Brilliantly simple and wonderfully comfy.

Unfortunately with this simplicity and use of natural material comes a price.

Late last year after over three years of use my Brooks saddle began to creak.

Sometimes it was a clicking noise and sometimes a creak… but it would only happen when I pedaled and it as someone who likes to ride a silent bicycle, it was driving me bonkers.

Here’s a video of the Brooks saddle creak (in the video it sounds more like a loud clicking) in action:


I’m not sure specifically where the saddle was creaking from, but armed with some Proofide (Brooks recommended treatment for the leather of the saddle), I rubbed it into a few places which seems to have thus far done the trick.

I don’t know exactly which area rubbing the Proofide into worked, so I’m just going to show you all the places I rubbed Proofide into:

Starting with the big bolt at the front, I pretty much moved onto anywhere where metal made contact with the leather.

After letting the saddle sit overnight I whacked it back onto my Long Haul Trucker’s seatpost and tentatively went for a ride.

No more creaking or clicking Brooks saddle for me!

I’ve got no idea why the saddle started to creak or how long this fix will last (touch wood a long time) but I’ll update with a rough timeline should the saddle start to creak or click again.

Typically this means that even when tightened, a saddle’s railings (the metal tubes underneath a saddle) are not large enough in diameter for the saddle clamp to grip properly.

When this happens, in the most extreme of cases a saddle will freely slide up and down a seatpost clamp with ease. More likely however is that a saddle’s railings are only ever so slightly undersized and this in turn causes the saddle to ever so slightly move up and down a clamp.

This subtle movement can cause a rider no end of frustration as these subtle movements can gradually throw out a bicycle fit and cause a rider large amounts of frustration as the problem is not immediately diagnosable.

After working out a saddle is moving, it’s usually much more common to writing off a possible undersized saddle rail problem as the seatpost clamp itself moving on the seatpost.

Diagnosing a bicycle saddle sliding on its rails

To determine if a bicycle saddle is infact moving along its rails when fitted into a seatpost clamp, a simple check is all that is required.

All you need to do is mark the railings and observe them over a short period.

There are a few ways to do this but the easiest involves either some white-out (white correction fluid) or tape.


Using white-out

With the bicycle saddle fitted into the seatpost clamp, carefully mark both the outer positions of the saddle’s railings with whiteout as shown below:


Using tape

If you don’t want to mark your saddle railings, an alternative is tape. Duct tape, electrical tape, masking tape – any will do so long as you can see it clearly.

Using a ruler, place the tape roughly 1cm (or any easily measurable distance, again on the outer sides of the railings.

When using tape, it’s important not to place the tape too close the seatpost clamp itself. If the saddle is indeed slipping along its rails, placing the tape too close to the clamp might stop the saddle slipping and falsely cause you to rule out railing slippage as the problem.

To gauge whether the saddle is sliding along its rails, go on a few rides and then remeasure the position of the tape relative to the seatpost clamp, or if using white-out have a look at where the whiteout markings are.

If the distance of the white-out markings or tape has increased or decreased, you’ve accurately established that the seatpost saddle sliding along its rails is the culprit.

Fixing a seatpost that slides along its rails

The easiest solution to a bicycle saddle sliding along its rails in a seatpost clamp is to either replace the saddle or the seatpost to get a better fit.

Unfortunately this is also the most expensive option and unless you can sell the part you’re replacing, also leaves you with a useless spare (unless you have multiple bikes).

Before you go down this route, with a bit of cheap DIY it should be possible to stop your saddle slipping.

By cutting some old tyre tubing to size,

you can wrap the saddle’s rails with the tubing and then secure it with some tape.

Note that in the photo above I’ve wrapped both rails with the same bit of tape and then secured it with tape. For a more snug fit, you’d probably be better off individually wrapping both rails with separate bits of tubing and then securing them with tape.

When wrapping the railings it’s important to note that you don’t need much tubing at all to create a snug fit in the clamp and that the tubing should be wrapped tightly, free of any looseness.

One drawback of the tubing is that it can be more difficult to adjust the saddle along its railings against the clamp (you’ll need to loosen the clamp more than normal when doing fine adjustments) – to get around this simply put some whiteout on either side of the tubing to use as reference points.

After a few rides the rubber tubing will naturally compress in the clamp so you’ll probably want to slightly tighten the clamp too.

For railings that are more drastically undersized another approach is to take an aluminum can and cut off the top and bottom of the can.

Then, again cut the can vertically so that you have a sheet of aluminum can just large enough to wrap around the railings to increase their size. Note that this is a bit more fiddly as, even if secured with tape, the aluminum wrapping is more likely to move and throw out your adjustment.

Be very careful when tightening up the seatpost clamp to make sure the aluminum wrap doesn’t move along the rails. If you can, get another person to hold the saddle in place while you tighten the clamp and watch the railings.

Both of the above methods should work for most bicycle saddle and seatpost combinations out there, if they don’t – unfortunately there just might be no way around the size difference between the railings and seatpost clamp.

In this case if your happy with the saddle and comfortable in it, it’s advisable to change the seatpost and clamp rather than the saddle itself.

As I habitually do with most bicycles I see out and about I’d glanced over at this one as I walked past. I continued past it but had someone been observing me the slight tilt in my head would have betrayed my afterthought that something wasn’t quite right about this particular bicycle.

Shrugging it off I tried to continue only to stop a few paces from where the thought originally struck.

‘Wait, the saddle…something was wrong with the saddle!’

I turned around and then there infront of me it hit me… this particular bicycle appeared to be using a bar stool as a seat.

‘Now the hell does that even work?’ I thought to myself as I got closer to the bike, wondering how a round bar stool seat could be in any way remotely more comfortable to sit on then even the cheapest of quality traditional bicycle saddles available.

Looking around to see if there was anyone around who might come screaming at me if I touched the bike and seeing the coast clear, I put my hand down on the seat with the intention of having a sit… and that’s when I realised the bar stool seat wasn’t bolted down at all.

Rather, the seat was just being used as a weight to hold down the plastic bag covering the actual bicycle seat from the rain.

‘Thank god’ I thought to myself, relieved that I’d just inadvertently spared myself from an evening of trying to get my head around why someone would bolt a round bar stool seat onto their bicycle.

Meanwhile I don’t know what worries me more, the fact that someone somewhere might indeed find a giant round seat more comfortable to sit on or that I’d just readily accepted that someone here in Taiwan had done the modification and skipped over to wondering why they’d done it.

I dread to think what the next phase in this cultural evolutionary ‘nothing surprises me anymore’ process might be…

Next thing you know I’ll be looking back at half my ‘WTF?’ photos wondering why I took them in the first place.

Missing a seat, deflated tyres, rustbucket rims and spokes (and probably frame), half a handlebar and from the looks of it, no chain.

Apparently this bike is being dutifully held together by the bucket of set cement it’s propped up against. Note that whoever owns it though is still security conscious – the bike appears to have a lock attached near the front basket.

Spotted in Banciao District of Taipei County, I think whoever the owner is really needs to let this one go…

I’ve seen some pretty bust up bicycles riding around Taiwan just crying out for retirement – but I’m pretty sure this one easily takes the cake.

I’ve had my Long Haul Trucker for just over 3 years now and just recently ticked over 15,000 kms on the odometer. By some standards this might not be monumental mileage but I believe it’s more than enough to gauge the componentry of the Long Haul Trucker Complete.

Ride wise my Long Haul Trucker has been as dreamy as when I first got it. Three years later with 15,000kms on the clock and I still wouldn’t replace it for any other bike in the world.

Surly offer the Long Haul Trucker either as a frame or as a complete bike, aptly named the ‘Long Haul Trucker Complete’. Not wanting to fuss around deciding each and every component for my bike, I put my trust in Surly and let them decide on the componentry.

For the most part these components have held up well and by and large I’m still using the original components that came with the bike. Some however have not fared well and have had to be replaced.

Rather than give you a ride quality review (which I can only really describe as excellent anyway), I figured it’d probably be of more use to review the components Surly chose to build the Long Haul Trucker with.

The Bike

My Long Haul Trucker is a 2008 model in the ‘olive green’. Not the 2012 dark green Surly are using, but a few shades lighter.

First and foremost my bike is treated for what it is, a workhorse utility bike. Once of the deciding factors in purchasing my Long Haul Trucker was that I didn’t want a fragile carbon bike with sissy (but expensive) components I had to baby.

Basically if I had to worry about taking bike through the equivalent of a car wash everytime someone sneezed on it… it wasn’t a bike I was interested in.

That said my Long Haul Trucker has only ever been kept outside (under cover) for about 3-4 months of its life and otherwise has always been kept indoors. I do ride my Trucker in the rain but never wipe it down after a ride, it’s always left to air dry.

Finally the bike is taken to a bike shop roughly every six months or so and I get them to strip and clean the drive train. I know how to do this but I’m lazy and it’s just easier to pay someone $10-$15 to do it and not have to worry about it.

Other than that, what you see is what you get with my Long Haul Trucker.

For the purposes of this review, the drive train is due its annual clean sometime in January or so and the bike itself has never been washed or wiped down (other than being ridden in the rain).

The Frame

Surly Long Haul Trucker, 100% Surly 4130 CroMoly steel. Main triangle double butted. TIG-welded.

Can’t say I’ve had any complaints with my Long Haul Trucker frame. Despite not cleaning it once since I bought the bike, there’s no muck build up (thankyou fenders!), no paint bubbling and no visible signs of rust.

All in all, apart from some minor scratches the paint job and frame look as good as the day I bought it and has stood up to any load I’ve thrown at it.

