Hi All, just thought I'd share some photos from a recent ride to Vermont. I went to the Northeast Kingdom to visit friends not far from the Canadian border, and took a nice route to get there and back.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43029278@N07/sets/72157635839369194/ There are many, many miles of dirt road and snowmobile/ATV trails on the way up there, some smooth, some rocky, but all fun. Even the paved roads are nice. The scenery was gorgeous, and the leaves had begun to change already, especially north of White River Junction. The small towns and nice people in Vermont are the best. The bike handled perfectly, and the only thing that rattled loose was my mudflap(!) toward the end of the trip on a particularly bumpy section. You may notice I only have one water bottle, but that's because I prefer dromedary bags for carrying most of my water- the bottle is just a more convenient vessel to drink from :) This was my first fully loaded ride using moustache bars and the Nitto Large back rack, which I bought from Riv a while ago- I had been using a Tubus Cargo prior to this. I found the M-bars to be fantastic for all-day riding. I had used them before for ~2 hour rides on my QB and reckoned they'd be good for touring, but have always just stuck with Noodles since I know they work well for me. This ride convinced me that M-bars give plenty of hand positions for comfort and work well on bumpy terrain when riding somewhat heavily loaded. You do need a short stem with M-bars though. My only (minor) complaint about the Nitto rack is that platform is much too far back behind the rear axle, and it is difficult to get weight far enough forward with it due to the tombstone being so far back. Sliding the mounting points forward at the top results in the rack tilting forward at an odd angle. This is strange to me since I ride relatively large frames, and most racks (especially non-adjustable ones) end up tilting backward because of the steep angle of my seat-stays. The Nitto seems more geared toward frames with ultra-short chainstays, or super-tall frames. BUT it is still a ridiculously nice rack though, and I have like 5 inches of heel clearance with it (size 10's) so if you have large feet/ heel clearance issues with your rack it would be a good option. I may go back to the Tubus for future loaded riding, as it seems ideally suited to frames in my size in terms of where the platform is located. I also really like an R14 with the large saddlesack when not riding with panniers. Anyway hope you enjoy the photos. Matt -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
