This page is dedicated to the work I put into making this trip possible- the gear that I made with my two magical hands. I gotta say that I’m pretty proud of what I came up with. Of course nothing’s been road tested yet, but I’m feeling good about everything so far.
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Front Rack:
This was really fun to design and make. Last tour I only had the rear rack and bags, but on this one, I want to carry a few more articles of clothing since I don’t know how long I’ll be gone or where I’ll end up. Plus, I need to carry more water on this journey, so I needed the extra rack space.
I got the idea to build a rack instead of buying one from this site: http://www.bicyclinglife.com/HowTo/HeavyDutyRacks.htm Also, I didn’t really have the money to spend on buying a pre-built rack. All-in-all, this rack probably cost me less than $20 to make. The steel bar stock was less than $10 total, then the fasteners- nuts and bolts and clamp to go around the fork -were more expensive than I thought they would be, but less than $13, I think. Oh, and I also had to buy a new drill bit, titanium, to drill the holes to mount on the axle. I didn’t have a bit big enough. That was $9. Still, not bad for some sturdy steel racks.
Some people wonder why put those twists in the metal. It’s not for aesthetics. Those bends actually do a lot to provide extra stiffness to the rack. This makes it structurally much stronger and more durable. They were pretty easy to do with a vice and some pliers. There is still some flex in the rack, which is good as well. You want the rack to have more flex than the front fork so that it absorbs most of the vibrations and shock. A cracked or broken rack is much better than a cracked or broken fork.
When I designed and built the rack originally, I really wasn’t sure how I was going to mount my front panniers. I hadn’t even made them yet. My first attempt used mirror hangers and picture hooks. It wasn’t successful, as the hooks easily popped out of the hangers, and there was no lateral support to keep the bags from bouncing into the spokes. Plus, with all the metal parts, there was a lot of clanging noise, metal on metal. I found that I could secure it with bungees going around the sides and the top and bottom. It seemed like such an inefficient system, however, to have hooks plus two bungee cords for each bag. Plus, I don’t really like bungees anymore. They’re a bit limited in securing different sized loads. So I decided that I could replace the bungees with nylon straps and do away with the hooks completely. Making this system of just nylon straps took plenty of thought, but I think I finally found a system that will work. It’s secure and easy to take off and on.
I did have to modify the rack, however, to accommodate this new system. Other than the very top, there are no horizontal supports to wrap the vertical strap around. That’s a problem. I wanted to have the weight of the bags sit just above the axle, so I didn’t want to support them by the top bar, but I couldn’t mount it on the diagonal support; they would just slide back. Luckily I had just enough bar stock left to make the small horizontal supports you see. They are just a little bit wider than the straps - all I needed, and the vertical bars keep the strap from moving side to side.
It may be a bit heavier than retail racks, but it serves the purpose, and I’m not one to count pounds anyway. Plus, it’s stainless steel, so it should last, if my design work proves to be sufficient.
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Front Panniers:
The design had to be really simple. I’m not an expert seamster, and they are to serve a simple purpose: hold clothing and a few other light-weight items. One large compartment with a small front pocket seemed efficient.
The material is medium-weight cordura, a canvas-like synthetic with a waterproof coating. This stuff is great. It’s light, very durable, and waterproof. I ordered this from a company online, The Green Pepper, that specializes in patterns to make outdoor gear, as well as a stock of high-quality fabrics and notions to make all their patterns. Basically you can make top-quality gear for a fraction of the price of buying it retail, assuming you have a bit of sewing skills and the DIY fever, which I happen to have a case of.
So the design on these is all my own. It’s probably not the most effective, but it seems to work. I didn’t really have much room for trial and error, although I did take apart and rebuild the first one a few times before I got it right. The back has two layers with a plastic stiffener inbetween. This gives the back shape so that it doesn’t find it’s way into the spokes. For the stiffener I just used plastic from some old school binders I had. They’re the nice ‘Five-Star’ kind, 3-ring, with the waterproof fabric on the outside. They’re perfect, and they were free to me.
The zipper closure may not be the best method, but I had extra zipper laying around and it seemed to require the least amount of design work. That’s probably not true. A drawstring with a buckling top flap is probably a better method; maybe next time. I added top flaps that cover the zippers to help keep the bags waterproof. At least the zippers offer very easy access. I like that.
The bags are secured to the rack using nylon strap. At the top of the back, one end of strap is sewn in. This goes over the rack support point, wraps around the bottom of the bag through an attached loop, then secures into a buckle on the top of the bag. Tensioning the strap keeps the bag pretty secure. To add extra security, especially lateral security, another strap passes through a loop in the back and around the fork and the main rack support. It wraps around to the front where it is tensioned using a plastic side-release buckle. The straps are reinforced with Cordura at points where they are in contact with the rack. Since it is a metal rack with somewhat sharp edges, I wanted to protect as much as possible from wear and eventual tears to the straps. The extra layers should help a lot.
