My Bicycle

My bike is a Surly Cross Check from 2008.  I thought about buying a a new touring bike, but after looking at the price tags of new bikes and talking to bike shop folks I decided to stick with what I've got and make some modifications.

The biggest change I made was to add a small 26 tooth chainring for climbing up hills with a loaded  bike.  I wish I had added this when I first bought the bike.  Makes riding a lot easier. Adding the chainring was easy as I didn't need to change the existing crankset, but I did need to change the bottom bracket to a wider 118mm version and found out after the fact that I would also need a new front derailleur.   Apparently Surly now puts a FD on the cross check that can accommodate a triple in the front, but not so in 2008.  

The bike was never the most comfortable bike and I never put much effort into changing that.  I started playing with the handlebar position, saddle position and  tried a dozen different saddles.  I ended up putting on an adjustable stem so I can play around with it.  For now have the handlebars are as high as possible, at a 60 degree angle.  I didn't like the expensive saddles I tested, so I went with a cheap cushy Planet Bike saddle and so far so good.  With padded shorts its pretty comfy for long rides. I will continue to fine tune saddle height and position.

I did a complete overhaul of the bike before I left.  The cones in the rear hub were completely shot from riding with heavy weight on the rear rack.  Apparently Shimano doesn't make one of the cones anymore, but Benidorm Bike Shop in Canton had a couple extra ones in their inventory of parts.  That was a big help otherwise I probably would have had to replace the entire wheel.

Fully loaded the bike weighs 68 lbs, about 35 lbs of gear and the bike is 33 lbs itself.  That is with 2 full water bottles and some snacks. Not ultralight touring, but on the lighter side.    I'm carrying a couple luxury items (ukulele, Nexus 7 tablet, solar charger) but pretty basic otherwise.  I've got clothes, toiletries, sleeping bag/pad, a Hennessey tent hammock, cable lock, and some spare batteries. No camping stove or cooking equipment.  Just a plastic spoon for scooping peanut butter onto bananas.