REI Safari or Surly Long haul Trucker?

On Mar 29, 3:14*pm, Hank wrote:
On Mar 29, 5:43 am, Tom Sherman
wrote:

Woland99 ? wrote:
[...]
Main reason I went with Randonee instead of LHT were Mavic rims -
I have not heard too much much good about Alex stuff.[...]

I generally hear the opposite. No problems with any of the Alex rims on
my bicycles, and they typically cost half of what a Mavic rim does. I am
not paying twice as much just to get European Heritage & Mystique® in a rim.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

Alex does make some lousy rims - notably the single-wall "X-Rim"
series. But OEMs are paying $3 a rim for those, and that's not a
market segment in which Mavic takes part. Comparing apples to apples,
Alex makes equal if not better rims at much lower prices

OK use washers. Runnin' on about my ERD crusade: the spoke is a
torsion bar twisting at ends. And the ends deserve correct lubrication
avoiding spoke failure (from inop stress reflief). Steel and whatever
concotion thius month bears but Al/whatever does snot.

On Mar 29, 3:27*pm, datakoll wrote:
On Mar 29, 3:14*pm, Hank wrote:





On Mar 29, 5:43 am, Tom Sherman
wrote:

Woland99 ? wrote:
[...]
Main reason I went with Randonee instead of LHT were Mavic rims -
I have not heard too much much good about Alex stuff.[...]

I generally hear the opposite. No problems with any of the Alex rims on
my bicycles, and they typically cost half of what a Mavic rim does. I am
not paying twice as much just to get European Heritage & Mystique® in a rim.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

Alex does make some lousy rims - notably the single-wall "X-Rim"
series. But OEMs are paying $3 a rim for those, and that's not a
market segment in which Mavic takes part. Comparing apples to apples,
Alex makes equal if not better rims at much lower prices

OK use washers. Runnin' on about my ERD crusade: the spoke is a
torsion bar twisting at ends. And the ends deserve correct lubrication
avoiding spoke failure (from inop stress reflief). Steel and whatever
concotion thius month bears but Al/whatever does snot.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

off course, spending $10-20 more is a likker for yawl eatin' rice 3X
daily from paper cups-and that's what this here eyeletless outfit's
atrying to pull on yawl witless hilbillies: save money and we'll be in
St Tropez before sundown.
then there's the cosmic idea where the wheel builder goes on about
negative picamills out of perfcetion just short of reverse red shift
torque levels then grinds a thread distance or two off the ERD spoke
lengths thru whacko metalurrgy
BIZARRE

Hank Wirtz wrote:
On Mar 29, 5:43 am, Tom Sherman
wrote:
Woland99 ? wrote:
[...]
Main reason I went with Randonee instead of LHT were Mavic rims -
I have not heard too much much good about Alex stuff.[...]
I generally hear the opposite. No problems with any of the Alex rims on
my bicycles, and they typically cost half of what a Mavic rim does. I am
not paying twice as much just to get European Heritage & Mystique® in a rim.

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

Alex does make some lousy rims - notably the single-wall "X-Rim"
series. But OEMs are paying $3 a rim for those, and that's not a
market segment in which Mavic takes part. Comparing apples to apples,
Alex makes equal if not better rims at much lower prices

I had a bicycle with Alex X-101 rims and they held up fine for the
limited use I put them too. (The wheels were replaced for other reasons
- primarily a larger size on the front and a 3x7 hub in the rear).

--
Tom Sherman - Holstein-Friesland Bovinia
The weather is here, wish you were beautiful

In article
,
landotter wrote:

On Mar 29, 1:55 pm, datakoll wrote:
On Mar 28, 6:13 pm, landotter wrote:

On Mar 28, 5:05 pm, datakoll wrote:

Alex is kinda odd the Universal Cycles implies some are eyeletted
some not but then the rim is pinned together not welded. Ideally, the
rim should have multiple chanbers, barrel eyelets and welded with a

The Alex Adventurers or DM18s do not have sockets, but they are plenty
strong regardless. I would consider sockets necessary on a rim with
the "Mavic" brand. For a lighter tourer, a CR18 or Salsa Delgado, as
Hank suggested, would be a nice choice.

seriously, perhaps yawl miss the point. Alex designers did not supply
"sockets" in the adventurer or 18. Not suppling sockets is a cost/
profit design feature not a road use consumer feature. Alex decison to
not "socket" rules out Alex' attempt to sell a cheap rim as a durable
rim.

Sockets aren't necessary when the rim is made of strong alloy and the
extrusion errs on the side of caution. A DM18 700c tips the scales at
a good 630g, while a skinnier Sun CR-18 is 500g. Who needs sockets
when you got meat? Eyelets are plenty.

Yeah, you can save 100g per wheel with socketed Mavics and pay $50
more per wheel--but what's 100g per end in the grand scheme when you
add tires? Use Paselas instead of Marathons if you want to go light.
You'll save 400g per wheel.

And Chalo tells us that the Mavic alloy is functionally
inferior to Sun and Alex alloys, thereby eating up some
or all of the advantage of sockets.

Alex are cheap and durable, but not the lightest, following the
conventional rules of cycling: pick two.