I think the heaviest load to date was when I used the bike to do some runs when I last moved house. Even with a top-heavy load the frame rides like a sturdy rock.

I did notice the rear chain stay on the drivetrain end was getting a bit scratched from the chain slapping the metal, but after whacking on a chain stay protector and since have had no problems.

Fork

Surly Long Haul Trucker, 100% CroMoly, lugged and brazed. 1-1/8″ threadless steer tube uncut.

I’ll admit I don’t know what most of the above description of my Long Haul Trucker fork means… but use wise like the rest of the frame my fork has been perfect.

Looks as good as new and there’s only slight hints of rust.

As you can see not much and as far as I can tell nothing to worry about (I’m aware that rust can form on the inside of tubes but I don’t believe this is happening based on inspection).

Crankset

Surly aren’t using them anymore but I believe my 2008 Trucker is fitted with a Sugino XD 600 (48-36-26t) crankset.

Again, absolutely no complaints here. The gear range of the crankset hasn’t let me down and wear wise I think they’ve got another few years in them yet.

I primarily ride around in the middle chainring so I imagine when the time comes that’ll be all I’ll have to replace once it’s worn down and start slipping.

Bottom Bracket

No photo of the Shimano UN-53 (Surly now use UN-54) Square taper interface. 68 x 118mm as it’s something I’ve never had to pull out.

This Shimano bottom bracket runs as smooth as the day I got my Trucker and I’ve had no problems with it.

Front Derailleur

My 2008 Trucker is equipped with a Shimano Tiagra triple front derailleur but Surly have since downgraded this on the Long Haul Trucker Complete to a ‘Shimano Sora , FD-3403. Silver’.

I can’t comment on the Sora but the Tiagra my Trucker came with hasn’t caused me any dramas. Adjustment wise due to the fact that the front derailleur is on friction selection rather than indexed, I’ve only had to adjust the cable tension once in the three years I’ve been riding the bike.

Rear Derailleur

Again, Surly are currently using a ” whereas my bike is equipped with a ‘Shimano Deore XT RD-M761′ rear derailleur.

This has obviously needed more adjustment than the front derailleur but that’s to be expected. Use wise I haven’t had any problems and imagine I’ll get at least another few years good use out of this derailleur at which point I’d be happy fitting the same model (or equivalent) back on.

Cog Cassette

Running a Shimano Deore XT CS-M770 9-speed (Surly now use the Shimano HG-50) as you can see I spend most of my time in the midrange cogs (who doesn’t).

Performance wise when I changed my chain last a few months ago, I did notice some initial slipping climbing hills on the 26T cog. This is the cog I use to kick off from a standing start and to climb mountains/hills with in the granny gear at the front so wear is expected here.

The slipping seems to have gone now as the chain has worn into the cassette but I’m thinking the next chain change I might have to get this cog swapped out.

I tried hunting around for one online but didn’t turn up much, hopefully it’s easily sourced locally as it seems a bit of a waste to change the entire cassette out if it’s just the one cog that’s worn.

Chain

Surly are using a Shimano chain now but my bike came equipped with a SRAM PC971 chain. I got about 4000km or so out of it from memory before it needed a change.

Not too bad but I replaced it with a Wipperman 908 9 speed chain and am getting a few thousand km more mileage out of the chain. I’ve changed the chain again since replacing the SRAM and stuck with Wipperman, I plan on sticking with them as I’ve been happy with the performance of these chains.

I could probably get even more mileage out of it if I wasn’t getting the chain cleaned only every 6 months or so, but them’s the breaks… I’m lazy when it comes to chain cleaning so I’m not going to pretend that’s going to change anytime soon!

Headset

Surly are currently using a ‘Cane Creek 40 , 1-1/8″ threadless’ headset in the black, but my Long Haul Trucker is equipped with a ”Ritchey Logic Comp1-1/8″ threadless’ one.

Not much to say about the Ritchey other than it hasn’t caused me any problems and does the job well.

Brakes

My bike is fitted with Tektro Oryx cantilevers whereas Surly are now using ‘Tektro CR720′ brakes.

Dunno much about the difference between these two but the Oryx are a pain in the arse. Thankfully the tradeoff is I only seem to have to need to adjust them every 6 months or so but they tend to go off-centre long before that and whilst there’s no rim rubbing, it means one pad wears out faster than the other.

The components used on the Tektro brakes appears to be pretty crappy quality too, as you can see below it’s the only part of my Long Haul Trucker where rust has visibly taken over.

When these brakes eventually fail I’m going to definitely replace them with something else that’s a little easier to adjust. If I’ve learnt anything from my Tektro Oryx experience it’s how much I miss my 5 second adjust with a screwdriver ritual of my Shimano Tiagra caliper brakes I had on my Gitane Mach 1600 bike before the Trucker.

…those were the days. Can somebody please invent caliper brakes that fit wider tires… PLEEEEEAAAAAASE.

Brake Levers

Unlike the crappy brakes themselves, the Tektro R200A levers have been pretty decent (note Shimano are currently using Tektro RL340 levers).

If I had one complaint about the design it’s that I have larger hands and I do find the brake hoods rather small to grip at times. Coming from my large Tiagra hoods on my Gitane, these Tektro hoods were comparatively tiny.

That said I spend most of my time cruising on the flat of the handlebar so it hasn’t been much of an issue. If the levers ever buggered up though I’d definitely be replacing them with something more ergonomically comfortable though.

Note the cut above on the hood was my own fault (lifting another bike over my LHT when the chainring caught on my handlebar), and whilst I initially thought the hood would need replacing, it’d help up pretty well. They might be cheap but at least the Tektro levers are sturdy.

Shifters

Shimano bar-end , SL-BS77 2/3 x 9-speed.

I was worried about using bar shifters initially but can honestly say now that after three years of using them it’s like driving a manual car, something that’s comes completely naturally to me.

Performance wise can’t say I’ve had any dramas with the SL-BS77 levers. They do the job of shifting well and it’s nice to know that if the rear indexing ever buggered up, I can always just flick it over to friction mode and be on my way.

If either of these levers broke I’d have no problems replacing them with the same (or Shimano Dura-Ace 7700 equivalent) and have no desire to go back to brifters (integrated brakes with gear levers).

Stem

Kalloy AS-009 , 26.0mm bar clamp. Aluminum. 4-bolt face. Silver.

No problems with the Kalloy stem, it looks good as new and shows no signs of fatigue or rust. I haven’t cleaned it once and it’s still shiny!

Handlebars

PMT , Silver

Other than what Surly says above I have no idea about the handlebars I’m running. Comfort wise they’re thick enough for my hands to grip comfortably and I especially like the long flats towards the bar ends. These come in quite handy when climbing long hills under load.

The bar tape Surly use, which they describe only as ‘pretty sweet & comfy cork tape’ is starting to noticeably wear on the left hand side of the bars.

Looks to me like it’s just stretched out a bit and needs a re-wrap. I’ve never done this before and haven’t really looked into it. If I can be arsed I’ll google some Youtube videos on how it’s done or just the shop to do it next time I’m in.

The right side tape is fine so whatever bar tape Surly are using it appears to be pretty durable.

Saddle

WTB SST Comp , Steel rails. Black vinyl.

I can’t really comment on the WTB SST. I swapped mine out pretty soon after getting my Trucker and bought myself a Brooks B-17 saddle.

I’m still using the B-17 saddle and will probably do a writeup at 20,000kms on how it’s going. I can’t really see myself using any other saddle and would gladly replace it with another B-17 should it fail.

Seatpost

Kalloy SP-248D, 27.2mm. 300mm. Silver.

Can’t say I’m too happy with the Kalloy seatpost. It’s a one bolt design which is its weakness and for the longest time I was riding it around having to adjust it every 4-5 months or so.

I initially thought this was due to my Brooks saddle gradually wearing in more but turns out the post bolt itself was wearing out and slipping back each time I adjusted it.

After 2.5 years of service and roughly 10,000 or so km’s one day the bolt sheered right through and the clamp and post itself was ruined.

I’ve got photos of all this for a separate article and I’ll update this one with a link when it’s written.

Wanting a two-bolt design, I replaced the broken Kalloy with a Velo Orange Grand Cru seatpost and love it. It’s been on there for a good six months now or so and hasn’t caused me any dramas.

Seatpost clamp

Shortly before my Kalloy seatpost failed, so did my Surly stainless steel  seatpost clamp. Surly were kind enough to send a replacement and thus far it’s worked as good as my old clamp did before it failed.

In the back of my mind is the worry that this one will also eventually fail and should that happen I’m going to replace it with a Surly Constrictor and see how that goes.

Rims (700c) and spokes

Alex Adventurer, 36h. Double wall. Eyeletted. Black.

I’d never heard of the Alex Adventurer brand till I bought my Long Haul Trucker but I can only say good things about them.

To date I’ve never had to true my rims once. Despite some nasty knocks and potholes hit  under load the rims have remained relatively true over the past three years.

They aren’t perfectly straight but pretty damn close to. I like to keep adjust my brake pads real close to the rims and I never have issues with rim rubbing.

The 14g DT Swiss spokes Surly use haven’t caused me and troubles either. Rust free and they get the job done. I haven’t lost one yet.

Hubs

My Trucker is fitted with Shimano Deore XT 770 hubs on the front (HB-M770) and rear (FH-770, which looks to be superceded by the LX T660).

Surly are currently using LX T660 hubs on the front and rear so I can’t comment on them, but my hubs have performed flawlessly.

I’d definitely be happy about fitting them again (or the current equivalent) should something go wrong.

