I'm not sure why the front end was so wobbly. I don't think I had too much weight on it. I had the front loaded a little different each day in order to deal with the wobble and nothing seemed to help. The first day I had just my tent and poles, the second my tent and Vans, the third my tent and Tevas. I was thinking maybe there wasn't enough weight up front. With no weight on the rear and only the front loaded the bike was fine. As for the rear, I loaded it up the way I have for each time in the past so I'm not sure what was up. Fortunately the bike was stable at high speed (45mph).
I brought two pair of shoes because I wanted to do a bit of comparison as to what worked best. The Tevas were fine but the Vans were better. I can't wait to return back to GPNF next year for more bike camping. Pedaling out there from Portland is a combination of monotony (Marine Dr bike path) followed by a really sweet stretch on the Old Columbia Hwy, followed by complete hell riding on the Hwy should to where a bike path resumes and takes you to Bridge of the Gods which is neat followed by more hell as you ride the shoulder of Hwy 14 to Carson. Still, I'll do it just to get out there. For this trip we parked in Stevenson which was really nice. There are tons and tons of back roads to be explored out there and ever changing terrain. I'd like to do a tour out there next year and stay on gravel roads as much as possible. I imagine by next year I'll have a heavier duty bike for out there that can handle a little bigger load. I kept thinking that a 26" wheeled bike with Schwalbe Marathon 26x2.0s (or 1.75s) would be nice which makes me think LHT (60cm, 26" wheel size) but we'll see. At times I felt like I was asking a bit much of the Hilsen. There were a few times when the Silver brakes were a bit out of their element and would have felt more comfortable with some cantis or V-brakes. I'm really glad that I gave this kind of cycling a try (bike camping, s24Os), it is by far my favorite, even more so than randonneuring or a day of singletrack. --mike -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