--
Michael Press

On Mar 29, 6:36 pm, Michael Press wrote:
In article
,



landotter wrote:
On Mar 29, 1:55 pm, datakoll wrote:
On Mar 28, 6:13 pm, landotter wrote:

On Mar 28, 5:05 pm, datakoll wrote:

Alex is kinda odd the Universal Cycles implies some are eyeletted
some not but then the rim is pinned together not welded. Ideally, the
rim should have multiple chanbers, barrel eyelets and welded with a

The Alex Adventurers or DM18s do not have sockets, but they are plenty
strong regardless. I would consider sockets necessary on a rim with
the "Mavic" brand. For a lighter tourer, a CR18 or Salsa Delgado, as
Hank suggested, would be a nice choice.

seriously, perhaps yawl miss the point. Alex designers did not supply
"sockets" in the adventurer or 18. Not suppling sockets is a cost/
profit design feature not a road use consumer feature. Alex decison to
not "socket" rules out Alex' attempt to sell a cheap rim as a durable
rim.

Sockets aren't necessary when the rim is made of strong alloy and the
extrusion errs on the side of caution. A DM18 700c tips the scales at
a good 630g, while a skinnier Sun CR-18 is 500g. Who needs sockets
when you got meat? Eyelets are plenty.

Yeah, you can save 100g per wheel with socketed Mavics and pay $50
more per wheel--but what's 100g per end in the grand scheme when you
add tires? Use Paselas instead of Marathons if you want to go light.
You'll save 400g per wheel.

And Chalo tells us that the Mavic alloy is functionally
inferior to Sun and Alex alloys, thereby eating up some
or all of the advantage of sockets.

I have not been able to determine the alloy composition of Sun rims.
The polished models seem pretty soft, which is to say they are
probably made from a weaker alloy than 6061-T6. On the other hand
they are quite ductile compared to recent Mavics. At the same
absolute strength, a ductile rim beats a brittle one every time.

Most Mavic and Velocity rims use 6106 alloy, the weakest member of the
6000 series of aluminum alloy (but one that makes pretty extrusions).
All Alex rims I know of use 6061-T6 alloy, which is substantially
stronger.

A few Mavic rims, for instance the Open Pro, use some code-named alloy
which Mavic boasts to be "20% stronger!" or something to that effect.
To me, that means it might well be the same 6061-T6 alloy that Alex
sells for 1/4 the price.

Chalo

Mavic does get bashed.
I'm reasonbly pleased with Sun Rims. The Sun's hol dup well until I
run them into the watermeter hole, antique sewer grate, driveway-road
edge pothole. And true back with my modest skills.
But anything would be an improvement.
Take Wheels axles: strong don't bend easy and when the axle is bent,
the metal trues back tap tap tap in a vise perfectly no problem from
square one.
The rim iza lot ore complex than an axle but on a Wheels 100 rating
I'd give the Suns an 80-85.
Big deal is the chain. UNEEDA CHAIN GUARD to go with the Spec
thornproofs and CO2.
the Chain Guard 2$-see archives-does the job but a complete guard is
the ticket.
eyeballing the problem seems like two 5 gallon oil jugs popped togther
could cover it.
consider: howya gonna clean the chain?
Maybe a 70...

landotter wrote:

wrote:

I want to do some touring this summer.

Any help on deciding between the tow bikes above?

Both are excellent choices. If you're going to be touring on rougher
terrain, the Novara would probably be a better choice, but other than
that, it's apples and oranges. I think the Surly's pertier. FWIW, the
spec on the Surly is next to perfect, except for the tires--it may
just have been the set I ran--but WTB "Slickasaurus" tires are the
most cheesy flat-prone name brand tires I've ever run. Worth a
consideration before taking off into the sunset for sure, but not a
deal breaker.

I've had perfectly satisfactory service from a pair of 700x37
Slickasauri on one of my road bikes. They do not seem exceptional in
any regard, but they feel pretty fast for their size. They have
yielded no more than the expected number of flats.

I do wonder sometimes whether a design house like WTB switches
production of the same item between different suppliers. If so, that
might account for large variations in quality from batch to batch.

Chalo

or mold to mold-last years Pasela Messenger is shorter than this years
and possibly more wobbly or insensitive-vague? not vague, broadly
wooden. I gotta grind the sidepull brake mod plate to fit it.
anyone want a messenger?
one's Japanese. ones Tiwanese?

On Mar 29, 7:52 pm, Chalo wrote:
landotter wrote:

wrote:

I want to do some touring this summer.

Any help on deciding between the tow bikes above?

Both are excellent choices. If you're going to be touring on rougher
terrain, the Novara would probably be a better choice, but other than
that, it's apples and oranges. I think the Surly's pertier. FWIW, the
spec on the Surly is next to perfect, except for the tires--it may
just have been the set I ran--but WTB "Slickasaurus" tires are the
most cheesy flat-prone name brand tires I've ever run. Worth a
consideration before taking off into the sunset for sure, but not a
deal breaker.

I've had perfectly satisfactory service from a pair of 700x37
Slickasauri on one of my road bikes. They do not seem exceptional in
any regard, but they feel pretty fast for their size. They have
yielded no more than the expected number of flats.

Mine got a good ten basic punctures in a thousand miles on good roads.
The bike with the WTBs then got sold. I haven't had a single puncture
in the 18months since. Terrible set of tires, those WTB, could have
just been a bad run, who knows? I usually go years between flats.

WTB means what TB? terrible website, egregious website one visit and
back to Germany