This is a work in progress page and will be updated as and when we have the time to spare, if anyone has any burning questions please feel free to drop a line and we can answer any questions and add to the page.
Bike - Thorn Adventure Tandem.
Has performed excellently. The only issue we've really had with the bike is that after the Australia leg of the trip, the dry coupling for the hydraulic disk brake decided that it didn't want to undo. My only real problem with this bike is the cost of buying it in the first place. Den's only problem was that she overheated on the back, due to me acting as a fantastic windbreak.
The only things we have changed on the bike are the things Thorn did not reccomend!! so 1 week in to our trip Rich swapped his drop handlebars for flats and our over geared 44 tooth chain ring was swapped before we left for a more hill friendly 39 tooth ring.
I would reccomend seriously considering whether the disc brake is really worth the extra expense as we have managed for over 2 months with a fully loaded bike on some serious hills and not missed it (we also have carbide supersonic coated rims and specific brake pads and have not had to replace them in over 4500 miles!!). However, now it is on the back with me and I love it!! but it is a lot of money and if you have S&S couplings the brake appears to looses power with the dry coupling, if you have got S&S couplings put it on the stoker bars or not at all. You can buy an awful lot of brake blocks with the saved money.
Tent- Terra Nova Voyager XL.
This has not performed so excellently. The basic concept is great, stick a porch on a standard Voyager and the tent goes from a good long haul tent for 1 person to theoretically a good tent for 2 persons. WRONG. we have a few issues with it which are listed below....
1. The porch size is great although you have to crawl through it to get to the sleeping compartment, not great in the first few weeks of cycle touring with creaky/sore knees and bad back!
2. Then comes the condensation, the instruction says to unzip the doors from the top a little way, done, then open the inner door leaving the mossy net in place, done......still we get condensation, then the crawl through is precarious as you invariably get a wet back!!, only on really windy nights is it clear in the morning,
3. Pooling, the pond liner effect, due to the design of the tent and the fact that the fabric stretches when wet, water is able to pool on the roof!! Apparently when the tent is wet you have to swap the holes you have the poles in to make the tent fabric taught. Which is a great idea except when it starts to rain at 3am and you wake to pools of water bulging down to you from above.
4. The tent specific protection footprint ground sheet thingy we bought to go with the tent appears to rob you of space in the sleeping compartment, without it connected there is at least a extra 10cm in the width of the tent. This is not so bad at the wider end of the tent but at the bottom it narrows considerably and we have to overlap our thermarests but still we end up with the inner tent pressed against the fly sheet and wet sleeping bags on occasions.
Having said all of this we have resigned ourselves to the fact that we have this tent and have to get on with it, so here are some plus points, for its size it is light weight, the colour is good for stealth camping (dark green), once you know know how to put it up properly it is quick to erect. the porch space is large (but you can only store in half of it),
So having said all this we would not recommend this tent to anyone and would say have a look at the Nallo GT, more expensive but perhaps with reason!
Contains: Park tool allen Key set, spanners 8m, 10 and dumbell spanner (lots of sizes) tyre levers, two spare inner tubes, patches, anti seize paste (which went splat everywhere!), lock tight, 1spare brake and 1 gear cable, leatherman, chain tool (pay out for a decent one), spare links, spare mini pump, spare brake pads for for V brakes only, 8m socket for impossibly diffucult nut on mudguard, tape, S&S coupling and Rohloff tool, zip ties, spoke keys, spare spokes (make sure you get the right ones, Thorn gave us the wrong ones and they built the blumming bike!!), rohloff oil chain kit and oil, of which we should have put more on!!
Tyres - Schwalbe Marathon XR 2" and Schwalbe Maraton Plus 1.75"
We started out on Marathon XR's and found them to be great for some of the stuff we were doing like the Rail Trail in New Zealand and the gravel roads we found ourselves on. But if we know we are only going to be on tarmaced roads we will in future choose a less rugged tyre as they were a bit over kill, still with a protection strip in but a narrower slicker tyre. We inspected the tyres in Cairnes Austrailia and decided that after 3000miles the back one was looking a little too warn to really hack it in S.E.A. We found that Maraton XR's have been discontinued so had to go with what they had in stock which was a Maraton Plus 1.75" which I have to say although is thinner and a lot less knobbly has not let us down yet, mind you with the combined weight of the tandem, luggage and us it think it will stick to just about any road. We will be changing the tyres for the LEJoG trip that we have planned for next year to 1.5" touring slicks.
Stove- Primus Omni Fuel
No complaints here, does what it says on the tin, cooks food fast, is a bit noisy and i was scared of it in the beginning. Once you get the hang of priming the burner it works a treat.
Water filter - MSR- micro works (I think)
We only used this a couple of times and then sent it home and have spent the whole of our Asia leg kicking ourselves for it. We are going to pick it up when we return for our whistlestop tour of family and friends in November so will give a full review when we have used it a few times and I remember to update this!
OK we are now in South America and love this water filter, so long as you keep up with the cleaning so your arm does not break off trying to filter all should be good. We find it really quick to do about 5 litres, we stand our cook pot in the sink and run water in to that then filter from there, it says we should put drops in too but have not done so and have had not ill effects. just need to remember to boil it every so often.