These two straps offer good support and security. The top strap holds the bag up. The horizontal strap keeps the bag from sliding front and back, from bouncing out away from the rack, and also from sliding up. This is because of the taper created by the fork and the rack support. The distance between the two widens as they go up, so if the strap is tensioned tightly around the rack, fork, and bag, the taper keeps the strap and bag from sliding upwards. There is still some movement in the bags, but this is good, as it absorbs some of the road vibrations and keeps them from being carried by the rack or fork. Too much vibration can lead to loose nuts and bolts or even breakage. I had a rear rack screw break on me last tour. Very shitty. I had to pay $25 to have the broken screw drilled out of the frame. It happened because my top supports were not tight enough, so there was too much play in the rack. The vibrations were absorbed by the mounting screw, weakening it to the point of breaking. Not a fun experience. Luckily I was in the middle of San Francisco at the time, not far from a bike shop.
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The Penny Stove:
This thing is awesome. Here’s the site with the information and instructions by the guy who designed it: http://www.csun.edu/~mjurey/penny.html. My last stove was great, but the fuel cannisters were sometimes difficult to find and I melted part of the support structure when making a make-shift stand to cook over some canned heat (that stuff gets really hot!). So I decided it was best to acquire a new stove. After a little research I found that I could make my own stove for so much less than buying one.
So this is a compact, alcohol-burning stove made from two Heineken keg cans and one regular soda can. It’s fairly easy, just some cutting and poking of holes. I think the six-pack of Heinies cost me about 8 bucks, but I got to drink them as well, so it’s almost like they’re free. As for the other can, my dad drinks lots of Mountain Dew, so that was already around. Other than that, you just need an older penny and some kind of pot support.
There are four main components to this stove. The first is the stove itself. That is made of two bottoms of Heineken cans. One has the holes poked in it to create the jets. It fits inside another Heinie bottom. The bottom of a regular can is used as a lid and an insulating base. If the ground is cold, this creates an insulation layer to help keep your fuel warm and burning strong. It also serves as a lid when you pack it up. Then there’s the simmer ring. This is cut from the top of a keg can. This ring lessens the intensity of the flame, allowing you to maintain a flame longer. It still boils with the simmer ring on and gets very hot. The fourth component is the penny. This is a very integral part of this stove, but to be honest, I’m not entirely sure how it works.
To use the stove, you fill the top with alcohol. (I use Everclear or different brand grain alcohol. It’s 190 proof. I guess you can’t use anything less and get a decent flame. You can also use other forms of alcohol, but I chose grain alcohol. Despite having a slightly higher price, it’s the only one that is non-toxic and doubles as a late-night beverage enhancer.) With the penny covering the center hole or holes, the alcohol stays on top. You light this. It burns, pretty big, but soon the alcohol flows down into the stove and begins to boil. Once this happens the big flame on top turns into six jets of flames that come out the six holes punched in the rim of the top of the stove. After a while a jet also comes out of the center. This continues until all the fuel is burned and it goes out. It’s really pretty fascinating at how simple it looks but how advanced the design really is. According to all my online research, this is the most efficient design of homemade alcohol stoves to be found. People have done numerous boiling test to prove it.
So with the stove built, all that was left was to make a pot stand and a windscreen. The windscreen was really simple- just cut up a piece of aluminum vent duct. It’s light, flexible, and pack easily into the pot. The pot stand took a few trials and errors to get just right. I played a lot with the width of the support legs. I think they finally ended up at 3″, with a height of 3″ as well. That puts the pot an 1.5″ above the stove, roughly. They’re constructed from 1/8″ steel rod. Like the rack, it was fairly easy to bend. The biggest hurdle I came to was securing the two sections together such that they were sturdy and wouldn’t move too much, but also so that the support could fold flat for easy storage. Wrapping the 1/16″ wire around several times seems to work really well.
I would say the biggest concern with this stove is it’s fragility. It’s great how light-weight it is, but the thing is made from aluminum cans. Granted, Heineken keg cans are a bit thicker and sturdier than standard soft drink cans, but it’s still pretty thin. I made two just in case something should happen to one- it gets crushed or mangled or melts. Also, they’re fairly easy to make and Heinekens are easy to come by. We’ll see how they hold up.
this is the stove all packed up. The insulating base serves as a handy lid, and the simmer ring slides around the bottom, creating an incredibly compact little stove.
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July 1st, 2008 at 12:27 pm
fascinating. the twists in the metal are great. you should definitely keep modifying the stuff if you have time, but it seems quite sturdy to me. keep with the updates
July 13th, 2008 at 4:22 am
you are such a bad-ass.
July 25th, 2010 at 5:34 am
You ought to go looking into model new upgrades accessible for BE blogs. I believe yours could actually profit from it.