My Rohloff tourer, mid-point on Route 66.

[Yellow7]

This is my custom tourer, Yellow 7, I built up, well, apart from the wheels. As recommended by Rohloff I ran the gears in on a 750 mile tour in May across France, making sure I'd set the bike up nicely before starting on U.S. Route 66, Aug 24th - Sep17th. The hub gears were a big out-lay & a big pill to swallow, but after using it the benefits are so much better.

Euro touring bars.
Brooks B67 saddle.
The racks are both Surly, Steel racks.
KMC S10 stainless chain.
VDO MC1.0 computer, chose for the Altimeter.

Rims are DRC, chose as the eye-lits are secured to both the inner & outer faces & hence make a wheel more resilient to strain. Spokes are DT Swiss.

Front hub, Schmidt SON 26". 32 hole dynamo. Used to charge mp3 & camera batteries in the day via a circuit I made (I’m an electronics Eng) & lights at night / early morning.

 

[Andy in Sig]

That's a nice idea about using the dynamo to charge batteries. You could probably make a few bob out of that if you started selling the relevant kits.

 

[Pottsy]

All those nice components yet you got your frame from Argos

 

[Yellow7]

naaa, that's not the Argos most peole know, their a frame maker in Bristol, done a real nice job, used Reynolds 753 tubing. http://www.argoscycles.com/history.htm

I supplied the rear drop-outs to them after having them made to my drawings & cut from 303 grade stainless. I used a laser cutting company in Birmingham, these were required due to the Rohloff hub i was using.

 

[Pottsy]

I was only kidding about the Argos frame

I agree with Andy in Sig - a front dynamo hub to mini USB so that I could charge phone, GPS, hair curlers etc. would be a great touring accessory.

 

[Yellow7]

If it's just for charging AA & AAA batteries then it's quite an easy circuit, I regulated the charge current to 250mA (max availiable being 500mA)for a charge time of 2 hours, though stopping the bike & starting again resets the charge count, but doesn't present a problem. I also take a 110/240 wall plug adaptor so i can use the charger when in hotels / motels etc, this came with a changable UK, US, EU & AU adaptor, usefull for a global tour.....

Charging of specific mobile phone batteries presents bigger design changes as requires a supply voltage of typicaly 7Volts & the dynamo only kicks out 6V, I've recently saw a solar charger that would said batteries, fine if the sun is shining, it will also charge from a USB socket.

So in a nutshell, if it was just AAA/AA batteries you want to charge i'd be glad to help anyone out.

 

[Mortiroloboy]

Adrian, nice touch...Them colonial types gettin' your name on that sign post Adrian Texas...What?

Bet it was a blast, fantastic. Looks very heavy though.

 

[mickle]

What cranks are you using? They look like Cooks Bros.

 

[Randochap]

Very nice expedition bike! Yes, would like to learn more about your charger. Many, I know are interested in keeping a GPS topped up.

 

[Ricd11]

i notice you have the dhb marsden front panniers, how did you find them? They're a bargain to buy

Rich

 

[RedBike]

Yet another person intrested in the charger. Any chance of selling a few?

I emailed PedalPower+ http://www.copycatsolar.com/ last week as I was intrested in buying their univeral charging lead. Basically a lead that allows you to charge you dynamo from your phone/GPS.

It's apparently normally 138AUD but its currently reduced to 89AUD. (With 25AUD carridge). This makes the lead unrealistically expensive!

I was going to go for the option of a battery phone charger and a pack of AAA batteries from Tesco and a spare battery.

 

[beancounter]

I'm not really an expert but Yellow 7 looks orange to me.

bc

 

[arallsopp]

a lead that allows you to charge you dynamo from your phone/GPS.

Just pedal, lazy RedBike.

+1 for interested in the charger though.

 

[jay clock]

I am also interested in the charger. I would like to be able to trickle charge a variety of gadgets and assume I could charge a aaa or aa batteries, then use these via some device to charge everything else up. Phone, garmin Forerunner 305, Ipod and netbook. Not easy to do that lot off the AA bats, but all ideas welcome!

 

[RedBike]

There is now a lead on ebay for this. It was £19, last week it was £25, now it seems to have gone up to £40 !!

Just search for "USB dynamo"