Equipment List

The biggest problem was selecting a bike!

• Bike : We both had different budgets and criterium; Derek wanted a solid reliable tourer that was bulletproof and selected a Thorn Raven, an English steelframed 26 inch wheeled specific tourer with a newfangled Rohlhoff internal gear gizmo.  I wanted something that would handle the India tour but would be fast enough to keep up with the boys on their racers on my return to France. Also something not to expensive. I selected an aluminium 700c Dawes Karakum.
• Both bikes were great. I will not go into too much technical detail, only to point out the main differences. The Thorn was much slower so Derek had to work harder, this was mainly due to the tyre choice, Schwalbe Marathons on the Thorn were robust and comfortable but slow, Schwalbe Silentos on the Dawes were fast, ok on the dirt, longlasting and puncture resistant. I have only had two punctures in about 10,000 km, both in Europe in the rain. 
• For a short trip like this, 1000 miles, or so the aluminium verses steel or 700c verses 26"debates one reads about I feel is not so important unless of course you have bad luck. I found new innertubes for the big wheels in Mombai but would have had to drill out the Vesta valve holes in the rim a bit to get the old style valves in, not a big deal but I will not take Vesta valves to Asia again. As for 700c (28") tyres I am not sure, I wish now I had checked out this problem more; I read that Asians don't use this size but the wheels on alot of the bikes I saw looked pretty big, maybe 27".
• The Rohlhoff is great, the only problems I see is the price and the chain tensioning system, ie do you need a Rohlhoff specific frame to tension the chain? I think probably not though I know not much about it, If anyone has experience of putting a rohlhoff on say an old mountainbike frame I would be interested in any advice.
  
• I found cleaning the incessant sand  off my derailleur gears a pain, I always seemed to be grinding away my moving parts with a home made carberundum paste while Dereks simple two cogs and a chain with the Rohlhoff looked always shiny and clean. I daresay he was more dilligent with the care and maintenance thing but I like the idea of feeling something wearing in as opposed to wearing out!

• panniers etc.
  
• In a hurry on a budget I bought the cheapest panniers I could find, 14 pounds from SJS cycles on the net. They never claimed to be waterproof but were definately showerproof. Bits broke but were easily fixed, they did not look very cool either but I was secretly proud of their cheapness and would say that they were good value for money and excellent for light summer touring.
• Derek took Ortileb bags which are waterproof and robust. Probably the best. He did send both the front panniers home, well to somebodies home, because we took far to much stuff and did not want to haul the extra weight up the hills.
• One of the unexpectedly useful peices of kit we had was the good old bicycle bell. As alot of the paths we took were narrow the bell was a polite way to let people know you wanted to pass. Very important in India as we passed alot of people.
• We had three 700ml bidons and rarely felt we had enough water, another more high-tech bit of kit was a water filter from Katadyn, an excellent insurance policy when we could not buy water. In fact after seeing how much water we needed to buy we just used the filter instead, filling up each morning as the amount of plastic bottles we would throw away was discusting: say 2 or three each per day, well more realistically me 2 and Derek 4 so average 3. That is 6 bottles a day, over 3 weeks is 126 plastic bottles cast into a land that has a plastic disposal problem. Ok we could fill the bidons and give the bottles back to the shop to fill up with tap water, reseal and sell to the next guy but with the ceramic filter I felt we pulled ourselves out of this ethical quagmire.