Bike Touring Company

In article ,
SMS wrote:

Marian wrote:
This is a little unexpected. I knew that my friend Ji Yang was
planning on setting up a bike touring company for trips around Hainan,
and I knew that I was going to be in on it, and I recently knew that
he was going to ask the mother of a riding buddy of ours for some
venture capital...

Handlebar bags with the company logo for people to keep their small
cameras in (it's good advertising too).

Rear racks that actually fit the bicycle properly.

Sufficient water bottle cages, two on every bicycle.

Marian is almost certainly talking about supported tours. One cage and
hand-ups is fine, rear racks are entirely unnecessary. The bar bags are
a nice idea, though.

My own thoughts on this are to, broadly speaking, go with a fairly
mainstream solution (butterfly bars? Untutored riders won't know where
to put their hands, and should be more permanently close to the brakes
anyways), and go with wide, mainstream gearing (probably a classic
touring setup like a widely spaced triple with 9 MTB-spaced cogs).
Nobody will ever fuss about the cog-cog differences being too great,
that's strictly bike-nerd territory*.

Quite frankly, the needs of a group of supported cyclotourists ranging
from inexperienced to very experienced are quite different from those of
an experienced rider on his own for a ride in the countryside. I think
some of the answers here reflect a rather prescriptive theory of
cyclotouring, and one which might be confusing or off-putting for less
obsessed riders.

If I had to leave for a long unsupported tour tomorrow, I'd
unhesitatingly grab my boring early-80s Miyata touring bike, fenders,
rack, and all. But for a supported tour, I'd take either the race bike
or possibly the CX bike (the latter for its wider gearing and fatter
tires and more upright position) and never fret about the lack of
fenders.

*I can say this. I'm a huge bike nerd.

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."

On Sep 18, 3:26*am, nmp wrote:
Mark wrote:
nmp wrote:

[..]

Are they really going to need an 11 or even 12?

Need? *No. *Want? *Quite possibly. *It seems the clients are likely to
be cycling newbies. *Newbies don't spin, and usually end up in the
smallest cog. *Not sure what the consequences would be of denying them
this indulgence; don't be surprised if they complain that the high gear
is too low, as absurd as that is!

If I were organising this I would tell the newbies that replacement knee
joints are not included in the price of the bike tour

The longest fully supported option will be approximately 6 days and
will feature around 500km of biking for the people who manage to bike
the whole way.

Can you kill your knees in that amount of time?

And would they listen? I spent over a week this summer in the company
of a group of 60 something dedicated Chinese cyclists on a month long
bike trip. We were going the same way. They were lovely people but
no matter how much they asked me to teach them how to bike better,
when it came to hills they would just get off the bike and push before
they even got to the gradient.

-M

On Sep 18, 4:38*am, M-gineering wrote:
nmp wrote:
M-gineering wrote:

nmp wrote:

I think you will need plenty of spare parts too.

Yes, and figure out how you are going to unload and replace your current
bikes (neutral graphics or repaint?) *every year to keep the fleet fresh

That is not just logic, that is the kind of practical advice that only
someone who actually knows what he is talking about would give

sorry, my mistake

Hmm... good question.

-M

On Sep 17, 2:31 pm, Marian wrote:

1) flat bar OR butterfly bars
2) mountain bike thumb clickies
3) 105 hubs
4) 105 crankset (compact?)
5) 105 front derailleur
6) atb 11-32 cassette
7) mountain bike rear derailleur
8) aluminum cyclocross frame with clearance
9) 700x25 tires

I'm thinking this should come in around 3000rmb a bike or less
(especially considering that we'll be buying 40 at once), leaving
enough for the place in Shenzhen that charges 500rmb/frame+fork to do
custom paint jobs and get each bike with a Hainan theme and the
company name painted on the downtube.

What do you think of the equipment list?

Anything I should change?

Your basic Euro-trekking bike is what you need. Basically a hybrid
with butterfly bars. Should be dirt cheap to source. It's pretty much
what I ride in the form of my Kona Dew (with mods)--standard angles
(72 ST/HT), sloping frame, 700c wheels, 30mmish tires.

