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Comment by matsemann | Hacker News Reader

How would a different kind of bike setup fare? Like tubeless, or belt-driven etc, any gains doing untraditional things? Of course, one value in doing it plain is it's easy to fix and get parts anywhere.

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> one value in doing it plain is it's easy to fix and get parts anywhere

That's probably the main value. In the article it says he waited three days for a bike chain - I imagine it would have been even longer waiting for a belt. Belts also limit you to single-sprocket rear wheels since they don't work with derailers - hub gears can be reliable (see the legendary Rohloff hubs) but they're expensive and add another difficult-to-source part to the build in case something goes wrong.

There's even something of a cult myth in touring that steel frames are superior since they could be theoretically fixed by anyone with a welder. I'm not sure if I've ever heard of this in practice, though.

I have a pinion gearboxed mountain bike with belt drive, 10000km and going strong, same belt.

Same here, I am at half that on a touring bike. Belts are amazing!

I do carry a spare on tours

I made around 11000 km with a belt on a cargo bike before selling it and the belt on the current one is at ~6000km. Belts are amazing, especially when it comes to maintenance.

But I would still avoid going with a belt on a tour anywhere that’s remote - not because the belt itself might break, but the hub (as for this guy), or a sprocket or anything that is uncommon, but required when riding a belt.

wouldn’t a spare belt be quite light to pack anyway ?

Problem is that if anything else breaks you're pretty fucked if there is no good bike repair shop nearby.

Chain can go few k already so just getting it replaced at start of big trip is enough

What mountain bike do you have?

I would guess the Priority 600X adventure: https://www.prioritybicycles.com/products/600x

As far as I know, that's the only mountain bike sold with a pinion + belt drive stock.

Nicolai also manufactures mountain bikes with a Pinion gearbox and a Gates belt:

- HT Argon GTB Pinion https://en.nicolai-bicycles.com/bike/argon-gtb-pinion/

- FS SATURN 11 GPI https://en.nicolai-bicycles.com/bike/saturn-11-gpi-2023/

- FS SATURN 14 GPI https://en.nicolai-bicycles.com/bike/saturn-14-gpi/

Woah, that belt chain tensioner on the GPI... very nice solution to a common belt drive issue!

Thanks for the link, I'd never heard of these folks. Love seeing innovation like this in bicycles.

One popular bike touring writer is a big fan of belt drives: https://www.cyclingabout.com/belt-drive-best-bicycle-drivetr...

I started a long tour across Europe with my bike set up tubeless and gave up about halfway through. Even in Europe, access to consistent sealant to top up inconsistent, and reseating a tubeless bead with portable tools is difficult when possible. And one still needs to carry tubes in case of tubeless failure, which is generally messy. Tubeless ideally trades less roadside maintenance for more at-home maintenance.

Alternate ways to reduce flat risk while touring include armored touring tires (which can be somewhat slower & less comfortable due to how stiff they are) and/or by adding sealant to one's tubes.

Tires and rims differ substantially but you often don't need to reseat the tire bead if you remove the valve core and inject sealant through the stem. High volume hand pumps and soap can usually seat tires in place of CO2 cartridges. If you do need to insert a tube, the mess from the sealant makes life absolutely miserable, you're totally right.

Topping up, reseating? My experience with tubeless (on a mountain bike) is that I buy a new set of tires, pour some sealant in (Stan's NoTubes), put them on a bike and then ride until there's no tread left. I don't think I've ever had the sealant dry up. And that's with a regular rim meant to be used with tubes, converted to tubeless with an aftermarket kit.

I agree with having to carry a tube or two in case the tire fails catastrophically, but other than that I consider tubeless bulletproof. No experience with touring though.

Wondering what "long tour" means here, because you usually don't need sealant top-up very often - maybe once or twice a year in my experience. You have to pump tubeless tires regularly though (lose pressure more quickly than an inner tube), BUT in exchange you need a severe encounter with something extreme to get a real puncture. I had travelled with finger-sized nails in my tires without even recognizing it...

This isn't a ton of miles for the period of time; the main complication is that he's doing it in rural areas, carrying a bunch of gear, in a foreign country. Given that scenario, bike tourers frequently opt for the equipment most likely to have replacement parts available. Which means boring, conventional stuff.

It is a ton of miles for the period of time, because it's an average including all stops. If something breaks, you lose time. If you get sick, you lose time. If you get saddle sores, you lose time. Doing that many miles without a serious injury that sidelines you for weeks is a skill in itself.

