Where am I?:^mistymornings-->Cycletouring-->Equipment.-->Bikes and bags.-->Damae's touring bike 2007

The Troll in 2007.

As with the Moose, the Troll has evolved this year. Two main additions are the handlebar bag (not in this shot) and the Travel-Biker top bag on top of the rear panniers. The handlebar bag is the Plus version of the one on The Troll in a fabric that matches the front panniers in this picture. It has two advantages over the standard version, namely straps on the underside and a net pocket at the front. As with the Moose the new bag had to go on the front of the handlebars. After a bit of umming and ahing Damae decided to put her water bag on the back of the handlebars. It can be easily filled in this position and has been fine all year.

Both the handlebar bag and Travel-Biker were picked up in the sales at Zwerfkei and are no longer in the Ortleib catalogue in the same form. The Travel-Biker now has a different mounting bracket. Damae is very happy with the Travel-Biker and used it all year for going to evening class as well as when touring. The waterproof zip became stiff on a number of occasions and needs regular lubrication. We have discovered that best results are obtained by lubricating the zip in hot conditions (20'C +).

Damae's touring bike

The combination of Travel-Biker adaptor rack and the Tour-Boxes has not been ideal. The Tour-Boxes suffered damage after traversing the Rallarvegen for the second time. At the time of writing 09-10-2007 we are still waiting for comment from Ortlieb. Damae still likes the Tour-Box concept but they do not seem to be durable enough. If she gets the chance she will probably replace them with rear pannier versions of her front panniers.

Packing of bags remains unchanged. The front panniers carry sleeping bags, thermarest mats, sheet sleeping bags and inflatable pillows. One rear Tour-Box is for Damae's clothing, the other contains food. The Travel-Biker top box takes stuff used on a daily basis, sandwiches and snacks and clothing such as fleeces.

One other minor change is the extra arm on the triathalon bars. This carries a Basta Halogen/LED lamp and her bike computer. The Basta lamp gives quite a good beam on the halogen setting but at the expense of short battery life. Fortunately even with low batteries the LED lights are very bright so, at the very least, you can be seen by oncoming traffic.

Having recently upgraded our Bromptons with SON hub dynamos and new lights we are planning to fit a bottle dynamo and the old Brompton light set to her touring bike. This should give significantly better light output without the problems of battery lights and it should be possible to turn all lights on whilst on the move. The ideal solution would be to fit SON hub dynanos but these will have to wait for our next touring bikes.

Less obvious is that Damae's bike now sports a new set of mudguards. In a tired moment the rear mudguard got irreparably damaged. So I got a smart SKS set which are a little longer giving slightly better wet weather protection. The Troll sticker was also damaged, but Damae spotted another one this year during our Norway travels.