I can't think of a more refined bike to "do it all". I can suit up,
pump up the tires and go for long rides in the hills, or screw in some
flat pedals and hang on my bags and bump around town for shopping and
screwing around.

The butterfly bars are great--I've seen some brake levers used with
them in Europe that even have a little turkey wing extension that
curves up part of the outside of the bar. Good luck finding those!
Would be cool if ya could.

Anyway--why mess around with "cyclocross this" and "road that" when
what you're describing is pretty much a "trekking bike" as made by a
lot of manufacturers. You might, of course, want to strip some of the
junk off, and spec a sportier tire--they often come with a set of
hellaciously heavy set of ~40mm ~800g per end models, which can be
replaced with something in the 350g range to give the bike a much
sportier feel.

Marian wrote:
On Sep 18, 3:26 am, nmp wrote:
Mark wrote:
nmp wrote:
[..]

Are they really going to need an 11 or even 12?
Need? No. Want? Quite possibly. It seems the clients are likely to
be cycling newbies. Newbies don't spin, and usually end up in the
smallest cog. Not sure what the consequences would be of denying them
this indulgence; don't be surprised if they complain that the high gear
is too low, as absurd as that is!
If I were organising this I would tell the newbies that replacement knee
joints are not included in the price of the bike tour

The longest fully supported option will be approximately 6 days and
will feature around 500km of biking for the people who manage to bike
the whole way.

That sounds very similar to the bicycle tour I did in China when I was
31 years old. We started in Beijing and ended up in Shanghai, plus a
side trip to Guilin by air, and a train ride for part of the way.

We had a range of participant from their early 20's to their 70's, of
widely varying abilities. It was fully supported, and we had two
national guides and a local guide in each province from China Youth
Travel Service.

We did the trip entirely on one speed Chinese bicycles, mainly Feng
Huang (Phoenix) and Flying Pigeon. I brought a folding bike which was
both a blessing and a curse. The Chinese bicycles were part of the
experience for us, and other than wishing that the brakes worked a bit
better, I don't recall any complaints about them, but it was mostly flat.

Personally I wouldn't worry too much about the equipment other than
ensuring that it's very adjustable in terms of things like handlebar
height and reach, and seat height. Also have some low step-over frames.
Use kevlar tires with those flat prevention strips between the tire and
the tube. Don't use skinny tires.

Best option would be some true touring bicycles with wide tires (7x35 or
7 x 38) with long wheel base frames, and suspension seat posts, though
finding these in Mixte frames is not going to happen unless you spend
the big bucks for Rivendell or Koga Miyata, though maybe there's
something in China that none of us know about.

landotter wrote:
On Sep 17, 2:31 pm, Marian wrote:

1) flat bar OR butterfly bars
2) mountain bike thumb clickies
3) 105 hubs
4) 105 crankset (compact?)
5) 105 front derailleur
6) atb 11-32 cassette
7) mountain bike rear derailleur
8) aluminum cyclocross frame with clearance
9) 700x25 tires

I'm thinking this should come in around 3000rmb a bike or less
(especially considering that we'll be buying 40 at once), leaving
enough for the place in Shenzhen that charges 500rmb/frame+fork to do
custom paint jobs and get each bike with a Hainan theme and the
company name painted on the downtube.

What do you think of the equipment list?

Anything I should change?

Your basic Euro-trekking bike is what you need. Basically a hybrid
with butterfly bars. Should be dirt cheap to source. It's pretty much
what I ride in the form of my Kona Dew (with mods)--standard angles
(72 ST/HT), sloping frame, 700c wheels, 30mmish tires.

Yes, that would be the best. However I would add some adjustable height
stem devices if the bikes have threadless headsets. I saw three of these
devices at a recent trade show.

On Sep 18, 2:37*pm, landotter wrote:
On Sep 17, 2:31 pm, Marian wrote:



1) flat bar OR butterfly bars
2) mountain bike thumb clickies
3) 105 hubs
4) 105 crankset (compact?)
5) 105 front derailleur
6) atb 11-32 cassette
7) mountain bike rear derailleur
8) aluminum cyclocross frame with clearance
9) 700x25 tires

I'm thinking this should come in around 3000rmb a bike or less
(especially considering that we'll be buying 40 at once), leaving
enough for the place in Shenzhen that charges 500rmb/frame+fork to do
custom paint jobs and get each bike with a Hainan theme and the
company name painted on the downtube.

