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Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

I’m hoping that some tweaks to my Straggler will scratch the itch for an Evasion but I’ll have to wait and see. I’ve got another 15,000km of touring to do before I’m back in London so the whole situation is a bit of a moot point right now.

Every day I’m dreaming of having more squish…

What rear tyre clearance will you get with the yoke?

I’m day dreaming of getting my Straggler modified to fit 2.2” (while still being able to run a double chainset. Would like to go even bigger but I think the fork clearance is too tight.

Oh jeez, sounds awful. Good luck getting home and I hope the coming months go well.

It’s growing on me, I just can’t help thinking that it looks like someone was a little too keen on the polishing wheel.

Sorry to hear about your crash, hope it wasn’t too nasty and that you’re feeling ok now.

We’re currently in Guatemala and riding the Pan Am southbound . Do you know Andrea and Jake?

@Grumpy_Git Sugino OX is for 68mm bottom bracket shells, I think there was briefly a 73mm version but it’s long been discontinued.

Thanks for the PLP spreadsheet! I’d seen the YouTube video before but missed the list.

Middleburn is an option, I don’t like the curvy smoothed out form of the crank arm but they look much better in situ on a bike than they do in a product photo.

Why mtb cranks? I’m day dreaming about building a Crust Evasion and it has a 73mm bb shell. This whole exercise is fairly academic as I won’t be in a position to actually buy or build anything for at least 18 months but the thought exercise is keeping me entertained for now.

I’m currently touring in a Straggler with 40mm tyres - we’ve been riding a lot more unpaved roads than we thought we would so I’m having fantasies of a new bike with bigger clearances.

Does a good looking external bb mtb 2x crankset exist?

The only options I can see are to spend a small fortune on White Industries or accept what Ronnie Romance is preaching and go square taper.

For context: to go on an on/off road touring bike, 42/26 chainrings.

I think the middle finger tiny fragment is what the doctor here diagnosed (but my Spanish wasn’t really good enough to follow exactly).

Weird thumb thing is just my weird thumb, zero pain around there so I think it’s good.

Thanks all, I managed to speak to some doctor friends and have chilled out a bit since earlier (when I was convinced my hand was in a thousand pieces and about to implode).

Their consensus was that x-rays without an in person assessment is pretty limited but they weren’t alarmed by what they saw and were semi confident things would heal fine.

For all the self certified internet doctors out there - answers on a postcard on which of my fingers is about to fall off.

Any fracture / x ray doctors on here able to look at some hand x rays for me? I crashed last week and am now worried there are multiple fractures (I was told there was only 1).

The hospital I went to is in a different town and I can’t go back and ask. I can go to another clinic but it’s not so straightforward (I’m in Guatemala at the moment).

Looks great!

Have you ever set up your Evasion with 2x? I’d want a double for touring but can’t find any examples of an Evasion with one.

Last week I crashed while on tour in Guatemala and bent the fork on my 8 year old Straggler.

Today - 9 days after emailing Surly - a free replacement arrived in Antigua with the steerer cut to length and a star nut installed. Big shout out to Surly customer service.

I know it’s not a huge deal for QBP/Surly and their CS and shipping departments but when I explained the same situation to Tubus they told me I was on my own and there was absolutely nothing they could do to help.

Tldr: Surly did a cool thing and really helped me out

Thanks, I’m pretty sure the tubes are as they should be. I’ll find a straight edge tomorrow and see if that shows anything.

Small fracture in one of my fingers, slightly bruised ribs and some road rash on my hand - all in all a very lucky escape. I dread to think what could have happened to my face/teeth/collarbone.

Something got jammed in my wheel and flipped me over the bars. Rack and fork are definitely bent.

I think the frame is ok but can anyone advise on how I can check things in more detail. I can’t see any ripples on the dt or tt and there are no cracks. I’ll also try and check the frame alignment with a ruler and string.

I’m currently in Guatemala and decent shops are few and far between. Sourcing a replacement fork is going to be much easier than a whole frame set.

Thanks all, looking at options for what to do while I heal and also how to get the bike fixed. Nothing unsolvable but not super straightforward. I’ve sent some emails to Surly etc to try and source and ship the parts. Plan B is a weekend flight to Miami to collect everything.

Top tip: don’t strap a scarf to the top of your front pannier.

Stupidly did this yesterday and it got caught and jammed the front wheel on a descent. Flipped over the bars and took a pretty big hit.

Luckily we were just outside a village and could get things sorted but the end result is a fractured finger, some medium grade road rash on my hand, mangled Tubus rack, bent fork. I think the frame is ok but I’ll give it a proper look tomorrow and try and check the alignment.

