Leebo

Go for a full size frame bag, lots of room, keep the heavy stuff low. As said, get a handlebar bag. Revelate, rogue panda or such. Check out the radavist for ideas.

Tourist in MSN

If you consider getting a frame bag, if it is a bit small you can still use it.

I saw one on Ebay or Amazon that was REALLY cheap. I knew it was too small to fit in the frame, but rolled the dice and ordered it. Found it fit perfectly if I kept one bottle in the triangle, I had to add the strap for the headtube myself.

Happy Feet

Re. the B17.

For bike packing I don't think it would be as beneficial as say, a long distance road trip. Generally I don't notice a big need until 50km's or so, often sitting in one position. Then the Brooks seems to feel better longer. My longest day (273 Km's) was on an more upright converted mtb tourer using a B67. But it is all subjective. The C17, supposedly a rubber equivalent to the B17, gives me friction burns if I stay in it all day.

Bikepacking usually doesn't put in as big mileage and you are up out of the seat more so you can use more options for seating, as long as the fit is there. To me, the only benefit of a leather type saddle like the Brooks line is comfort over long distances. Lots of other saddles feel ok over moderate ranges and are more durable an light weight. On my fatbike I run either the B67 or a Fabric Scoop saddle during the rainy season so I don't ruin the leather.

Happy Feet

And frame bags...

I bought a Blackburn Outpost frame bag (medium), not really knowing at the time how versatile I would find it. I would say it's mid range cost-wise and a bit over built but I like the adaptability. It turned out to be too small for full frame coverage but I learned to appreciate that defect/benefit and would now buy the same size if I had too for the range of bikes it fits and water carrying capacity it offers.

It has a zipper so you can make it full frame or more narrow to run along the top tube. Here it is narrow on my endurance bike (60cm) so I can still have two water bottles.





Here it is extended but doesn't fill the whole frame, allowing me to add a 1.5L naglene bottle in a cargo cage as well.





And it also fits my fatbike, that has a smaller frame. I think I could put a standard side entry water bottle cage on the seat tube and fit a tool keg in there to fill that small space if I wanted. with this water bottle configuration, adding another cargo cage to the down tube, I can haul 3L of water on the frame.

Tourist in MSN

I have tried two different C17s, a plain one and an all weather one. Initially I liked them but at about 15 miles I decided they were equivalent to a medieval torture device. But, I have met several rando riders that use them on brevets and are very happy with them, so they clearly work for some people but not for others.

fourfa

The B17 came stock on my Salsa Vaya Travel. I gave it 6000 miles and 6 years but it never broke in at all, not even the little dents/dimples you should get under the sitz bones. It wasn't a medieval torture device for me - but it wasn't good either. I got sort of used to sitting with all the anatomy on one side or the other, and the start of a tour would be a process of just riding uncomfortably until those spots got chapped and toughened up.

I'm a tall rider, 6'2", some XL bikes are even cramped for me. My tour bike has like 4" of drop from the saddle to the bars, and that's at max stem height on the fork. It's been discussed a little here and lot elsewhere, but pretty much everyone agrees that Brooks doesn't work for anyone with that much drop, even on the top and hoods. Certainly didn't for me.

Specialized Power saddles in 155mm work really great for me right out of the box (it was a long process to learn that though).

Trevtassie

Coasting fast enough to need 110 inches on gravel would be fairly rare, on a regular touring bike I'd agree coasting sucks nearly as much as pushing, but on a gravel bike, if you had to choose between low end or high end, I'd pick low end. When I tour on gravel I've only used my Rohloff with a single speed front 14" to 73" and that seems enough. On the road I use an ATS speed drive, 14" to 122". Can pedal down nearly anything.

rifraf

LOL - and I thought I was being bold running 15.3gi on my Hoff in low.

Happy Feet

That's the truth. It's good though, to know what saddle suits what style and how they should be adjusted so the decision isn't based on wrong application.

I think my next saddle will be a Brooks C15 carved. A little narrower and I think the lack of a carved slot made my C17 too stiff... maybe.