What do you think of the equipment list?

Anything I should change?

Your basic Euro-trekking bike is what you need. Basically a hybrid
with butterfly bars. Should be dirt cheap to source. It's pretty much
what I ride in the form of my Kona Dew (with mods)--standard angles
(72 ST/HT), sloping frame, 700c wheels, 30mmish tires.

I can't think of a more refined bike to "do it all". I can suit up,
pump up the tires and go for long rides in the hills, or screw in some
flat pedals and hang on my bags and bump around town for shopping and
screwing around.

The butterfly bars are great--I've seen some brake levers used with
them in Europe that even have a little turkey wing extension that
curves up part of the outside of the bar. Good luck finding those!
Would be cool if ya could.

Anyway--why mess around with "cyclocross this" and "road that" when
what you're describing is pretty much a "trekking bike" as made by a
lot of manufacturers. You might, of course, want to strip some of the
junk off, and spec a sportier tire--they often come with a set of
hellaciously heavy set of ~40mm ~800g per end models, which can be
replaced with something in the 350g range to give the bike a much
sportier feel.

A couple I occasionally see beside the road changing tubes went on a
Sardinian cycling holiday. They stopped me the first time I saw them
after they returned and asked to inspect my tyres. They are not
experts of any kind: the graphics on my tyres had registered with
them. Apparently the bikes in Sardinia were fitted with the same
Schwalbe Marathon Plus I favour, and these folk were impressed by not
having a single puncture in however long they went.

I don't think fixing punctures is an inducement to book a holiday, and
several of the puncture-proof tyres have a very sporty feel despite
the extra weight -- Pasela makes one offered as standard on Thorn
bikes, the Marathon Plus itself, and its even more sporting siblings,
and the Bontrager Satellite Elite Hardcase. The cost of these tires
will become an irrelevance when their durability is taken into
account. The question for a tour company is fraction of a cent per
rented mile, not initial cost.

As to tyre width, assuming suspended seatposts which I consider a
necessity, 37mm is plenty to be comfortable. I think any less will be
uncomfortable for any but riders with hardened bums. It seems clear to
me that your target market can't be hardcore cyclists because you
would go broke from the difficulties of reaching enough of them
through the available tourism marketing channels. When I speak of the
target market I mean in the beginning; once practice gives you more
information to work with, and contacts, you might be able to appeal to
submarkets and later still to carve out a niche that is all your own,
which might be hardcore riders or someone else altogether chosen for
you by practice. (It is only the youngest of product managers who
believe they propose and God jumps to execute their plan precisely. An
old advertising man we made managing director of our main board for
his calming influence would sit in a room full of hotshots spouting
statistics, oozing creativity, and he would say, "Okay, that sounds
like plan, right after you tell me this: where is our flexibility when
Murphy turns up?")

A toolless adjuster for the reach and angle of the handlebars would be
a boon. Upmarket Gazelle like my Toulouse come with their own Switch
(and another model with another name, same thing, different styling)
but you can buy chinese (sorry) copies made by Hebie and others, and
I'm sure you'll be able to buy something similar in China, where at
least some of the Gazelle copycats with bigname labels on them are
probably made. The teeth on those things in the hands of careless
amateurs will ruin alloy handlebars, so specify steel, preferably
stainless as chrome would also be chewed up by teeth. (You should
anyway specify steel handlebars as alloy has a limited service life
and you need only one to break under a customer and your foreign
selling agents will be gone before you can say "liability suit".)

A couple of other points while I'm in this thread. Marten talks about
repainting the bikes before reselling. Don't think that your livery on
a sold-on bike is free advertising; one ill-kept bike in your livery
in a photo on the net will do more harm in a week than a year-long
advertising campaign can eradicate. Depending on how long you want to
keep the bikes, it might be possible to apply livery as smooth-on
silkscreened films, removable if you don't lacquer over them.

