Steve's Technical Talk

Without too much thought because of budget, and what we already had, decent hard tail mountain bikes seem almost perfect. Although there are plenty of smooth tarmac trails there are enough rougher tracks to warrant fat tyres and a bit of suspension. The stability is also good with the extra weight being carried.

Julia's bike is running 3×9 gearing, whilst mine has 1×10, which is proving fine, rarely needing more gears for uphills, as there aren't many (yet) or for going faster as you never seem to hit fast stuff either.

Although we've already replaced a tyre from a split, (I think it could have been there before we left), amazingly no punctures yet!!

Regular maintenance has been spoke tension, chain lube and checking free play in wheel bearings, bottom bracket and headstock.

To try to charge the phone I fitted an old fashioned dynamo with a handlebar mounted USB charge adaptor, theory being to charge whilst cycling. After fitting a second dynamo because the first one seized up, I'm still not getting a charge. Tried everything so far so rather frustrating.

It's going to be interesting what sort of tyre wear we get, along with disc pads and chains. We've done about 500kms so far so too early to say. We're averaging about 50kms a day, which doesn't sound too much, but by the time you de-camp in the morning, fire up the old girl, cycle, lunch, cycle and start looking for a good place to camp, the day is done. With some better weather we may improve. I'll keep you posted...