Our Correspondent in the Field

Postcards sent to "The Crazy Bikers" from Miss Kristina's Class

This past summer I ran a daycare class with twelve students between the ages of five to twelve. I spent eight hours every day tricking them into doing academics while they thought they were doing fun summer projects. The most successful of these projects was the letter writing we did with “Miss Kristina’s crazy biker friends.” When my kids heard about the Co-ops plan to ride their bicycles from Vancouver to Mexico they were flabbergasted. “That’s crazy, no one can do that,” they exclaimed. They did not believe someone could ride all that way. This question presented the first learning opportunity, “how many miles is that?” Ah ha! I had them. We used maps, learned a little geography, learned about scale and how to calculate distance all in the name of answering a question posed by the students themselves. The next questions, “What do they do for food?” “Do they get tired?” “What if their bike breaks?” I probably could have answered myself, but I saw an opportunity. I pulled out blank index cards and each student wrote a decorated postcard to the Co-op. This was a great activity, because they were practicing their writing, and they were excited about it. They weren’t answering a boring prompt, they were asking questions of some crazy guys they wanted to get to know.

Postcards from Miss Kristina's class, one addressed to the "crazy bikers"

I sent the postcards out, and about a week and a half later we not only had updates, but personal answers to each of the postcards my students sent. The kids were unbelievably excited to get letters written and addressed to them personally. Honestly, if I had known they would get this excited about getting mail I would have used an activity like this long ago. The great thing about writing to the “crazy biker guys” was that they were not only practicing writing, or learning how to write a letter, they were learning about a way to vacation that didn’t include driving hundreds of miles, or getting on an airplane. Bike touring is such a low impact way to see the country, and get in touch with nature, and they had never heard of it. It was no longer some abstract thing that no one in their right mind could do, it was an achievable adventure. They had direct interactions, through writing and a visit at the end of the summer, with people that had actually done it. I loved that my students were writing without me pulling their teeth to do it, but I also love that they learned about a different way to experience the outside. Someday they might have the opportunity to go on a bike tour, and they are much more likely to say “yes!” instead of “that’s crazy!”

(Miss Kristina)

Soma Double Cross: not really a touring bike.

I built up a Double Cross shortly before the tour, and since it was the closest thing to a touring bike I owned, I toured on it. Tossed a slimline Axiom rack on the back, and tried for some front panniers, but it just wasn't a good idea. The proximity of the bags to the rotor made me nervous. The rear rack required a bit of cleverness to mount, since it's a taller frame, a smaller rack, and the bike has pretty short chain stays. Once on, it didn't give me any trouble.

The chain stay length on the other hand became a reoccurring issue, not helped by the fact that I have pretty large feet, and long cranks. By moving the bags all the way back things worked out ok, but that put the entirety of my load on or behind the rear axle. Not exactly ideal, considering that the bike is pretty heavily rear loaded to start with.

That said, the handling wasn't terribly affected by this, and in actual use the main problem was a higher rate of rear punctures, and faster wear on the rear tire.

The short chain stays were nice in that the bike remained tight even when loaded, and shimmy or speed wobbles were never a major concern. If credit-card touring this frame would do nicely, as it's light enough to scoot up hills, but still stiff. Using a fork with eyelets for front panniers would help to even everything out weight wise.

Overall, the Double Cross worked well as an improvised touring bike, and I have no desire to swap it out for a more touring specific bike. That said, if you really want a touring specific frame, you might avoid the Double Cross.

(It's a cross bike, duh.)

(Robert)