The Bikes

Fio’s Condor Italia Cross

Aluminium frame with carbon fibre forks the Italia Cross is a cyclocross bike, but the compact dimensions, bosses for mudguards and racks, make it an ideal fast tourer. A veteran of a coast to coast, a tour of Ireland, and a trip to Mull.

Mick’s Trevor Jarvis ‘Flying Gate’

Based on the Baines brothers of Bradford famous ‘flying gate’ design of 1936. This Yorkshire design was handmade in 2006 from Reynolds 531 steel – the same steel that held the Spitfire together! So retro it’s in black and white.

Tyres

Challenge Parigi Roubaix. Designed for the ‘hell of the north’ these tyres are based on a ‘tubular’ design. I always used to ride on ‘tub’s with Mavic GP4 rims and loved the suppleness of a round section tyre – they seemed to out roll everyone else too! Now Challenge make a tyre based on a tubular but finished off with a bead so they can be fitted with an inner tube to an ordinary clincher rim. 27mm diameter but being round they look a lot wider. I run them at 100psi and they glide along and take the harshness out of our patchier road surfaces… They corner beautifully too!

GPS

Garmin 810, routes planned on RidewithGPS and on Garmin Connect. The Garmin has open street maps installed. We’ve practiced getting the settings right on the Garmin – otherwise it makes some odd route choices! Routes are plotted on the Garmin Connect web tool and then the iPhone app sends the route to the 810 via bluetooth. This means we’ll be able to change routes on the fly (as long as we have wifi access).

Gearing

Both bikes have been set up to have a range between 20 inches and 110 inches using Stronglight chain sets at the front and Campagnolo at the back. Both machines have Campagnolo Ergopower controls. But after having a recent failure of an ergo power lever I can see why bar end levers would be the best choice if we were going global!