My Bike & Me

Surly Long Haul Truck with 26inch wheels in black - 58cm in size.

After much deliberation I decided on the Surly’s Long Haul Trucker, a bike of choice of cyclo tourists for their world wide adventures, for this ride. Touring bikes like this are near impossible to find in Malaysia and I ended up having to order it through a friend in Singapore who also kindly brought it over for me when he came over for the last Rainforest Music Festival in Kuching. It comes in either blue or “blacktacular” in either 700c or 26inch wheels. I ordered the black colour with 26inch wheels in 58cm size. I added a rear Topeak Super Tourist rack, centre kickstand (there’re spare spokes on the rear chain stay which annoying gets in the way of a kickstand if you want to install it there), a pair of Soma fenders which is also hard to find in Malaysia and which I bought in Singapore (the local bike shop which installed this for me broke one of the plastic bracket and never inform me; the bastard! - it's now held in place by a cable tie) 3 bottle cages and a pair of Shimano XT SPD pedals.

I replaced the stock saddle with a comfortable leather Brooks B17 which is definitely worth the expense (I didn’t have to ‘break it in’ as I have read – fortunately for me it felt comfortable from day one), stem, handle bar, the 2 tyres with 1.75inch wide Panaracer Paselas which I find comfortable and rolls reasonably well. The rest of the bike I left configured as stock.

Currently the bike weighs a hefty 15kg and I’m still not used to riding such a heavy bike. By comparison my Titus X-Racer full-suspension is 13kg, my Giant XTC Team hard tail is 9kg while my all carbon road bike is only 7.8kg. It is the heaviest (and slowest) bike in my stable. I feel really slow (arrggh!) on the Surly LHT but then again I am not going for the speed record – I just want to finish the ride without the bike breaking down and for it to carry me and my gear in relative comfort. But it is the most comfortable bike to ride that I have ever owned; and I have owned quite a few bikes!

That’s about the bike.

54 year old poster boy *ahem* ;-)

Me?
I’ll be 55 on the day of the ride and currently weighs a meaty 89kg (I blame the current durians season) but I think it’ll be around 80kg come 11th December 2011 when I complete the ride! And I'll still be 6 feet tall. ;-)

Rear Panniers

From Wikipedia – “A pannier (pronounced /ˈpæniər/) is a basket, bag, box, or similar container, carried in pairs either slung over the back of a beast of burden, or attached to the sides of a bicycle or motorcycle. The term derives from the Old French, from Classical Latin, word for bread basket.”

I have been looking for them as I need them to carry what I need for this solo trip but the ones available in Kuching though really affordable are of poor quality in materials and fixing method (cumbersome straps that’s hard to put on and remove) to the bicycle racks.  Of even more concern is that they are not waterproof – I like to sleep in dry pyjamas ;-) The most popular brand that most cyclo tourists uses for their world wide adventures is ‘ortlieb’ which I could order from online but their prohibitive pricing meant that each time when it comes to the checkout; I think about my hard earned money and I hesistated!

Made-in-Thailand Vincita Rear Panniers on my hotel bed and soon on my bicycle rack!

So I was quite thrilled today to come across them at a Thai trade products fair in the hall next to the property expo that I was attending at Mid-Valley Exhibition Centre in Kuala Lumpur. Vincita is a small Thai company specialising in making bicycle bags and accessories for the European export market and are trying to penetrate the Malaysian market after having established a dealership in Indonesia already. Anyway I bought their only pair of black (they are also available in red) waterproof rear pannier that they had on display at a very reasonable RM195/-. That’s one item I can tick off on my gear checklist for this trip! Great.