We’ll be staying around Antigua or Xela in Guatemala for the next 3-4 weeks and then hope to continue on the route. We were already a month behind our planned schedule (enjoyed the Mexican dirt roads too much) and would have got caught in the beginning of the Colombian rainy season. Now we think we’ll be so far behind that we’ll just catch the tail end of it and should be able to stay in the dry season for the rest of South America.

All in all not too bad but also we’re gutted to have this set back. Hopefully new parts won’t be too difficult or expensive to source and we’ll use our time off the bike to do some language lessons.

Still a long way to go to Ushuaia

https://www.libraryofthings.co.uk/catalogue/borrow-wet-and-dry-vacuum-cleaner

If you don’t want another thing for a one off job, maybe doesn’t work for an extended project though.

Jinxed myself with the tyre chat - 3 punctures in 2km this morning…

Nothing super recent but these are from Yosemite valley, somewhere in the desert in Baja California and camping at 3400m on the pass close to Ajusco (just outside Mexico City).

In terms of bikes they aren’t too different from when we started. Cassettes have been changed to 11-42t which also meant new rear mechs. I’m slightly regretting bringing my Straggler now that we’re riding more unpaved roads, bigger tyres would be nice although I’m making it work with the 40mm I have on there.

Turns out I’m not much of a writer so ride reports haven’t happened as I intended but we’re still out here riding and having fun.

A whistle stop report of what we’ve down since leaving Alaska:

After the ferry (which was great, camping on the deck 10/10) we headed around the Olympic Peninsular and spent a decent amount of time enjoying the traffic free ODT rail trail. Then down the coast in to Oregon where we headed inland to Portland for a few days. Back over to the coast (on a 38C day) then south to San Francisco.

Here we decided that we’d seen enough coast and that we’d drive to South Lake Tahoe and ride the Sierra Cascade route to LA. The central valley was hot af but we hoped it would be a little cooler in mountains. We were right in some ways but as soon as the elevation dropped the temperatures went through the roof. We got as far as Yosemite where we enjoyed a few days rest despite the wild fire smoke before deciding it would be too miserable (and dangerous) to continue south through the Sierras in 40C+ temperatures. A bus and a rental car later we were in Monterey on the coastal highway again. Down to LA where we had another week off (out to @JB for being our post receiver, putting us up for night and showing us Pasadena).

LA to Santa Barbara to San Diego was fairly uneventful then on to Tecate in Mexico where we started riding though Baja California and Baja California Sur. Initially we had ideas of riding some of the more chill sections of the Baja Divide but those plans went immediately out the window once we discovered how sandy any road other than the highways were. Not a chance on our 40-50mm tyres. The bigger roads were still fairly quiet though and traffic was easy to deal with. Plenty of hot days, killer headwinds, desert camp spots and hot tub temperature sea swimming.

From La Paz we took the ferry to Mazatlán and then joined the Trans Mexico Norte
route. The riding from Mazatlán to Durango has been some of the best of the trip, climbing from sea level to 2800m then traversing the Espinazo del Diablo was incredible. From Durango we had a mainly off-road route to Zacatecas city but after a few days of riding we heard about some spicy cartel activity happening so hopped on a bus for 200km, this was the first time in Mexico we were told the road wasn’t safe and despite not being overly worried about being the targets in any violence we also didn’t want to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Zicatela to Guanajuato to Mexico City, lots of climbing, lots of bumpy roads, lots of paletas, lots of gorditas. Out of CDMX we left the Trans Mexico route and instead went up and over the Paso de Cortés between Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl where we camped at 3600m and it hit -10C at night. Fortunately we picked up so new sleeping bags in the city a few days before. From there we had a great mix of faster pavement riding and super nice unpaved roads to Oaxaca city where we arrived just before Christmas. We spent a few weeks off the bikes on the coast in Puerto Escondido with a fellow tourer we met in Washington (and rode together with for all of Oregon and Northern California) and tomorrow we’re starting the Trans Mexico Sur route to the Guatemalan border.

Men Impossible - ramen but a little different. It’s small and you need to book.

De School - a bit chefy but not crazy expensive, good wine and the service was great. The flavours didn’t blow our minds but it was a fun night out.

Thanks

We’ve got 16000m of climbing in the upcoming 900km which should be a fairly decent test of the current gearing and help decide on cassette choices later down the line.

I’m sure this has been asked and answered before but I’m currently on tour with just my phone and patchy internet so my UTFS skills are low.

I have an XT M781 rear mech and GRX 2x10 cranks and want to lower the gearing beyond the Shimano recommendations.

Mech - max capacity 43t, max cog size 36t
Cranks - 46/30

I’m currently running an 11-36t cassette but would like to change to 11-40t or 11-42t.

How much over the quoted shimano tolerances can I push the tooth count?

Of course! Everyone welcome