Amsterdam Tour - 1
Tour Diary, 1994
PREPARATIONS
I approached the tour with a mixture of confidence and concern. On the plus side, the tour had the attraction of being cheap – riding straight from home to my destination. Further, the distances did not seem huge. To a touring cyclist, a tour of roughly 310 miles is rather short. I myself have lost count of the number of century rides that I have done. The idea of doing two century rides over five days was not daunting. On the minus side, I had never ridden a fully laden bicycle over any appreciable distance before. I was concerned that my racing mentality would lead me to drive myself "into the ground" before I reached my destination.
I spoke to some experienced tourists in the club, the A5 Rangers of Towcester in Northants. No one seemed to doubt my ability to carry it off. I had long discussions about stops and gearing. Ultimately, I decided that I would make stops roughly every 40 miles. I decided to keep my 53/42 rings on the front, but to change my block from a 7-speed 12/19 to a 7-speed 12/23, giving me a low gear of 42 - 23 (roughly 49.3 gear inches). I expected the terrain to be fairly flat and thought this was sufficiently low. I also decided to leave very early in the morning to give myself plenty of time for mechanical problems and rest, if necessary.
PREPARATIONS
I approached the tour with a mixture of confidence and concern. On the plus side, the tour had the attraction of being cheap – riding straight from home to my destination. Further, the distances did not seem huge. To a touring cyclist, a tour of roughly 310 miles is rather short. I myself have lost count of the number of century rides that I have done. The idea of doing two century rides over five days was not daunting. On the minus side, I had never ridden a fully laden bicycle over any appreciable distance before. I was concerned that my racing mentality would lead me to drive myself "into the ground" before I reached my destination.
I spoke to some experienced tourists in the club, the A5 Rangers of Towcester in Northants. No one seemed to doubt my ability to carry it off. I had long discussions about stops and gearing. Ultimately, I decided that I would make stops roughly every 40 miles. I decided to keep my 53/42 rings on the front, but to change my block from a 7-speed 12/19 to a 7-speed 12/23, giving me a low gear of 42 - 23 (roughly 49.3 gear inches). I expected the terrain to be fairly flat and thought this was sufficiently low. I also decided to leave very early in the morning to give myself plenty of time for mechanical problems and rest, if necessary.
posted by Ram at 5:57 PM
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