved to about 10o miles from everest basecamp, we then spent about 3 days on bum numbing corregated roads, and then it kinda randomly switcked between tarmac, gravel and then madness rocks and potholes.

Quite a few of us happened to all have schwalbe silento II tyres that were really good although did struggle when we had a blizzard at 5000m and we were cycling uphill through snow, but hey all part of the fun right! Our nepalli guide had a set of xc tyres he carried with him and put them on for a few days when the tarmac ended which was a good shout.

Other than that I took spare pads, a few spokes, bleeding kit, few inner tubes, all the tools I thought I would use, some lube and a small brush to cleann the chain every few days. Like I said we were lucky and all bike survived really well. Left my tyres out there for the crew as after 800 miles they were still as good as new and I needed to have less weight on the way home!!

any Q's give me shout happy to answer them

its an awesome trip, my 1st time to Himalayas and boy the altitude slows you down on those uphills! but stunning scenery, great people, challenging days...watch out for windy valley...I managed 3mph downhill the wind was so strong!

goddamit i'm now jealous!

cookiemonster

Hi

Cheers Brizzle, useful stuff.

I've decided against the 29er and will be sticking with what I know - 26" Harry Rowland built wheels bolted onto a steel hardtail with a 100mm Reba up front. I'll stick with the Marathon XR's just 'cause I have a pair, they're unbreakable and, as you point out, at altitude the tyres will never be the limiting factor

Cheers

Jon