Excellent piece of kit.
OK we are now in South America and love this water filter, so long as you keep up with the cleaning so your arm does not break off trying to filter all should be good. We find it really quick to do about 5 litres, we stand our cook pot in the sink and run water in to that then filter from there, it says we should put drops in too but have not done so and have had not ill effects. just need to remember to boil it every so often.
Excellent piece of kit.
Sleeping bags -NorthFace, Blue Kazoo
1 left and 1 right hand zip. These are good sleeping bags, roomy and even roomier when zipped together, packs down small for a down bag, happy with these babies.
Sleeping pad- Nano-air Thermarest
Apart from having to blow these up instead of self inflating there is nout wrong with these, they may be a little on the slim size width wise but its good motivation for the diet!! coupling bands are great for these although standard size thermarest ones don't really fit properly but we make do.
Silk sleeping bag liners
I have a rab rectangular shape one which is great and Rich started out with a mummy style one but found it a real pain so had a rectangular shaped one as a late birthday present! These are also helpful if the bed linen is a little unsavoury in any flop houses you unfortunately have to stay in.
panniers and bar bag - Ortleib Backpacker plus (corduroy) front and rear
These are excellent bags and so far have kept all our gear totally dry through some pretty harsh rain storms, easy to attach to bike and very easy at the end of a long hard day to take off.
second set of panniers for South America leg - Carradry by Carradice (rear only)
Larger capacity than Ortleib, and so far have kept all stuff dry under some pretty harsh rain. Cheaper than Ortleib but the one thing we would comment on is the fact that their connectors are very tricky to use and they are consequently a really pain to get on and off the bike how ever they do the job and for two thirds of the price of Ortleib.
These are excellent bags and so far have kept all our gear totally dry through some pretty harsh rain storms, easy to attach to bike and very easy at the end of a long hard day to take off.
second set of panniers for South America leg - Carradry by Carradice (rear only)
Larger capacity than Ortleib, and so far have kept all stuff dry under some pretty harsh rain. Cheaper than Ortleib but the one thing we would comment on is the fact that their connectors are very tricky to use and they are consequently a really pain to get on and off the bike how ever they do the job and for two thirds of the price of Ortleib.
Trailer - Phillips BOB yak copy.
This was a desperate buy in Dunedin New Zealand. It was the only one in the shop and after a few hitches in the beginning it has been a great buy. having said that there are a few things that it falls down on. The weight.... it weighs a fair bit which is not great for air travel, it has contributed to a broken spoke or two, the laminate seams have de-laminated in places, it does encourages you to pile things in so can add to the Denyze equilibrium effect of too much stuff!! but on the whole the trail has been a good investment and we have come to like the fact that it has one wheel as we think a two wheel trailer may have been a hazard in Australia as on some roads you had to hug the grass banks/verges extremely tightly to save being hit by passing trucks, we think a two wheeled trailer may have ended up dragging us down a bank or two. Although it is now in serious need of some TLC in the form of a new linch pin which is kind of the integral part of the thing, it is loosing its shape in the worst way but hopefully at the time of writing it has another 1000 miles left in it.
first aid kit
wet weather gear
Denyze- Gore bike wear top and trousers
Love them, keep you dry and they pack down small and are light weight. shame they don't do larger sizes in Women's as I had to get men's trousers with very long legs!! but all in all very good. No complaints except I need a hood!!
Richard - Cape- Generic design bought in France
Its very waterproof, compared to expensive rain gear it does the same job for about a 8th of the price. Having said that it is a fantastic sail in a gale and will really annoy you! also it does not do much for your legs but Rich is a hardy fellow and puts up with that.
Denyze- Gore bike wear top and trousers
Love them, keep you dry and they pack down small and are light weight. shame they don't do larger sizes in Women's as I had to get men's trousers with very long legs!! but all in all very good. No complaints except I need a hood!!
Richard - Cape- Generic design bought in France
Its very waterproof, compared to expensive rain gear it does the same job for about a 8th of the price. Having said that it is a fantastic sail in a gale and will really annoy you! also it does not do much for your legs but Rich is a hardy fellow and puts up with that.
mosquito net
Camera
Non biking stuff we have found useful
Rucksac- handy as panniers are a pain to carry stuff in.
Umbrella- sounds like a luxury and is but, is far the best sun protection I have found when out walking around hot places and is handy if it rains when off the bike.
Netbook computer - love it, so useful and Wifi is becoming more and more common everywhere.
Snack pack- Until Tibet we had a single snack pack that sat underneath Rich's saddle below my handle bars, it was great as we stored the little camera in, this was great as I was able to whip it out at the drop of the hat and snap away at things we would otherwise have missed or had to stop for. Now we have one each, rich has the old one and I have a new dual one, this can accommodate camera and snacks.....my idea of heaven.
Teva sandles- sounds rather mundane but we bought these in Bangkok after having sweaty feet in Northern Australia and can say they are definitely better to cycle hot countries in than walking boots/shoes.
Tupperwear boxes- excellent when camping for keeping spare food, stops sandwiches getting crushed and doubles as food dishes as Rich refused to have plates!!
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