From september 2013 until april 2015 we both cycled on a Santos Travel Lite: a real 29-er!
The Santos Travel Lite is a 29-er and has an aluminum frame with smoothly welded junctions and alu fork with Magura hydraulic firmtech brakes. We chose to ride one with a Rohloff hub and Gates Carbon belt drive. A Tubus rear rack, which is created by Santos (Santos Travelrack) and wide Tubus Tara front rack to put our panniers on. It comes with a 64 centimeter wide Santos handlebar with a 10 degrees bend. We ride with Schwalbe Mondial 50-622 EVO tires and to produce some light/energy, we have a SON 28 hub dynamo. The Dutch Rigida rims have a special ceramic coating, CSS. Front rim is the Rigida Sputnik and the rear rim is a Rigida Andra 30, the latter is especially manufactured for the Rohloff hub. We put our feet on Wellgo ‘platform’ pedals, which are extra wide and have pins attached to them for support. The bottom bracket is an old fashioned square one. Oh, and we ride with mudguards.
Features
| Rohloff hub | Santos with RVS bearings and ahead headset |
| Gates Carbon beltdrive | Ceramic rims (CCS) |
| Magura HS33 brakes | Schwalbe Mondial Evo 50-622 tires |
| Brooks saddle (Ellen) | Gilles Bertaud saddle (Elmar) |
| Tubus carriers (front: Tara Big Apple + rear: Santos TravelRack) | Santos Platformpedals |
| SON28 Hub dynamo | Ergon grips + Cane Creek barends |
The Santos Travel Lite is multi-functional; you can take her out for a weekend in the countryside and it’s a hell of a friend for long distance cycling. All the energy you put into the bike, is manifested into forward movement. More so, than with a 26 inch bicycle. The finishing of the bike is very well done, very smooth, very neat. The emphasis is on durability and reliability, not on weight. But, with 16 kilogram in total it’s quite a light travel bicycle.