Since last building my Soma I’ve had the chance to build up another steel tourer and in doing so learnt some lessons in spec’ing a touring bike. I’ve since made a few changes to my Soma and learnt a little more about it. The changes are a mix of functional and aesthetic mixed in with value. Not all of them wholly necessary but given my bike is my hobby, I couldn’t resist.
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Wiring a bicycle dynamo hub…through the fork vent hole
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Being a sucker for a clean bike set up, I had always wanted to improve how my dynamo hub on my touring bike was hooked up. Originally on my Genesis I had the cable running down the outside of the fork, held on with zip ties. While it worked fairly well, the zip ties looked ugly and the cable housing was exposed to the elements (causing the rubber casing to harden and start to perish). I finally found the time to try and improve the wiring on my newer tourer, my Soma Double Cross. The vent holes in the fork provide a perfect route for the cable so that the majority of it is hidden safely inside the fork, away from the elements and things for it to get snagged on. It is however, incredibly difficult to pass the wire through! So firstly, if you’re going to attempt to do so, you need a lot of patience. Here’s how I did it.
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Backpacking Light & Functional
As always I enjoy playing around with my travel set up, trying to perfect it I decided to write a new post on my current gear. On my last trip away, 3 months across parts of Asia I changed my kit list so that my main bag was below 7kg (in order to meet typical flight carry-on allowance). My other bag was just a small camera shoulder bag that contained my dSLR. There were a few things I didn’t like though, so I decided to change them. Firstly, instead of trying to beat the 7kg limit, I decided to step around it. Having noticed so many people (especially women) with hand bags, and given how useful I found my SLR bag as a handbag (of sorts), I decided to invest in a shoulder bag/satchel (to compliment my main carry-on bag) small enough that it won’t bother an airline, but big enough so that it can carry plenty of bits (namely some of the heavy stuff, ie electronics). This can reduce the weight of my main bag by (2-3kg).
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Backpacking Thailand – Back to Krabi
One year after cycle touring in Thailand I decided to return to one of the favourite parts of my entire trip, Krabi. I flew from Kuala Lumpur into Krabi airport so I could get the 30 day landing permit (rather than going via land which gives only 14 days). I arrived at the end of November and stayed until the second week in December, so was there during the start of peak season.
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Backpacking Taiwan
I’ve become a bit lazy of late in terms of writing posts per city that I visit, so for Taiwan I thought I’d write more of a highlights post covering the food, places and cultural differences in enjoyed while travelling around Taiwan. It doesn’t quite meet the highs of Japan, but none-the-less it’s still a fantastic and largely untravelled country and one I hope to return to in the future.
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