Tires

Continental Contact , 700c x 37mm. Wire bead. Blackwall.

I originally swapped out the Continental Contact tires to use my old 700×28 Gatorskins which I then again swapped out and went back to the Contacts after around 6000km’s.

I’m currently about 600km short of hitting 10,000km’s on my Contact tires at which point I’ll do a separate review and link to it here.

The general feelings I have towards the Continental Contact tires is positive though. Punctures have been far and few between (2 or 3 in total from memory) and wear wise I think I’ll get another 2000km at least out of the rear.

Not too shabby at all considering these tires are almost exclusively ridden with some kind of load on the rear, even if it’s just a single half full pannier bag carrying some random crap.

Conclusion

All in all weighing up Surly’s choice of components over the headache of building a Long Haul Trucker up myself and having to pick out every little part, I’d say Surly have done a pretty good job. The brakes and seatpost are obviously the weak points in the component choice but overall I’m happy with how the parts have held up.

Even now retrospectively I’d still buy a Long Haul Trucker complete knowing which parts are likely to fail over building one up myself (and let’s face it, I’d be using Surly’s component choice as a guide anyway).

Looking forward I have no plans to get rid of my Long Haul Trucker so I’ll do another review like this after the next 15,000 kms rolls around. It’ll be interesting to see which parts are still original and which have been swapped out. And also if any of the swapped out parts have failed too.

Either way, unless you find tediously selecting each and every component for your bicycle exciting, I can highly recommend Surly’s choice of components in their Long Haul Trucker Complete build as a great starting point. And value for money wise, even building one up yourself you’re not going to do much better than the complete model anyway.

Swap out the saddle, maybe change the brakes, whack on some fenders and off you go!

When we found Leela the in the mountains of Miaoli County, one of the things I knew I had to accept was that sooner or later she was going to grow too large for my regular Deuter Rack Pack bicycle panniers.

Enjoying her time as a small puppy being carted around in one of my pannier bags, once Leela hit about 10kg or so last month sure enough I had to make the difficult decision to start leaving Leela at home.

After a few trips without our dog I realised that I had to come up with a solution to carry her. I was willing to invest in a dog trailer if need be, but having a Surly Long Haul Trucker, a touring bike designed for carrying heavy loads, a figured there must be some way to carry her along.

My first attempt at a medium-sized dog pannier involved a lot of chain and one of those metal baskets you use to hang garden pots off a balcony railing or some such.

The idea here was that the metal frame would be strong enough to carry the dog and the chain adequate enough to tie the basket to the rear rack.

Unfortunately upon rigging up the basket I soon realised that it was just too long in design to offer a stable platform for Leela to sit or lie down on. The metal frame was having trouble coping with her 11kg body weight and as such was bending towards the rear. The chain offered little support here due to the basket running past the length of the rear rack by a good 5-6 inches or so.

Additionally having the weight so high up resulted in quite a wobbly ride and the bike was nowhere near stable being wheeled around.

I realised that a ‘flat’ design wasn’t going to work and I had to go for a much deeper basket. Wanting to stick with metal for strength, I searched high and low for a deep metal basket but couldn’t find anything. At least nothing strong enough to withstand carting 10+ kg of dog around.

Giving up on a metal basket I decided to see what I could find in plastic and that first led me to laundry baskets. Plastic laundry baskets were the perfect size and depth for the dog pannier project but unfortunately being for laundry, every basket we found had holes in the exterior making the walls of the basket way too weak.

Any attempt at rigging up one of these baskets to the rear rack and placing Leela inside would inevitably lead to a collapse in the basket wall.

Kitchen bins were also another idea but again the ones we found were not designed to carry weight and had ridiculously thin walls that would also no doubt buckle.

Searching high and low, eventually I stumbled across a perfectly sized plastic tub that felt sturdy enough to carry some weight. It’s a storage tub and set me back around $350 TWD ($11.50 USD)  from Carrefour.

Already having a rear rack compatible with hooks, I hit up Hola hardware store and purchased two hooks along with a T-shaped metal bracket. I felt uneasy about a screw not digging into the plastic and over time slowly enlarging the hole it made in the wall of the tub until the wall cracked under pressure.

The T bracket I felt would take some of the load off the tub wall and prevent the hole in the plastic from cracking or growing.

I didn’t have access to a drill so but thankfully the screws the hooks came with were pointed so I just patiently turned them in with a screw driver until they’d punctured a hole through the tub wall.

Note that before you puncture the sidewall get on your bike and have someone hold up the basket along the rear rack where you want the tub to sit. This is to make sure you have adequate heel clearance when riding.

I decided not to use the pointy screws included with the hooks and instead opted to use 3/16″ x 1/2″ bolts with nuts to secure the basket. The bolts were thicker than the screws and had a flat end. I didn’t like the idea of pointy bits of the hook screws sticking out of the tub.

I had to slightly enlarge the hole with the screwdriver to fit the bolts, but after that they slid easily through.

I used the T brackets on the inside as the base of the hooks themselves acted like a washer on the outside of the basket.

I suppose if you want you could saw off the excess in the hooks for a cleaner design, but I don’t have access to a saw so I just left them as is.

I’ll also mention the design of the hooks themselves. On the rear I used just a standard one prong hook, but for the front I found this nifty two prong hook.

If you place the rack bar between the two prongs of the hook as shown, you can stop the basket sliding back along the rack railing.

Mind you, I’ve tested the tub with the two hooks towards the rear of the rack bar and noted that the tub only slightly inched it’s way back. I have my Kryptonite ‘Fahgettaboudit’ lock strapped to the front of my rack and this provided adequate pressure on the top of the hooks so that they didn’t slide around.

Finally, the last part of the design was a stabilizer around the bottom of the basket to stop it swinging around and/or lifting as I took turns.

The hooks I’ve used are quite ‘open’ in design and whilst they do securely fit the tub to the rear rack, they aren’t as secure as proper pannier hooks on my Deuter panniers. As such there’s plenty of swing movement to be found.

To secure the bottom of the tub I used a simple elasticated flat strap with hooks on either end.

Clipping the hooks onto the rear rack was resulted in adequate enough tension in the strap to keep the tub in place and stop it from rattling around.

The end result?

One very happy 12kg medium-sized dog who can now rejoin me on my travels around Taiwan.

Handling wise due to the deep design of the tub and the fact that it sits low like a pannier, I haven’t had any wobbling or steering trouble.

Even with a much lighter load on the otherside of the rack there aren’t any weight problems and the bike is quite steady to ride, even when coming to a stop at traffic lights and hopping off the seat to stand.

Wheeling the bike with the tub is a bit risky as it’s quite easy to lose the rear wheel if you turn the bike too far in either direction. As such when we stop I simply stop the bike and hop off my seat. After the girlfriend has lifted Leela out of the tub I then swing my leg over to dismount.

This system has thus far worked well and I’m happy to report there was no troubles on the recent 150km test ride we took to the Old Caoling Bikeway and back.

The pannier exceeded my expectations and performed brilliantly.

Luckily for us Leela has pretty much stopped growing and apart from putting on a bit of weight and filling out her frame I don’t see her outgrowing this set up. Weight wise the tub is quite sturdy and I think dogs up to 15kg shouldn’t be a problem. Anything over that and it might be worth thinking about adding an extra hook along the top to help distribute the weight more.

There is notably no rain protection with this setup, although the tub did come with a cover with a small square cut out of it. I suppose I could enlarge the square so that Leela’s head would stick out, but ultimately she’s still going to get wet.

I guess if it did start to bucket down we’d just have to pull over and wait it out. These days I don’t really carry my rain gear around so it’s not too much of a concern.

Total cost for the dog carrying tub setup is as follows;

• Tub – $350 TWD ($11.60 USD)
• Bolts – $30 TWD ($1 USD)
• T brackets (came as a pair) – $50 TWD ($1.65 USD)
• Flat strap – $150 TWD ($5 USD)
• Hooks (2) – $100 TWD each ($6.60 USD total)


Total: $25.85


Considering I was looking at trailers coming in at a few hundred USD… I think this solution was quite economic.

As a final note I’ll mention that this set up isn’t going to work on just any bike. For starters heel clearance is going to be an issue on smaller frames. The Long Haul Trucker has long rear chainstays so it wasn’t an issue for me.

Additionally the Trucker is built from steel and being a touring bike, is built for hauling around heavy loads like this whilst still providing the rider a steady ride to get around on.

If you have any handling issues with a single loaded pannier (load it up past 10kg to check) on your bike, this tub probably won’t work too well on your bike and will compromise the ride quality.

Here’s a roadtest video of the dog pannier in action;


If you’ve got any questions about the design or parts used, feel free to leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.

Happy riding!

A fortnight ago I read enthusiastically about the newly renovated Old Caoling Bikeway.

Opened on October 30th with a 9am inauguration ride organised by Taiwan’s Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Old Caoling Bikway (舊草嶺自行車道) starts off at Fulong train station and after entering the Old Caoling Tunnel, pulls a u-turn and runs along the beautifully scenic east coast of Gongliao District in Taipei County.

Wanting to get out there myself on the 30th, me the and girlfriend got up early on Sunday morning to head out. Unfortunately for us Taiwan’s weather had other ideas and about 20km into the ride, this happened;

Although the rain doesn’t look nearly as bad as it was in the photo, it was enough for me to call it an early day and begrudgingly, we turned around and headed back.

Waiting anxiously through the week itching to get back out there the next weekend, thankfully last Saturday we were blessed with 30+ degrees of pure sunshine and blue skies.