And, talking of livery, if you have a choice of othewise similarly
suitable bikes, choose the one with the fattest or flattest-sided
downtube to get the most writing space.

Andre Jute
Sometime man in a gray flannel suit

You can also look at what's been done by others. Backroads has been in
the biz for many years, and provide their own bikes:

http://www.backroads.com/why/great_gear/

I guarantee much of those bikes are made in China anyway. They might be
higher-end than what you're looking for, but should provide you with
some good ideas.

Drew

--
Drew W. Saunders

dru (at) stanford (dot) eee dee you

On Sep 18, 10:56 pm, SMS wrote:
landotter wrote:
On Sep 17, 2:31 pm, Marian wrote:

1) flat bar OR butterfly bars
2) mountain bike thumb clickies
3) 105 hubs
4) 105 crankset (compact?)
5) 105 front derailleur
6) atb 11-32 cassette
7) mountain bike rear derailleur
8) aluminum cyclocross frame with clearance
9) 700x25 tires

I'm thinking this should come in around 3000rmb a bike or less
(especially considering that we'll be buying 40 at once), leaving
enough for the place in Shenzhen that charges 500rmb/frame+fork to do
custom paint jobs and get each bike with a Hainan theme and the
company name painted on the downtube.

What do you think of the equipment list?

Anything I should change?

Your basic Euro-trekking bike is what you need. Basically a hybrid
with butterfly bars. Should be dirt cheap to source. It's pretty much
what I ride in the form of my Kona Dew (with mods)--standard angles
(72 ST/HT), sloping frame, 700c wheels, 30mmish tires.

Yes, that would be the best. However I would add some adjustable height
stem devices if the bikes have threadless headsets. I saw three of these
devices at a recent trade show.

If it's a quality stem, for sure.

As far as the bars go--one thing to keep in mind is that if you have a
support vehicle with compressed air and keep the cables long--you can
always swap bars out on the road pretty fast. Just blow off the grips
with compressed air, and let the rider choose a set from a box. Make
sure to use a pop top stem, of course. I still think butterfly bars
are the way to go--much more user friendly to beginners than drops,
and a lot quicker to swap if they happen to hate 'em as well.

landotter wrote:

As far as the bars go--one thing to keep in mind is that if you have a
support vehicle with compressed air and keep the cables long--you can
always swap bars out on the road pretty fast. Just blow off the grips
with compressed air, and let the rider choose a set from a box. Make
sure to use a pop top stem, of course. I still think butterfly bars
are the way to go--much more user friendly to beginners than drops,
and a lot quicker to swap if they happen to hate 'em as well.

The obvious solution is something like this:
"http://sheldonbrown.org/thorn/"

But yeah, I'd do it all with butterfly bars. When people sign up for the
tours they can tell them that the bars are butterfly bars, and offer the
option of drop bars. I bet that less than 1 in 1000 customers would
request drop bars for a 50 mile leisurely paced ride.

Also they could consider something like the ITM Synergenic butterfly
bars (see them at: "http://www.wallbike.com/oddsnends/synergic.html"). I
know that Koga-Miyata offers these.

I think the best thing to do is to look at the Koga-Miyata trekking
bikes, such as
"http://www.koga.com/uk/bike.asp?collectionid=9&segmentid=72&id=4170194"
and
"http://www.koga.com/uk/bike.asp?collectionid=9&segmentid=72&id=1683096"
and start from there, removing the unneeded loaded touring accessories.

If it were me, one thing I'd be thinking about is how to minimize
maintenance. If there aren't steep hills, I'd use something like a 14
speed Rohloff hub and do away completely with a lot of complexity.

I question the need to go out and get them custom painted. I see a lot
of touring company bikes and it's rare to see that. In San Francisco you
see the bike rental places using mostly stock hybrids, and the
identification is via the handlebar bags.

Finally, it's critical that prior to accepting paying customers that
"Yang & Rosenberg Hainan Cycling Tours" do a test run, with comped
participants from rec.bicycles.tech and rec.bicycles.misc. This is the
sort of thing that new ventures in the hospitality industry typically do.