Buying touring bikes

Our first major gear mission upon arriving in the UK was buying two bikes that would be suitable for the 3500km journey from Calais, France to Istanbul, Turkey.

Choosing the right bike can make all the difference between a comfortable quick ride or the source of many headaches along the route.

Deciding what features are important in a touring bike

Knowing the route

We knew the terrain would be ~75% paved with the rest being trails, roughly 3500km distance, and a few consistent days of climbing and descending across the Swiss Alps and Italian Dolomites.

With that in mind, we had a specific design of bike in mind: A touring bike.

Choosing the right type of bike for the job

Touring bikes are designed to be stable and reliable bikes over long distances, and often have triple chain wheels and racks that allow the bike to carry specially designed luggage (panniers).

Touring bikes have long lightweight frames that help to spread the greater weight of the rider plus luggage over a greater area. To help with climbing steep hills with added weight they also have high number of gears, usually from 14 to 27 speeds. These bikes have narrow tires, basically a cross between a skinny road tire and a fat mountain bike tire that is suitable for a range of on and off road riding. Touring bikes usually have skinny saddles and drop handlebars to allow for a diversity of riding positions. They weigh anywhere between 25 to 30 pounds, or 11 to 14 kg.

The specific characteristics in the touring bike we wanted:

- Chro-moly steel (strong to carry luggage, and easy to fix along the route the frame can be welded)

- Low mileage/not too old

- Cantilever or disk brakes

Finding suitable touring bikes for sale

We planned to buy the bikes in the UK, since it would be much cheaper than shipping them from NZ to Europe. There were quite a number of second hand bikes for sale online, and were fairly confident we would find something in time. It also made sense to buy them in the UK since at least we could speak the same language with the seller.

Second hand bikes are great, as long as you know what you're looking for and are prepared to have a look around until you find what you need - Facebook Marketplace ended up being our favourite as it was easy to quickly search for bikes, easy to connect with people who were nearby and judge if they were trustworthy.

Joel has a lot of experience with mountain biking and helping to repair bikes from his work as an Outdoor Educator. His knowledge was super helpful when initially checking bikes to ensure they didn't have any majorly significant problems that would need more than a service to bring up to speed.

Buying Lou's bike: Ridgeback World Voyage Tourer

Our first bike buying experience was a dream!

After exploring Facebook Marketplace for an hour, we messaged three people expressing our interest in their bikes. One had got back to us with an amazing deal we could not refuse, a well serviced Ridgeback World Voyage Tourer bike and a free personal delivery.

Walking to the Gardeners Arms Pub in Ardingly on a toasty summers afternoon, we had the pleasure of meeting Roger for the handover. He was retired IT worker from London who kindly delivered the bike to us all the way from his home in London by catching the train and riding it over.

After Joel gave the bike a check over and spin around the pub car park, it was only right to buy Roger a pint to thank him for his troubles. It was also a great place to celebrate buying the first bike, share a few stories of long bike rides and ask advice for our upcoming journey!

Buying Joels bike: Claudia Butler Regent

Hours of scrolling, asking and searching, all while juggling a funeral, friends, family and our own mental health of not having a second bike has been a challenge, but at last we have secured the second bike! it has been a great weight lifted off our shoulders. A bike popped up on market place in wales. Where we had been the day before! Now in Crowthorne we set off again to go view this new steed, we were met by Nathan at his lovely bakery and cafe, he showed amazing kindness, with a free drink while he was preparing his guests meals and he gave us a breakfast to share as well! We quickly decided it was the bike for us to get on the road as quickly as possible.

Soon we will have tried every which way to pack them up, and will be preparing for our practice ride/journey to the ferry, where we set off from New Haven to Dieppe! It is all starting to feel real as all the major components are now ticked off :)