The perfect weather to undertake an epic 150km bike ride through Taiwan’s Old Caoling Bikeway.

Fulong Station

Fulong Station marks the start of the Old Caoling Bikeway and  as you can see is quite busy.

On the right there you’ve got lunchbox places to eat at and there are numerous bike rental places scattered throughout the immediate vicinity of the station.

If you are riding down to Fulong Station or come by car down Route number 2 along the coast, this is the intersection you want to stop at to turn right;

I probably could have taken a better photo of the intersection, but there were tons of cars and bicycles flying around in every direction and for some strange reason the intersection was market with traffic cones everywhere.

One poor traffic cop attempted to try to control the chaos but to little avail.

Fulong Station to the Old Caoling Tunnel

Turning right if you’re just coming out of Fulong Station (or left from the road 2 intersection above), there is a newly paved road starts off the Old Caoling Bikeway and takes you to the Old Caoling Tunnel.

As you can see, this path can get ridiculously busy. Adding to the chaos of inexperienced riders swerving all over the road is also the nonsensical inclusion of cars on the road;

At times, the inclusion of motor traffic on the bikeway can be downright dangerous:

Most of the time however, it’s pretty peaceful and your ride will look something like this;

Apart from the scenery, attractions on the way to the Caoling Tunnel included this group who stopped to play jumprope

and evidently a church,

y’know… just incase you forgot your morning prayers or something.

The Old Caoling Tunnel

Making your way off the paved road, you then briefly descend down into the Old Caoling Tunnel.

There’s some refreshments available around the entrance to the tunnel (the last available for the next 20km’s or so), so stock up if you need a drink.

The tunnel itself is 2km or so long and takes you right into the heart of the mountain it goes through, and then back out again.

Upon exiting the tunnel, riders are greeted with beautiful views of Turtle Island.

Be warned though, the path itself is chaotic and there are bikes and people sprawled out everywhere.

If you’re so inclined, there’s also a bit of grass for you to run around and perhaps eat a packed lunch on or just enjoy the seaside views;

For more detailed information on the Old Caoling Tunnel (including a video of the ride through), please refer to my previous article on it.

The Old Caoling Tunnel back to Fulong Station

After exiting the tunnel, you previously only had the option of turning back around and heading through it again back to Fulong Station.

With the finishing of the refurbishment of the Old Caoling Bikway, you can now enjoy a gloriously scenic ride back to the station along Taiwan’s east coast.

If anything stunned me like a hammer to the head, it was the deeply contrasting spectacle of Taiwan’s gargantuan east coast mountains meeting the wonderfully rich blue ocean roaring on the right of us.

I’m not too sure what this tower thing was, but it certainly stuck out like a sore thumb against the backdrop of mountains and ocean;

Anyone?

Rumbling along there’s plenty more scenic views to take on,

and at some point you come across this not-quite-finished-yet-but-still-very-perculiar-looking ‘Loveheart Lookout‘.

Dunno whose idea that was but I’ll save the rest of the photos of this love heart saturated monument to mushiness for another day.

As you continue, it’s not long before you reach the outskirts of Fulian Village.

Here the path detours off coastal highway 2 and you run through the fishing village.

The views were still quite nice though.

As we left the village, we ran past this funky looking place;

Apparently it’s some kind of local Fulian Village art studio with a series of whacky statues outside situated right on the shoreline.

Lucky them.

The end of Fulian Village was marked with this u-turn in the bikeway

which then lead to a rather steep incline;

Turning the corner after the incline, we then rolled into what I believe was called Maoao Fishery Village.

This descent had a wonderful view of a nearby mountain

Maoao Fishery Villge itself wasn’t all that large but it did extend off the shoreline a bit. We didn’t have time to poke around but I imagine there’d be some refreshments somewhere there.

Leaving the village you then entered this small path

This small path had some nice views, not as epic as the mountains before but more calming and tranquil;

Situated along the path was this randomly erected rainbow stand

A bit of a distance to travel to and not particularly close to anything, but a few people sat on the coloured steps to take a break.

Further down the path you descend once more onto what I can only assume was the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village;

This tiny little series of houses takes the Old Caoling Bikeway right up to the shoreline and offers some pretty impressive picturesque moments.

We made use of the backdrop and took some photos of ourselves, and to share with you I set up the Long Haul Trucker and snapped a few;

This woman was kind enough to come out and offer to top up our water if we needed it.

The water was of course warm but we got the sense she was a bit lonely and didn’t mind stopping for a bit of a chat (well, my girlfriend did the talking, I just sat outside and watched the waves).

I’m not too sure if these were locals or tourists to the area,

but despite the big white writing on the road warning that the area was under video surveillance and nobody was allowed to fish there, there they were… fishing away.

As you leave the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village, you pass through a few more houses

before heading back to Fulong Train Station.

For the most part, the path between the outskirts of Maoao Fishery Village and the train station looks pretty much like this;

Note in that second photo the sign posted distance we’d covered on the track. Once you leave Maoao Fishery Village these posts become much more frequent, and I don’t recall seeing too many, if any at all before we left the village.

This stretch of path was definitely a bit of a wind down scenery wise but still decent enough of a view to take in.

Also of note is that whilst the rest of the Old Caoling Bikeway is not lit, this final 4km or so stretch seemed to be the only part of the bikeway that had provisions for lighting;

Finally nearing the end of our trip, we approached the outskirts of Fulong

passing through the Fulong Beach area (a private beach that I’ve marked to visit at a later date)

There weren’t too many temples in the area but this was probably the largest, what I believe to be DongXin Temple;

And finally, the path back towards the intersection,

and the end of the path where we started from;

All in all, quite an eventful and relaxing ride. Note that there is about another 5km of path that extends northward to Aodi, but due to a lack of light we didn’t make it up there. I felt the round trip was good enough in any case, and unless you had nothing better to do there’s no real reason to take the extra 5kms.

The route we took is highlighted below in red and came to about 20-25kms in total (click for Google Maps).

Access to the bikepath can either be via car or bicycle from Taipei City (50-60kms) or via the TRA train line down to Fulong Train Station.

Having ridden up in the morning we did try to catch a train home with the bicycles (we’d done about 80-90km for the day at this point), but we were told we’d have had to of waited two hours or so for an available ticket on the train.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this was due to not too many spots per train for bicycles and a ton of people wanting to take their bicycles back with them. If you’re going to travel by train to Fulong Station and bring your own bicycle, I’d highly recommend booking in advance.

We instead rode back the way we came, coming in at just under 150km in the saddle for the day.

Definitely recommended riding as a weekend getaway or daytrip up in Taiwan’s northern Gongliao District if you find yourself in the area.

Known to most Taiwanese folk through recital of the famous Taiwanese nursery rhyme, ‘Diu Diu Dong’ about a train going into the tunnel and the sound of water dripping inside, the Old Caoling Tunnel (舊草嶺隧道) is a designated ‘old historic site’ by both Yilan and Taipei counties.

Construction on the Old Caoling Tunnel began in 1921 until the project was finished in 1924 and although retired in 1986, the tunnel still serves as an important cultural and historic landmark for Taiwan.

Stretching in at just over 2 kilometers in length (2167 meters), the Caoling Tunnel was the longest tunnel in Taiwan when it was built nearly 100 years ago (I’m not sure how long it remained so).

Re-opened in 2006 as a bikepath, Today instead of trains rumbling through the tunnel one instead can find hordes of bicycles.

Yesterday, I was on one of them.

A short ride from Fulong train station, the entrance to the Caoling tunnel is decorated with many train themed statues (either by association or looking like they were built with train parts) along with an old retired train itself.

Here you had a horse along with little cannon looking things made out what I believe were old train signals.

These man and woman statues were looking their industralist best;

Meanwhile these large blue painted train wheels welcomed riders approaching the tunnel entrance.

On display was also this old orange train;

Note the red ‘no climbing’ sign on the second photo… and the inevitable unsupervised child climbing the train.

The Fulong side entrance of the Caoling tunnel is overgrown with green shrubbery and trees and really looks as if over time that nature itself has reclaimed the surface it was built on.

Note the policeman standing at the entrance to make sure order is kept and nobody is riding dangerously. Although you can’t see it in the photo (getting a clear shot of the tunnel was hard due to the popularity of the site), an inscription on the Fulong side reads: ‘Overcoming obstacles of nature‘.

Given the clear dominance of the greenery around the entrance, I’m not too sure this inscription still rings true.

The inside of Caoling tunnel is a mostly grey affair with interesting patternwork on the ground detailing the often ignored bicycle lanes riders are supposed to adhere to.

‘Cultural revolution’ style Chinese music was pumped through the length of the tunnel via invisible speakers and placed every 100m or so were also fire hydrants, I guess just incase anyone’s bicycle simultaneously burst into flames…

Here’s a video I took of the entire 2 kilometer ride through;


Upon exiting the tunnel on the Shihcheng side, things are even more chaotic than they were on the Fulong side.

After riding through the tunnel, riders are immediately rewarded with some pretty nice views of Turtle Island.

In the immediate area just past the tunnel entrance there’s also some open space to relax and perhaps eat a packed lunch;

Interestingly enough, whilst the new train line isn’t visible from the Fulong side of the Caoling Tunnel entrance, on the Shihcheng side the train line runs right next to the park area.

If you’re patient enough, it doesn’t take long to witness a TRA train run past at speed on its way down the east coast.

Unfortunately there’s no way to continue down to Shihcheng after exiting the tunnel and this point you’ve got the option of returning through the Caoling Tunnel, or taking the newly opened Caoling Bikeway.