Trevtassie

26" wheels help. I run 36/19 so that's bang on 1.9:1. Only issue I have is Rohloff sprockets seem to be made of cheese, after 3000km or so of heavy riding the teeth get a real hook to them. Yep, you can reverse them, but I'd like longer than that in the first instance, so I'm trying a KMC 1/8" sprocket with a Wippermann E Bike chain. Heavy AF but more like a motorbike than a bicycle.

cyccommute 

I’ve always had a good wide gear range on my mountain bikes (which is what I use for my “gravel” bike). My current one has a 44/34/20 with an 11-36 10 speed cassette with a range of 110 to 15 (thought it was 14 but I was wrong). I use that range on every off-road tour I do. Sometimes, I do up to 30 mph on dirt and other times I’ve done as high 45 on pavement. Not all off-road touring occurs on dirt. It may not look it but this is a 25mph dirt road...for around 12 to 15 miles.




The pavement on the right (not the dirt) is a 45mph downhill.



And just to be clear, I use knobs.



Sometimes I’m not too bright

Trevtassie

If you can ride down that track at 25mph on a loaded bike, good on you... me, I wouldn't because who knows what's around the next corner...
You will note I said, "if you had to choose" I'll pretty well always chose the widest gear range I can, but the ATS doesn't particularly like deep water or dust, so it doesn't get a gurnsey off road.

Tourist in MSN

When I built up my Rohloff bike, I decided that for touring I wanted lower gearing than I use for around town near home. And near home I knew what gear inch range would be ideal from my other bikes, I use a 44/16 ratio.

But touring, I rode a different bike up a fairly steep hill and watched my speed to see what I thought that the slowest I could go without having to do radical steering to stay upright, found the slowest speed was 3.5 mph. And I felt that the slowest cadence that was smooth instead of jerky was 72. I based my lowest gear on that for touring, that came out to be a ratio of 36/16 to give me a low gear with a 72 cadence at 3.5 mph. Thus I have to add or subtract four links when I change chainrings, use a second quick link.

With 57mm wide 26 inch tires, that calculates to a range of 16.2 to 85.1 gear inches for touring. I do wish I had higher gearing for shallow downhills, but I don't want to give up the lower gears that I sometimes need for the steeper uphills.

Before I flipped my sprocket a few months ago, took a photo.



I cut a notch in one tooth, I always put a link with outer plates on that one tooth. More on that here:
https://www.sheldonbrown.com/chain-life.html

Based on that article, you get more wear on the teeth with inner plate links and that is what I saw on my sprocket, those teeth had a more pronounced hook. I use 16T sprockets.

When you have more experience with that KMC sprocket and e-bike chain, please write up a post with your experience.

fishboat

There does seem to be more of a difference between a C17 std and a C17-carved..more than I expected at least. On the same bike, I've found the C17-carved to be very comfortable to 50+ miles while the C17 std(not carved out) is decidedly uncomfortable in short order..less than 20 miles.

I also have both a B17 std and B17-Imperial (carved)..while the carved version is more comfortable, the standard version is comfortable too.

cyccommute 

The road in the second picture is at a place called Hell’s Gate. It’s on the old Colorado Midland Railroad bed which is one a few standard gauge railroads built in the late 1800 in Colorado. Because it’s a railroad...and a very wide gauge one at that...the sight lines are very long. Even on the tightest corner on the road, the sight line is close to half a mile. Hell’s Gate is narrowest place on the road (about 40 miles total) and it’s still pretty wide for a dirt road in Colorado. There are very few places where you’d could be surprised by on-coming vehicles. It’s pretty save to bomb down as fast as gravity, friction, and nerves will allow. There’s a whole bunch of these kinds of roads...old railroad beds...here in Colorado and all of them are safe to ride at fairly stupid speeds.

phughes

Sure, lower the saddle slightly, I will venture to guess it is slightly too high. The B17 is not forgiving of a too high saddle, and it doesn't take much. If it is set up right, you won't have perineum pain. I am very sensitive to that, and yet I can happily ride my B17 all day, 70 miles without issue, and then do it again the next day. I did however have horrific pain until I lowered the saddle to where it really should be. Look at Steve Hogg's site. If you are on Instagram look up Bikefitjames. The majority of saddle issues have nothing to do with the saddle, but instead, the issue is with the fit, and usually from "fitters" putting the saddle too high.

I can run my saddle the same height as the bars, or even lower as long as the height is right. I do, however have the bars slightly higher now though.