And here we thought we had it all figured out…
One of our biggest decisions has been figuring out which bikes we would take on the journey. We searched high and low to find a bike to fit the kids, but finally came to the conclusion they don’t exist. Daryl is still too small to fit on a bike designed for a trip like this. We decided to go with an REI Safari for the kids - knowing that it will be a bit of a stretch for Daryl, but Davy should be fine. I also opted for an REI bike - the Randonee. We ordered both bikes, and they are now in town - we’ll pick up the kids’ bike tomorrow, but are waiting for some parts for mine. That part of the journey was fairly smooth sailing.
The tandem, however, hasn’t worked out quite as we had planned. A local bike store had a Co-Motion tandem in stock, so John and Daryl took it out for a test ride and it was OK - they would need to make a few modifications, but the mechanics assured John it would be no problem to make those changes. We were set.
Two days ago we got a call from the bike store - turns out those changes weren’t quite so easy to make after all. The mechanic had searched a lot, but still had no leads. Maybe it wasn’t possible after all.
John spent all day today on the phone with various bike shops and bike builders trying to figure out what to do. The problem is that now we are down to the wire - getting a bike on this short notice is pretty tough to do. By the time I got home he had narrowed his options down to three - have a bike built by Rodriguez in Seattle (he can do it in three weeks), get a Co-Motion from a guy in New Jersey who has all the parts in stock to make the necessary modifications, or get a Santana from California.
We’ve spent all evening weighing our options and trying to figure out which bike will best meet our needs, and we are thinking we will go with a custom bike from Rodriguez. We haven’t committed yet, but will need to do so tomorrow morning.
In a lot of ways, I wish we didn’t have so many options - it would be so much simpler if someone said, “This is your only option.” But in other ways it’s nice to know we can choose between all kinds of options - and pick the perfect fit. We’re hoping the Rodriguez is that perfect bike.
Now that we’ve smoothed out one wrinkle in the road, we can get ready to face the next one.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Greg // Apr 12, 2008 at 8:09 am
I own (and ride) both a Safari and a Randonee. I pretty much prefer riding the sporty Safari around town with 1″ road tires.
The Randonee is a very well built steel tank of a bike. REI has put a lot of thought into this bike. One issue I have with the Randonee is the 700c wheels when going international (maybe this is no longer an issue?)
Also, I don’t know if you already know this but……
The Safari wheels also have a slight problem. Although the wheels are standard 26″, the wheels (2007 model at least) only accept presta valves. Standard Sharade tubes will NOT fit. The REI mechanic did not recommend drilling out the stem hole on this wheel. Finding 26″ presta tubes in the middle of South America and beyond could be a real issue.
2 nancy // Apr 12, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Yeah - we know there will be issues. But we came to the conclusion that there will be issues regardless of which bikes we choose. We had wanted to all have the same size tire - whether it was 26″ or 700c. But that didn’t happen either.
On our last trip I developed some pretty serious problems with my hands - to the point where we seriously considered calling the trip off. I was able to make some significant changes to my bike and they helped a lot. I still had slight issues, but not too bad. In any case, what we learned from that experience is that comfort is key.
As I looked at various bikes, I came to the conclusion that either the Surly LHT or the Novara Randonee would be fine, but bikes with 26″ wheels had my handlebars too low. And for the kids - there was no way they could fit on a bike with 700c. It’s kind of a bummer, but I guess we’ll just deal with it. If we have to hang around and wait for a couple weeks to have tires/rims sent to us, then we’ll do it.
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