The Caoling Bikeway just opened last weekend and was the main reason I down in Gongliao District of Taipei County.

Unlike the bike paths I’ve cycled on Taiwan’s west coast, the Caoling Bikeway was at times breathtakingly beautiful and picturesque.

Till then, I’ll leave you with this shot of the entrance to the Caoling Tunnel from the Shihcheng side;

Note that like its Fulong counterpart, the Shihcheng entrance also has an inscription that reads: ‘Where white clouds fly’.

Getting to Caoling Tunnel is a relatively easy affair and those wishing to visit either have the option of cycling out to the tunnel from Taipei (what I did) which is a 150km or so round trip, or catching a TRA train to Fulong Station.

After you exit Fulong station, you can either hire a bicycle from one of the many vendors around and head down the newly resurfaced road down to the tunnel (turn right as you exit the station) or walk down (20-30 mins) and hire a bicycle from just outside the tunnel itself.

Caoling Tunnel is situated in Taiwan’s north up in Gongliao District in Taipei County. The tunnel is open daily from 9am to 5pm to visitors but note that on holidays (weekends and public holidays), only bicycles are permitted to enter the tunnel (though I did see some people walking through it). Prams and tricycles are also not permitted to enter the tunnel.

I have no idea where it comes from (perhaps due to the population density of Taiwan, doing whatever it takes to make your vehicle stand out in the crowd), and despite the silliness of it all seems to have taken on a sub-culture of its own.

Now that’s all very well if you’re of age to own your very own scooter or car… but what about the younger generation?

Well, turns out Taiwan’s kids have adopted their elder’s fanaticism with unique automotive styling and adapted it to what they have available… namely bicycles.

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the craziest bicycle fender styling you’ll ever see;

From the looks of it, the owner has bought a bunch of rear plastic detachable fenders and simply bolted them together to create one giant monstrosity.

For me, the beauty of the bicycle fender has always been in it’s simplicty of design and ability to melt into the bicycle’s natural styling. This guy however, clearly has other ideas. I mean cmon, does your fender really have to sit higher then you do on the bicycle. And what’s with the massive tire clearance?

Does this design even work??

Granted it’s just a bog standard dual suspension mountain bike (a favourite of students in Taiwan), but surely this guy realises that adding more fenders onto your rear doesn’t make your bike look any cooler?

Points for effort and creativity sure, but sorely negated by the fact that you look like a complete moron cycling around!

Spotted in Toufen Township in Miaoli County, unfortunately the owner was nowhere in sight so I was unable to ask them about it. Meanwhile, fast forward a few years and I’d love to see what this person does to their first scooter or car…

Often next to footpaths (or combined), Taiwan’s bike paths seem to appear, disappear, merge with roads and take you places you don’t really want to go.

And that’s just the paths! Whilst travelling on them you’ve also got to watch out for random stray dogs, speeding blue trucks and of course my favourite – bloody scooters who think bike paths are a scooter express lane.

Despite the Taiwanese government making some noticeable effort at building more bike paths (that sadly also don’t seem to take you anywhere you want to go and make no sense when integrated into the existing infrastructure), this is how seriously the locals themselves take Taiwanese bike paths;

Spotted on a ride through Jhunan (Zhunan) Township in Miaoli County, it’s an all too common illustration of what could be wonderful cycling infrastructure, but is sadly built in the middle of nowhere not on the way to anything and is subsequently ignored by locals.

A perfect photo summarization of Taiwan’s current bike paths and urban cycling culture if ever there was one.

For now I’ve settled on a cheap yumcha bicycle stand but each day I’m reminded that it’s only a short term solution. When standing the bike isn’t as sturdy as I’d like it to be and due to the cheapness of the stand it probably only has about another year in it before I’ll have to replace it.

In my search for a suitable kickstand for my Long Haul Trucker, the most viable solutions thus far have been the Clickstand and Pletscher twin leg kickstand.

For now I’ve ruled out the clickstand on the basis that it’s annoying to have to flick it out each time and bind my handlebar brakes each time I stop. That in my mind isn’t convenient and kind of negates the reason for getting a kickstand in the first place.

The Pletscher on the other hand worries me as that little area above the bottom bracket on the Long Haul Trucker isn’t designed to house a stand and I’ve read all sorts of things about chainstays collapsing under load.

Surly themselves refuse to address the issue so it’s been left up to Long Haul Trucker fans themselves to come up with a solution.

Recently I was contacted by OzSoapbox reader Claude Rioual and not only had he knocked up his own solution to the Long Haul Trucker kickstand problem – but it looks pretty damn good too!


Foreword: Engineering and knocking things up in the workshop is something I’ve never been good at. For this reason I’ve omitted my own commentary and instead relied on Claude himself.

Truth is I got fed up when everyone told me you can’t successfully install a stand on the Surly. This mount took me around 2 hours to make and install.

4 pieces of 1/4″ lexan glued and stacked. Shape is determined by trial and error. I used paper and then cardboard to get a tight fit.

Depth was established using a crescent wrench (adjustable spanner?) depth corresponds to the width of the chain stays.

Lexan (Poly-carbonate) was cut oversized and pinned and glued with contact cement and small brads (nails).

I used a band saw to cut the pieces as one unit. A saber saw or even a hacksaw will work too. However, a small cabinet or glass shop can cut this for little money.

I then used a belt sander and sanded down the unit until it slipped in and out between the stays. (the sander will create heat and loosen the contact cement, hence the brads/nails. Sand the top until the nails are flush.

IMPORTANT; this block should be slightly smaller than the stays are thick. I used 5 lexan pieces, 1/4″ each; together they are less than 1 1/4″.

If the block is too thick the stand will move around. Rubber gasket material is used to make up the difference and creates a tight fit. See drawing.

Top Plate was made large enough to extend sightly over the centerline of chain stays. It is flush at the front of spacer block and extends only to the cutout. For appearance I chamfered the top edge of the top plate.

Use double sided tape on the spacer block. Hold spacer block in place and line up top plate and press in position. Mark and drill top plate and spacer block.

Remove top plate and slightly enlarge these holes so screws do not bind. In spacer block tap the holds to the thread size of the machine screws used. (I used 3/4″ #8 stainless phillip head screw).

If a tap is unavailable simply use a drill motor with a screw and slowly work the screw in and out until the thread is cut.

Screw the unit together and check the fit between the stays it should be able to wiggle a wee bit. With the unit in place ‘eyeball’ the placement of the kickstand and mark the center line for the mounting hole.

Drill a hole to accept the mounting bolt (the hole needs to be a little larger to allow the bolt to slip through without catching the threads). Countersink the top plate so bolt is flush with top plate.

Gasket material is rubber. Tire tube is cut to the width and length of the base of the kickstand.

The rubber pieces are glued to get the proper thickness. I used 3 pieces glued and stacked below the spacer block and 2 additional pieces between the chain stays and and the first 3. See the drawing for clarification!

The pressure created by the bolt and the kickstand is transferred to the area of the spacer block. The gasket that covers the chain stays creates enough friction so the kickstand will not rotate.

Last bike-packing trip my bike weighted 80# and the stand held firm.


The schematic diagram Claude’s notes reference is included below (click to enlarge);

Despite not understanding half of that – I must say the end result looks freaking awesome!

Here’s the kickstand mount itself;

and here it is mounted on Claude’s Long Haul Trucker;

Unfortunately I myself don’t have the know how to reproduce Claude’s mounting bracket but I’m publishing this in the hope that it benefits those that do. If you’ve got any followup questions feel free to shoot Claude an email over at claude.rioual(AT)gmail.com (published with permission).

Being a touring bike the Long Haul Trucker really needs a kickstand solution as in places like Taiwan it’s just not feasible to rest your bicycle on something or on the ground each and every time you stop.

Sadly for now Surly don’t seem to care but here’s hoping they eventually listen to the people riding their bikes and help us out in the future. If Surly themselves came out with a ready made bracket themselves I’m sure I’m not the only one who would snatch one up in a flash.

Till then, hats off to people like Claude for making it happen!

At the time I remember checking my handlebars, seatpost and saddle. Noticing nothing out of the ordinary I continued to ride for a few weeks until one day I heard the backup rear light I keep strapped onto my seatpost bag was hitting my rear rack.

Immediately I realised that slowly but surely my seatpost had been creeping down. It’d now sunk down low enough that the rear light was in a position to hit the rear rack railing everytime I went over a bit of bumpy road.

Noting that nothing looked out of the ordinary, I undid the seatpost clamp and raised the seat a bit. As I began to tighten the seatpost clamp I noted that it wasn’t tightening.

After a quick inspection, I then found the culprit of my slipping seatpost.

My Surly Stainless seatpost clamp had a big giant crack running through it.

Being in Taiwan I fired off an email to Surly asking them if they knew the best place to go and pickup a new seatpost clamp here. In a show of great customer service, despite being well out of warranty by over a year, Surly offered to personally send me a new stainless clamp free of charge.

I did ask Surly if they knew what might have caused the failure of my original clamp (so I could avoid it happening again if it was something I did), but they never got back to me with an answer.

I don’t usually play with my seatpost once it’s set and I’ve never had a serious accident on the Trucker so I’m pretty sure the crack on my seat clamp had developed over the long term. Starting out small no doubt it’d probably grown to the point where it was unable to keep a good grip on the seatpost itself.

Me tightening it (not too tight obviously) after raising the seat post back up then was probably too much and the crack went right through.

Personally I think it might have something to do with the relaxed seat post angle of the touring style of riding the Long Haul Trucker offers. Unlike most road bikes which are a lot more vertical the Long Haul Trucker is quite sloped on an angle.

