I've seen photos of some camping bikes with conventional rear seat stay arrangements (single braze point centered on the seat lug) and some where the stays are brazed to both the seat tube and top tube, a few inches from the seat lug. I assume this is to increase lateral stiffness for loaded conditions.
How necessary is this for a dedicated camper with, say 170# rider and 50# of gear? I tend to think "not very" but....
My only frame of reference is my tank like, fillet brazed, OS tubed old school Dakar with conventional stay attachment that I have done a little touring on.
I'm ready to braze up the rear triangle of a 650b camper I'm making and I'd like to get a better virtual feel for this before doing so. It has conventional diameter main tubes, walls at 10/7/10 (SP), pretty stiff in torsion/lateral.
A middle of the road option is to drop the seat lug end of the stays just a little so that the ends engage the lug spigots and the braze joint is a bit longer than if attached adjacent to the lug/seat tube pin. That would stiffen the joint a little and would be less trouble than the full "GT" style attachment (I know they weren't the first).
For reference, photos here:
http://new.photos.yahoo.com/
Thanks for any feedback, John Clay
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