I'll admit I've only been camping once - I was 15 years old. I remember it because it was the weekend that Mt. St. Helen's exploded. I basically just showed up & went with my friend's parents. They did all the work.
I'm a native Oregonian and like being in the outdoors. I joke that I like to "visit" the outdoors but sleep in a nice soft bed - like in a hotel. Sort of tongue in cheek yet sort of true. I do love the outdoors and especially I love my state and the beautiful forests and mostly the abundance of trees and lush green.
Fast forward to today. Portland has the BTA - Bicycle Transportation Alliance and they have a FB group for women only. They're planning a beginner's bike packing overnight trip in April. East of Portland off I-84 there's the Lower Deschuttes River recreational area. You park there and they have hiking, horse and bike trails along an old rail line. You can camp along there. The prerequisite for the actual trip is a 2 hour class on what to bring, what to pack, etc. Will be at the Mountain Shop, which is a shop that sells & rents supplies for hiking, skiing, bike packing/camping. So I
could just rent a nice, top of the line full squish mountain adventure bike....but where's the fun in that?!
Now to the point. I have a 1994 Trek 730 Multitrack that I bought with the generous help of @
oddjob2. It's a 17" bike, sloping top tube, full chromoly main triangle, stays and fork with 700c wheels. I'd like to build it up for the possibility of doing some gravel stuff. I have never mountain biked or gravel biked, except for some very short (like 4 miles) trips up on Leif Erickson trial in Forest Park.
I've already overhauled the bike. It has a steel stem & 4" riser bars with poorly functioning grip shifters. My two handlebar options will be:
1. riser stem with straight bars (off a 1995 Trek 820) and newish grip shifters or friction thumb shifters.
2. Nitto dirt drop stem with Soma Portola drop bars with bar end friction shifters.
I have all the parts for this and don't want to spend any money since I don't know if I'll really do this long term. Just trying it out. It is a triple with 7 speed, and has 700x35 Vittoria Voyager Hyper (smooth) tires. So for gravel I'd need something with tread I presume? What kind? Schwalbe? Clement? Trying to be very low budget.
Handlebars setup? Which way should I go? Straight bars are wider but only 1 hand position. The dirt drop stem would get the bars way up high, thus closer to me. Portola bars are sort of like Midge bars with shallow reach/short drop & flare.
Bike has 2 spots for bottle cages and eyelets for racks in the rear.
I've looked on the forum and have gotten some really good ideas, but some folks build their bikes for actual racing, or endurance gravel riding and that might be overkill for what my modest initial ventures will be.
Thanks for any in put.