Perhaps a few years of this is caused some undue stress on the clamp eventually causing it to fail. Of course it might have also just been a dud that was going to fail anyway.

Eventually my new seatpost clamp arrived in the mail and all was well again. They even went an extra step further and sent me a Surly sticker decal to use somewhere.

I’m not a fan of plastering brand names everywhere so as of yet I haven’t used it and probably won’t, but the thought was nice.

The stainless clamp itself wasn’t new, rather it looked like it’d been salvaged off another bike, which was cool with me. Personally I was just happy that Surly decided to save me the annoyance of ordering another clamp myself from overseas or trying to track one down here in Taiwan (and then most likely waiting whilst they ordered one from overseas).

For now the replacement seatpost has been working as intended and I haven’t noticed any problems. I’m a bit weary of history repeating itself in a few years and should this replacement clamp also fail, I won’t be replacing it with another Surly stainless clamp.

Instead I’ll probably go a step up and whack a Surly Constrictor clamp on there. From what I understand the constrictor clamps are a bit chunkier and offer a more secure clamp onto the seatpost, which might help with the relaxed angle of the Long Haul Trucker.

That and at around $15 USD they’re quite reasonably priced too. The only downside I can see is that unfortunately the Constrictor is only available in black.

Hopefully replacing the Surly stainless is either a few years off yet or, with any luck, won’t be needed at all.

Being somewhat of an enthusiast of classic bicycles and being somewhat disappointed with Taiwan’s offering of Giant road bikes or boring run of the mill mountain bikes students use to get around, I always have an eye out for the more unusual looking bikes on the island.

With all the boringness, thankfully they’re not all that hard to spot, despite being relatively low in number.

On a recent walk I almost did a doubletake when I ran into this Proflex 253 hybrid bike circa early 90′s.

Truly it was one of the more weirder looking bikes I’ve ever seen.

To the untrained eye it looks like any other hybrid bicycle you’d see out on the roads but pay attention to the big chunky silver chainstay.

What you’re looking at there is a bolt on elevated chainstay (yes, I had to look the term up as I had no idea what it was).

Particularly interesting was the front end of the design featuring a removeable bolt setup and extra metal on the frame itself to accommodate the chainstay and keep it above the bottom bracket.

Offering the convenience of no chainslap (the chain hitting and scratching your frame) when you go over bumps and the ability to remove the chain without a breaker (you just bolt off the chainstay), elevated chainstays seem to have been all the rage back in the early 90′s.

At the time they featured mostly on mountain bikes but as evidenced by this near 20 year old ProFlex, seem to have also featured on hybrid bikes too.

Personally I doubt I could ever own one as I’d probably just find myself constantly staring at it in bewilderment. That and I imagine the constant ‘OMG WTF IS THAT?!’ questions would get old fast.

Despite not being completely stand out retro, I’d personally never seen (or heard of) an elevated chainstay bike so it was interesting to spot one for the first time. Originally I had all sorts of ideas on how perhaps it was some kind of adjustable chainstay or maybe the owner had custom built his own chainstay for whatever reason.

Having not seen elevated chainstays before, I wonder why they stopped building them?

When I’m on my bicycle and it starts to rain, there’s nothing more annoying than that sinking feeling you get as your toes and feet start to get wet.

It starts with complete dryness to that trickle you feel start at the base of your shoe… and before you know it your entire foot feels like a big giant wet soggy sponge.

And then you start to freeze.

Even with waterproof overshoes, I noticed that if I rode in any serious wet conditions, for some reason the inside of my cycling shoes, along with my socks always got wet.

At first I thought this was due to water eventually seeping in through the top of my overshoes, but even when I invested in a pair of waterproof pants, the wetness persisted.

With my overshoe completely covering the entire top of my shoe, the only place left to look was the bottom, and that’s where I found the culprit.

On the bottom of nearly every road or mountain bike shoe are a series of hole designed to accommodate a series of cleats to fit most pedals.

On my Diadora mountain bike shoes I have four such holes. Now if your cleats utilise all four holes, then this is great – but if you’re like me and run Shimano SPD mountain bike cleats, you’ll note that only two of the cleat holes are used.

Unfortunately, due to the design of cleats, these holes offer a direct passage for water into your shoes.

Now it might seem a little odd to be concerned with small tiny holes on the bottom of your shoes, but don’t forget, when the roads are wet your front tire is constantly kicking up water into your front shoe.

Even with mudguards, enough water get flicked up onto my shoe

The solution?

Let’s seal them up!

Now before we start, the obvious drawback here is that if you do change your cleats in the future to a four bolt design (or want to shift your two bolt cleats to use the other holes), you’re going to have a bit of a hard time removing the sealant.

For all intents and purposes this is a semi-permanent solution, so keep that in mind before you decide to do it.

With that out of the way, here’s how to completely waterproof your cycling shoes.

1. Get some silicon sealant

In order to seal those extra cleat holes, first you’ll need some silicon based sealant.

Being in Taiwan I didn’t really have any idea what to get so I just grabbed any old bathroom silicon sealant (yes, I had to rely on the picture!).

2. Pull off your cleats

Next you’ll want to pull off the cleat from the shoe. Most cleats use a hex (allen) key setup so just use the appropriate size and pull the cleats off.

Note that if your cleats have been on for a while (over two years in my case), then they might be a bit stiff to remove. In this case a small thin screwdriver might come in handy.

3. Apply the silicon

Using the applicator (you’ll probably want a smaller tube of silicon, I couldn’t find one), place a suitable amount of silicon around where the cleat sits in the shoe.

Make sure you cover the holes the cleat doesn’t use. When you’re done it should look something like this;

4. Attach the cleats back onto the shoe

This is simply the reverse of pulling the cleats off the shoe.

Once the cleats are on, it doesn’t hurt to carefully go over where the metal meets the shoe just to offer a bit of extra protection (this will likely crack anyway due to the nature of using cycling shoes but it doesn’t hurt).

5. Let the shoes sit for 48 hours

Different silicon might have a shorter curing (hardening) length of time required, but to be safe I’d recommend letting the shoes sit for 2 days.

Whatever you do, don’t try to decrease the curing time by using a hair dryer or external heat. The shoes should be allowed to dry naturally.


6. Enjoy waterproof shoes

Once cured, when combined with overshoes, your cycling shoes should not be waterproof.

Due to the beating cycling shoes take, I imagine over time the silicon might need replacing (especially if you change cleats) but so far for me things have been good.

My cycling shoes are going on three years come November so I’m probably betting the shoes give in long before the silicon does.

Over the last few months I’ve had various bits and pieces on my Long Haul Trucker Complete (as sold by Surly) start to fail.

As such, either due to not being to find original replacements or just wanting to try something new I’ve replaced a few things and my bike is definitely going to look different come the end of 2011.

In light of these changes, I decided to keep a track record of my Trucker and changes I make to it over the years. With nearly 15,000 kms on the clock and being almost three years old, I figure more stuff is bound to break over the next few years.

By keeping a record, not only do I have something to look back on and see how the bike’s changed, but also perhaps those with or considering buying a Long Haul Trucker can see what they’re potentially in for a few years down the road.

Without any further ado, here’s how my Long Haul Trucker looked at the start of 2011;

Compared to the stock Long Haul Trucker Complete,

• I’ve changed out the WTB SST saddle and replaced it with a Brooks B17.
• The SRAM PC971 chain wore out at around 5-6000 kms and was replaced with a Wipperman Connex 900 chain which is still going strong after around 6-7,000 kms.
• Out of necessity, I added a kickstand. No specific brand, I just walked into a Taiwan bicycle shop and asked them to fit one (there’s absolutely nothing to rest your bicycle against here, and footpaths are rare).


As I mentioned earlier, recently several other stock components have
failed and had to be replaced so my bike looks a bit different now as we get into the second half of 2012.

I do plan to write about the individual components failing (as well as a complete review of the Long Haul Trucker Complete stock components when I hit 15,000 kms’) but I won’t be showcasing the entire bike again until January in 2012.

From there I hope to make it an annual post cataloging the changes made to the bike over the years to come.

When I was doing my research into touring bikes, one of the things that was constantly in the back of my mind was the fact that steel rusts.

Being a mainstay of most touring bikes, I was slightly worried about how a steel bike would fare in the longterm. After all, there’s plenty of yesteryear steel frame rustbuckets kicking around…

Thankfully almost three years and 14,000 kilometers later after buying my Surly Long Haul Trucker complete, I can confidently say that it doesn’t look like rust is going to be a problem on the frame. At least not in the near future.

As for the componentry? Well, that’s another matter.

Not wanting a bike I had to pansy over or pussyfoot around with, my Long Haul Trucker gets ridden in any weather conditions. I don’t care whether it’s raining, hailing or hell even if Taiwan is throwing typhoons my way.

If I need to get to where I’m going, I go.

Having said that my Long Haul Trucker has never been stored outside permanently in the elements in the near three years I’ve owned it. It’s always been kept undercover and out of the rain.

That said when I do get back from a wet ride I never wipe it down and to date I’ve never cleaned the frame.

As I said before, if I wanted a princess bike I’d have gotten something carbon.

Now that you’ve got an idea of the conditions my Long Haul Trucker’s been exposed to, let’s take a look at the rust.

The Tektro Oryx Cantilever Brakes

Back in 2009 the Tektro Oryx brakes used on the Long Haul Trucker complete topped my list of things I’d like to see changed in the 2010 model.

Fast forward two years and unfortunately Surly are still using them. Along with the fact that they’re a pain in the arse to adjust and maintain I’ve now also got another reason to hate them.