Many people, with at most a month of practice, could survive riding 40-100 miles in a day, but many of them would be so worn out or would injure some sort of muscle such that they couldn't do 2 in a row - much less 200.

Citation: I've done a variety of 200-400 mile community group rides and seen people in all sorts of shape, but have done it enough times with enough different people to see a diverse number of outcomes.

It's remarkable for untrained, absolute beginners -- sure. But I have friends who do 15,000 miles/year, for example.

Tubeless is probably the least problematic of the newfangled bike tech when it comes to bike touring in remote areas. You get the benefit that most punctures will seal themselves. If the puncture is too severe for the sealant to work, you can easily convert to a conventional setup with a tube.

I agree with this, but you do need to "refill sealent" every 3-6months. The fallback from tubeless->tubed is an advantage that I've used for both recreational and racing.

The other nice thing about tubeless is less rotational mass, meaning less caloric burn.

One radically different approach would be going for low weight, basically the bikes you'd see in road racing with some minor changes for longevity. For 10k miles you'd want to carry two replacement chains and three or four tires (not pairs), and a generous amount of tubes (the author's argument against tubeless is perfectly valid, they are only tubeless until they are not). Even with all routine spare parts (and some selected not-so-routine) much lighter than the "unbreakable heavy duty" bikes that keep breaking in surprising ways, 10k miles isn't much to those fragile-looking speed machines. But the caveat is that you'd have to radically minimize luggage, because if you'd pack the fragile-looking like the seemingly unbreakable, they would quickly cease being fragile-looking. Just like the seemingly unbreakable would completely fail to disappoint, without the load they usually get burdened with. (bags impose far more stress on the bike per unit of mass than the rider, because the rider separates his mass from the bike with active, predictive suspension while the bags just hang on)

Assuming that you still want offroad capability, you basically just described a cyclocross bike. And going on an ultralight tour on a modified CX bike sounds super fun!

I've done long distance rides in Asia and I'd strongly suggest using as standard parts as possible, for exactly that reason: the bike shop in some middle-of-nowhere village will likely have something you can use.

When long distance touring you're also usually pulling around a fair amount of baggage, so don't bother trying to save a few hundred grams here and there on bike components if it isn't standard stuff.

Hi! I wrote the post. I was pleasantly surprised how widespread the pads for mechanical disc brakes are, the rotors, and a 10-speed chain. In general, a complete new 26" or 29" MTB wheel is going to be readily accessible.

How feasible are tubeless setups on long tours? I'm curious. Anyone who MTBs knows about the dramatic improvement. In just the past year I would have had 50+ flats using tubes. I'm positive because I pull out thorns by the dozen. None require patching since the sealant fills the submillimeter holes immediately.

Being able to locally resupply with a compatible sealant is the main impediment. 4-8oz spare fluid in a packed bottle covers one refill. How often do you need to replenish sealant on wheels being used all day every day in mixed weather?

> How feasible are tubeless setups on long tours?

Very in my opinion, but I'm coming from a bike packers perspective.

Start the route tubeless and run it until it fails. When that happens throw a spare tube (that you should be carrying anyways) in it. If that goes flat, patch it.

Converting back to tubes is easy: take the value stem out -> put in tube. Yes, it's messier but it's not like you're showering regularly anyways.

> Being able to locally resupply with a compatible sealant is the main impediment

I would think that tubeless setup + plugs with spare tubes + a patch kit would get you far enough for this to not be a major issue. Carrying a small bottle of sealant would help. Worst case, you run tubes the rest of the trip.

Note: These are just my thoughts as a (formerly) sponsored bike packer.

Hi! I wrote the post. I had a friend talk to me about tubeless before I went, and I'm happy I didn't do it. The sealant would need to be replenished. And the first real gash would mean going back to a tube. I was super happy with the Tannus liners (13mm of protection) despite adding some weight and rigidity (the bike was already a tank).

> The bike was taken in to a mechanic for a full tune-up seven times, and for small things a few more visits.

Considering this, a tubeless sealant top-up at each of these visits would have been no extra chore. Just sayin' :)

Gotcha! It was impressive how fancy gear mountain biking is popular in all the big cities along the Andes. They "road bike" on MTBs a lot. In Colombia they are nuts for cycling and have some seriously pricey rides. Definitely the sealant is in all the big cities. Some of my tune-ups were in small towns.

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