Читать книгу Cycle Touring in France. Eight tours in Brittany, Picardy, Alsace, Auvergne/Languedoc, Provence, Dordogne/Lot, the Alps and the Pyrenees онлайн

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Make sure you buy a strong, good quality rear rack to take the weight of heavy panniers. Altura make some great bags and their Arran handlebar bag (5 litre) clicks into the Rixen and Kaul quick-release support that can be left permanently attached to the handlebars.

Finally, a frame with two water-bottle carriers is better than a frame that only has one. You can buy still mineral water in 1½ litre plastic bottles at any supermarket or alimentation shop (2 litre bottles are too fat) on a daily basis, rather than having to keep topping up those non-transparent bike bottles which soon make the water taste of plastic.

Repairs

Knowing your bicycle and how to carry out repairs, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, are important considerations in cycle touring. The Bicycling Guide to Complete Bicycle Maintenance and Repair for Road and Mountain Bikes by Todd Downs gives detailed descriptions with photographs covering bicycle basics, maintenance, and all repairs imaginable, and there are many other good, detailed books on the market. Serious repairs, or perhaps the replacement of a component, will inevitably mean visiting the nearest bicycle shop on a tour, but you can usually carry out common repairs yourself on the road. Two of the most common hiccups on a tour are punctures (flats) and broken spokes. Read up on and practise how to remove the freewheel/cassette on your rear wheel before a tour in case you have to replace a broken spoke behind the rear cogs.