Rust.

Without a doubt the bolts used on the Tektro Oryx brakes are of a much cheaper quality then those used on the rest of the Long Haul Trucker. Here’s a shot of how my front brakes currently look like;

and here’s the rear;

Not only are the screws holding on the brakes completely rusted but so are the bolts holding the actual pads in place, again both the front and rear are affected.

These bolts have been standing out like a sore thumb on my Trucker for a while now and it’s only because they still work that I haven’t replaced them. Rust or not rust I don’t like to just turf parts (within reason).

I know one day they’ll probably fail (hopefully not both at the same time!) at which point I’ll finally replace the Oryx brakes with something better.

I wish Surly would use better brakes that didn’t look so cheap and nasty after just a few years. If this is what they look like being stored inside I can only imagine how bad they look on a bike stored outside.

The Long Haul Trucker frame

As I said before frame rust is pretty much non-existent but there are a few spots I’m not too sure about.

The bolts on the bottom side of the downtube are looking a bit discoloured;

The hole on the front fork also shows signs of rust;

as does this hole in the bit of the frame that runs between the two seatstays under the seat;

I’m not sure if these are indicative of possible greater rust inside the holes or not. They don’t look too bad from the outside but the slight rust is noticeable, here’s hoping it’s just surface rust.

The Front Derailleur adjustment bolt

This bolt stuck in place not long after I got my Long Haul Trucker which always made adjustment a bit difficult.

Add to that it’s now covered in rust and as you can imagine adjustment is never just a matter of simply turning this bolt.

The bottom bracket bolt

Finally there’s also a bit of noticeable rust on the bolt at the bottom of the bike which secures the bottom bracket and cranks into place.

This obviously gets pretty wet in the rain being at the bottom of the bike so I’m not particularly worried about it (yes I know the chainrings are pretty dirty, they’re due for a clean at the end of this month!)


All in all I’m pretty happy with the lack of rust on my frame. Areas like the seat post, crank arms and handlebars are just as shiny as ever and completely free of rust.

Of the areas that are rusted, it’s accurate to say that it’s only really the Tektro Oryx brakes that are giving me cause for concern. Partially because it’s clearly the most rust affected area of the bike and also because the rust there is just so darn visible.

At this stage though it just seems to be the bolts affected so I guess as long as they don’t snap in half or something I should be right.

To date the Rack Pack panniers have been exceptional. The material is as good as new, the clips work flawlessly and they are still as functional as the day I bought them.

Over these three and a half years however I have discovered that the Rack Pack panniers do have a weakness. Today I’m going to talk about how to plug this weakness and make your Deuter Rack Pack panniers absolutely bulletproof.

Perhaps not so much of a weakness as a design flaw, the weakest component of the Rack Pack panniers are the little bolts that secure the bottom mounting bracket to the panniers themselves.

Due to the design of the Rack Pack panniers featuring the securing nut on the inside of the pannier storage area, I found that over time the loads inside the bag would slowly turn the nut making it loose.

This in turn would put extra pressure on the securing bracket as it’d have room to play against the back of the pannier and the rack.

Initially I just put up with it and routinely checked and tightened the bolts as they got loose. Over time though the threading in the plastic nuts became worn and one day I found I couldn’t tighten the bolts anymore.

I could still thread the bolt into the nut but it wouldn’t hand tighten, it just kept spinning around. Figuring it was tight enough to get me around, I continued using the panniers in this state until one day I noticed the bolt had fallen off sometime during my last ride.

A little annoyed, I trudged off to the hardware store and picked up some phillips head screws that fit the bolt hole in the plastic securing nut (I hadn’t lost the nut as it had fallen loose inside the pannier itself).

After fitting a phillips head screw to the securing mechanism, again I found after a few months the bolt would work itself loose. Wash, rinse and repeat, I figured it was only a matter of time before the thread inside the plastic nuts wore out to the new size of the Phillip’s head screw, and I’d be back in exactly the same position.

I thought about approaching Deuter themselves to seek a replacement bolt and plastic nut, but figured that this too meant that in a year or two once again I’d have the same problem.

Opting to fix the design flaw as best I can, I then came up with the idea of using superglue to lock the bolts into place.

In doing so, I realised that I effectively risk severely damaging the securing nut should I ever want to separate the securing clip mechanism from the panniers. Having owned the Rack Pack’s for around three years at this point however, I’ve never had to remove the mechanism so I figured the chance of me wanting to do so in the future would be buckleys.

My first step was getting some glue and for this particular application I just used some random 3M superglue.

What you want to do then is get some in the hole of the plastic nut and onto the bolt itself (note that in this photo I’m using a phillips head screw because the original bolt fell off on a ride somewhere).

Before the glue sets, all you have to do then is screw the bolt back into the nut and let it set. I gave my panniers a day of rest before going back to using them daily.

When done and dry, they should look something like the photo on the right.

So far it’s been about six months now and I’m happy to say that all has gone well. With glue holding the bolt and nut together I don’t even  need to tighten the securing nut anymore from the inside.

With the glue coming in at under $5 it’s a cheap and easy fix that guarantees you won’t have to worry about the bolt and nuts coming loose or worse still falling off.

On the off chance that you do buy a different rack, note that you’re only gluing the bracket fastening bolts and nuts (2 in total for each pannier), and not the bolt that holds the slidey catch hook thing in place. The hook thing has never come undone in the time I’ve owned the panniers so I haven’t had to worry about gluing it.

Other then these bolts coming loose the Rack Pack panniers have performed flawlessly and now with a cheap fix I expect to get a good deal many years extended use out of them.

Should they break, minor design flaws aside you can bet I’d be more then happy to purchase another set. It’s rare you find a bicycle product that works as great as the day you bought it after nearly four years of use out on the road.

Definitely built to cart a bunch of kids around, the only viable reason someone would buy one of these bikes I’d imagine is because their a parent… specifically a mum (I only imagine I’d ever see dad on one of these things if he’d smashed up his scooter somehow).

So, what do you get when you cross a three seater bicycle designed for mums, hot pink and some Hello Kitty action?

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the MILF bike.

Spotted in Zhongxiao Dunhua in the Daan District of east Taipei, this Merida FTB-5 three seater bike (minus the third rack seat cushion) was sitting all by its lonesome.

With a matching pink helmet, I could only hypothesise that whoever owned the Hello Kitty bicycle was none other then one hell of a hot MILF.

Unfortunately despite the bicycle being unlocked, the owner was nowhere to be seen… still, whoever let reality get in the way of a good fantasy.

Here’s to the unknown hot MILF owner, she can give me a dink… anytime.

On the hunt for a replacement and out of touch with the cycling glove scene, I set about searching for a glove that would hopefully last me as long as my RXs did.

After checking out Taiwan’s woefully inadequate Giant gloves scene (seriously, try and buy cycling gloves here that aren’t Giant branded or some noname cheap Chinese crappy brand), I decided to hit the internet and see what was on offer.

After a few weeks of deliberation, I finally decided to try out the Castelli Pro Gel Light cycling glove.

After six months or so of use, here’s what I think of them.

There’s two things you’ll immediately notice when you first try on a pair of Castelli Pro Light gloves.

The first is that they make you look like Spiderman, and the second is that they come preshipped with a godawful smell. I don’t know what Castelli do to the Pro Light gloves at the factory, but the smell they arrive with that comes from the plastic mesh covering the gel inserts is terrible.

For the first month or so of use you walk around with really bad chemically smelling hands. After six months of near daily use, I can still get a faint whiff of the manufacturing smell if I hold the gloves up to my nose, but thankfully it’s stopped transferring onto my hands.

Fit wise the Pro Light is reasonable. I have large hands and opted for the ‘extra large’ size. I personally found the Serfas RX much more contoured and well fitting on my hand in general compared to the Castelli Pro Lights.

The difference can be equated to a pair of well fitting jeans (the RXs) vs. buying some ill fitting crap that feels like you’re walking around with boxes over your legs.

One particular area the Castellis fail fit wise is around the wrists. When I’m riding I can’t help but notice the gaping holes the gloves make around my wrists.

This I assume is due to relying on elastic to secure the gloves around your wrist rather than a better fitting velcro strap.

Padding wise I was a bit skeptical about the plastic mesh covering the gel inserts but surprisingly it’s held up well. The Pro Light glove has three inserts in total, one across the top and two larger ones in the palm area.

I dunno much about the ergonomics of pad placement but the Pro Lights seem to have the pads in the right places and of a suitable thickness as I get no discomfort riding.

The longest I’ve been in the saddle was just over eight hours with these gloves and I had no dramas at all.

Durability wise though I can’t say the same. To date nothing has gone wrong with the Castellis but I am noticing the stitching is starting to come undone all over the place.

Whether or not this is means my gloves are going to fall apart in the near future or not I don’t know but it does make the gloves look untidy. One culprit I think is the fact that even though their advertised to come with them, my Pro Lights didn’t have any finger tabs on them.

This means that in order to take the Pro Lights off, I have to pull at the gloves themselves (typically around the little finger and tab where the wrist is (which probably isn’t helping with the elasticity of the wrist area of the glove either).

Unfortunately this is unavoidable as there’s no other way to cleanly take the gloves off without the advertised finger tabs. Whether or not the Pro Lights last as long as my RXs remains to be seen.

Stitching aside though, so far the Pro Lights are wearing in nicely and you can see the wear points below;

The palm material does feel a bit cheap (and thin!) but so far so good. I could be a bit biased coming from my RXs in which the palm material was much thicker and ‘clothy’ feeling.

For the pricepoint the Castelli Pro Light gloves come at (just under $30) they’re a nice fit and reasonably well constructed. The padding gel has holes for extra ventilation and even on the hottest of Taiwan’s days I haven’t had any problems with sweaty palms.

Would I buy another pair? Probably not (I need my finger tabs!) but for someone looking for a comfortable summer glove the Castelli Pro Light glove delivers decent quality at an affordable price.

I’ll publish an update when they eventually start to fall apart from wear and tear so stay tuned for that. Although if the Castellis last anywhere as long as the Serfas RXs, it might just be a while yet.

On display are complete bikes, accessories and more interestingly various prototypes and bicycle innovators looking to attract investment in their patents.

Sounds interesting and it should be, but the Taipei Cycle Show is anything but public friendly. Walking into the show you very much get a sense that this event is put on solely for big business and that the general public are more of a nuisance.

This is reflected in the show’s schedule. Starting on Thursday the show is closed to the general public for two days and then on Saturday when the public can enter (for $200 TWD), the show only runs from 9am-3pm.

What’s worse is that you can’t actually buy anything there, despite there being tons of merchandise from tons of manufacturers and distributors on show.

As I mentioned earlier the show is spread out over four floors, including a exhibition area and small stall area outside the first floor (ground).

The first floor is quite large and on display are bicycle parts and accessories. For your average bicycle consumer most of the brands are going to be alien though as they’re mostly wholesalers and manufacturers on this floor.

There were tons of Asian and European companies I’ve never heard of who presumably sell their parts to the bigger players who then order them rebadged with the brands we’re familiar with.

An example of this was a display out the front touting Taiwan’s ‘Top Makers’;

Out of the list I only recognised Giant and Merida, I had no idea who the other manufacturers were.

Needless to say walking around not really recognising anything got old pretty fast and we decided to make our way to the fourth floor.

This floor was even larger then the first and thankfully offered more to visitors than just random bicycle parts. On the fourth floor you had some nice demonstrations as well as complete bikes on show.

I spent most of my time on this floor and had quite a bit of fun checking out some of the more unusual offerings on display.

This was an interesting unicycle design from Taiwanese company Taroka. It doesn’t stop you from falling sideways but does a nice job (I presume) of stabilising the unicycle in the forwards and backwards directions.

Folding bikes had a big presence at the show and the first one I saw was this offering from ‘Divide By Zero’ or db0. It’s a power assisted (electric) folding bike for commuting that has an onboard generator hub on the front to assist with pedalling.

Not too sure if I’d ever get a power assisted bicycle, but I can appreciate the market that exists for it.

There were some nice recumbent on display too, these particular ones were from US company Cruzbike;

Again, not a style of bike I’d ever buy myself but they are pretty to look at.

The Bianchi stall got a bit of a giggle out of me with this promotional poster.

I told my girlfriend if we ever got married it’d either look like that, or replace the bicycle with a Mini… (I think she thought I was kidding).

In a nod to Transformers, this parts manufacturer (forget the name) had this tall robotic figure setup.

It didn’t actually do anything but it had lots of parts that moved around mechanically and looked impressive. More of an attention grabber than practical robot.

This Japanese company (forget the name) had an interesting quad bicycle on show.

As you can see, the girls at the stall weren’t too happy with me snapping a photo but I was quicker than they were!

Kind of stupid really trying to stop photos. I mean I can appreciate the smaller guys wanting to protect their patents but the amount of guys walking around with big professional cameras I’m sure made the whole exercise futile.

I was shooting with my stealthy Nokia N8 and had it preset to the camera. After whipping it out of my pocket and using the touch screen shutter button,  I could take photos before anyone’d realised what was going on.

And if anyone did notice, I was already walking away before they had time to do anything.

Although not technically a bicycle, this ShopRider enclosed scooter was kinda neat to look at.

Being entirely electric I’m not exactly sure what it was doing at a bicycle show but it certainly garnered a lot of attention, (probably from people like me curious if it had pedals inside the cabin or not – it didn’t).

These lowriders were kinda amusing.

Definitely not built with practicality in mind and I’ve never actually seen anyone ride one out in public.

Coming back to the portable bicycles were these little cute bikes from ‘Bag and Bike’ or B&B.

I haven’t been able to find a web presence for these guys but I imagine these little bicycles fold up taking next to nothing in space. No idea how they ride though.

I’ve ridden a folding bike once and found the steering was really ‘loose’ due to the smaller wheelbase. I imagine these tiny little things are only worse!

Dahon had a decent stall setup;

Dahon didn’t have on show the bicycle I wanted to look at, the Bullhead but they did have the Mu P7 on show so I was able to see that upclose.

Unfortunately no test rides though.

They did however have the ‘Tournado’ on show which is Dahon’s folding touring bicycle offering.

Coming in at around $60,000 TWD (~$2000 AUD), or it might have been $80,000 I can’t remember. I was impressed by the folding capability of the bicycle but rather turned off by the fact it only had one accessory eyelet on both the front fork and rear triangle.

Kinda stupid for a fully fledged touring bike to only be able to fit either fenders or a rack, but not both. Not being able to fit both was enough to turn me off the Tournado altogether… although I admit it is a nice looking bike.

I thought this road bike from some company named ‘Wheeler’ was quite nice;

This weird bike from K124 didn’t have a seat.

Not too sure what was going on there but I assume it’s some extreme downhill bike or something where sitting isn’t something you do too much of.

These portable bikes from ‘Sliding Bike’ were kinda interesting. Instead of traditionally folding over like most folding bikes, they instead slid together to collapse.

Easier to fold than a folding bike but once folded they somehow didn’t look as portable as their folding counterparts.

Hello Kitty made an appearance in the form of this folding bike.

I wanted to get a more detailed shot but they had the bike tucked away in the back of their stall. Getting the sense they weren’t very public friendly, I had to settle for a zoomed in distance shot.

The ‘Duke’ From Solu Bikes was a special treat, hearkening back to the more classical style of bicycle frames.

They claim that this style of frame offers a more natural riding position and the frame is much stronger then a regular setup. All that is easily believable but as my girlfriend pointed out, what happens to your crotch when you slam on the brakes?!

In a similar style ‘Strida’ had this portable bicycle on show.

Here it is folded;

Again, dunno what happens to your crotch in the event of an accident, but they certainly make for interesting looking bikes.

This chrome finished bike from Bannard was something special, offering a unique way to blind everyone on a warm sunny day.

They also had a very nicely styled road bike offering too;

Some of the stuff coming out of Japan was verrrrry nice.

Double wheeled tricycles and some awesome classical looking road bikes.

Unfortunately some of it was rather not so awesome too;

Best of luck to whoever rides that bicycle around with a straight face!

On the innovation side of things, ‘Dreamslide’ had these interesting pedals on display.

Instead of your traditional non clipped smaller pedals, these ones were designed to take the full load of your foot. I assume this translates into more power at the pedal and a far more stable platform to push off on.

Only problem I could think of was the lack of circular movement available (due to the pedal striking the ground) and whether this translates into any noticeable loss of power or comfort.

Unfortunately yeah, no test rides so that question will have to go unanswered.

These guys (Jinn Junn or Jinn Jiin?) had an interesting pedalling mechanism set up.

Instead of the cranks being attached directly to the front chainring, they sit infront and are connected by a rod. The rod isn’t connected properly in the bike in the photo, it connects directly to the crank/pedal.

They were claiming a 40% increase or something in efficiency which was interesting. Loved to have tried the system but no demos!

Once I found out you couldn’t buy anything, my main interest for going to the Taipei Bicycle show was to get some dealership addresses for parts I would usually buy overseas.

I found a local dealer for Pletscher in Taichung as well as some retailers for some decent looking mountain bike shoes (I usually only see road bike shoes in the bicycle shops in Taiwan).

And most of all I finally found the dealers for Surly in Taiwan.

They had a nice blue Long Haul Trucker in the 26″ wheels set up for display and a Karate Monkey from memory.

There’s two or three dealers located in Taipei and Surly is distributed by some Taiwanese company I’d never heard of. I actually thought they wouldn’t be represented at the show as I couldn’t find them on the listing (they put their wholesale company name down instead of Surly or Salsa in the listing!).

The fifth floor of the bicycle show was mostly Chinese companies and again was boring, and the sixth floor felt like the first floor (parts companies I’ve never heard of) but was rather cramped. It kind of felt more like office space that had been tacked onto the rest of the show. Didn’t spend much time on either the fifth or fourth floor.

As I mentioned earlier Taipei’s Bicycle show isn’t really public friendly. You can talk to the guys running the stalls but with tons of businessmen walking around you really get the sense that they can’t be bothered with Joe Public.

For instance there was this one stall all in black that looked to have an interesting drivetrain setup. The tagline was something like ‘The discussion on efficiency ends here’ and the set ups looked really interesting, but I didn’t feel comfortable approaching the one guy sitting at the stand frowning into his computer.

Not when there were big groups of businessmen walking around with presumably millions of dollars in contracts to research.

Although the bicycles were nice to look at, now that I’ve got the names and addresses of some dealers so I can buy locally – I probably won’t go to the bicycle show next year. There’s just not enough in it unless you’re part of the bicycle industry.

Personally I reckon they should just close it off to the general public altogether and just rename it the Taipei Bicycle Trade Show. As someone who likes bicycles a lot, I was amazed at how bored I was walking around most of the time!

Meanwhile given the amount of bicycles made in China and Taiwan, somebody needs to set up a proper public exhibition show in Taiwan with demos, sales and displays… that’d be awesome.