Bikepacking the new Touring?
04-22-18, 08:05 PM
#151
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I just stumbled across this carbon fiber rear rack with matching bags. Looks pretty slick. Anyone have any further info on them, or seen them in person?
https://www.tailfin.cc/
https://www.tailfin.cc/
Credit to Tailfin for making a CF rack for a fairly reasonable price, but only 40g lighter than the Tubus Logo Titan(ium) & only 18kg capacity vs 40kg. I got the Logo Titan for about $250, TheTouringStore.Com has some of the discontinued model for $300 which is still $50 cheaper than the Tailfin. The Logo Titan is ~standard design so less worries about pannier compatibility etc.
04-22-18, 08:20 PM
#152
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‘76, six of us rode 4000 miles Seattle to New York via a crazy trip mostly in Canada. Pretty self contained & camped/overnighted in farm fields, dugouts, ski slopes, rest areas, hobo camps, parks, forests, rocky islands, RV Parks, hostels, porches, barns, lawns, wherever we could lay our heads at days end. Hot (or cold) shower maybe twice a week or a dip into a handy river. Always had enough food to carry us through a couple days. We tried gravel but our 27 x 1 1/4 tires really barely handled chipseal. Had our share of flats, broken spokes, cracked frame, potato chip wheel (took me 2 hours to bend back & true). We were self contained with tools, stoves, tents, our own design panniers and most of our “gear” was from our years of backpacking with REI as our supply source (the old store). Touring my ass, we were bike packing.
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04-23-18, 12:24 PM
#154
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There are places where removing the bags comes in very handy. I don't often leave camp after I've made it but on rare occasion, I need to stock up and/or make a grocery run. I try to got to grocery stores during the day when I find one along the way but occasionally that doesn't work out. For example, at Harper's Ferry, I knew that I would be riding along the C&O where there are few grocery stores so I rode to one. I didn't what to carry everything with me so I left most of the bags (and their contents at the campsite.
Harper's Ferry also presented a unique problem that I've never encountered before...a spiral stair.
IMGP1106 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
a steep spiral stair
2015-05-20 14.52.01 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
and a very tight one
2015-05-20 14.55.21 by Stuart Black, on Flickr
I foolishly muscled the fully loaded bike up that stair in the evening when I went across but when I came back, I unloaded the bike and carried everything down the stair. With regular panniers, I just grab the handle and the panniers come off. With a bikepacking bag, the removal and installation is more involved. And they don't have all the convenient handles.
And before people go saying "the bikepacking load would have been lighter", yes, but it's not zero weight. Pushing a bike up or down those stairs is bad enough. Any extra weight makes it worse. And the bike is easier to carry with the top tube open so that would mean removal of at least the seat post bag and any frame bag which are both more complicated than panniers.
That's kind of what I've been saying all along. I have said, repeatedly, that any aerodynamic differences are minimal.
Again, I would agree for off-road riding. I would go that route if I were to do the Great Divide Trail or any off-road adventure. I have gone that route after trying panniers and a couple of trailers. But for on-road touring, I feel I'm already suffering enough. I'm not totally comfortable when bicycle touring but I don't feel the need to go out of my way to make it worse.
Harper's Ferry also presented a unique problem that I've never encountered before...a spiral stair.
IMGP1106 by Stuart Black, on Flickra steep spiral stair
2015-05-20 14.52.01 by Stuart Black, on Flickrand a very tight one
2015-05-20 14.55.21 by Stuart Black, on FlickrI foolishly muscled the fully loaded bike up that stair in the evening when I went across but when I came back, I unloaded the bike and carried everything down the stair. With regular panniers, I just grab the handle and the panniers come off. With a bikepacking bag, the removal and installation is more involved. And they don't have all the convenient handles.
And before people go saying "the bikepacking load would have been lighter", yes, but it's not zero weight. Pushing a bike up or down those stairs is bad enough. Any extra weight makes it worse. And the bike is easier to carry with the top tube open so that would mean removal of at least the seat post bag and any frame bag which are both more complicated than panniers.
That's kind of what I've been saying all along. I have said, repeatedly, that any aerodynamic differences are minimal.
Again, I would agree for off-road riding. I would go that route if I were to do the Great Divide Trail or any off-road adventure. I have gone that route after trying panniers and a couple of trailers. But for on-road touring, I feel I'm already suffering enough. I'm not totally comfortable when bicycle touring but I don't feel the need to go out of my way to make it worse.
04-23-18, 12:55 PM
#155
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04-23-18, 01:34 PM
#156
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04-24-18, 12:06 AM
#157
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04-24-18, 07:15 PM
#159
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04-24-18, 08:25 PM
#160
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cool, although you are looking a bit fat ;-)
neat setup there with the (assuming) homemade antimud and crud thingee in the rear triangle, the flare out drops and a bar end shifter--not something you see on a fatbike often thats for sure.
You know, I dont think Ive ever seen a dropbar fatbike before to be honest.
happy riding, its such a wonderful sport isn't it? and although I'm probably only 10 years or so behind you, its great how its just as fun as X years ago.
cheers
neat setup there with the (assuming) homemade antimud and crud thingee in the rear triangle, the flare out drops and a bar end shifter--not something you see on a fatbike often thats for sure.
You know, I dont think Ive ever seen a dropbar fatbike before to be honest.
happy riding, its such a wonderful sport isn't it? and although I'm probably only 10 years or so behind you, its great how its just as fun as X years ago.
cheers
04-25-18, 01:19 PM
#161
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https://www.adventurecycling.org/adventure-cyclist/online-features/bikepacking-searching-for-a-definition/?utm_medium=BulkEmail&utm_source=BE&utm_campaign=20180425_ED
04-25-18, 03:57 PM
#162
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cool, although you are looking a bit fat ;-)
neat setup there with the (assuming) homemade antimud and crud thingee in the rear triangle, the flare out drops and a bar end shifter--not something you see on a fatbike often thats for sure.
You know, I dont think Ive ever seen a dropbar fatbike before to be honest.
happy riding, its such a wonderful sport isn't it? and although I'm probably only 10 years or so behind you, its great how its just as fun as X years ago.
cheers
neat setup there with the (assuming) homemade antimud and crud thingee in the rear triangle, the flare out drops and a bar end shifter--not something you see on a fatbike often thats for sure.
You know, I dont think Ive ever seen a dropbar fatbike before to be honest.
happy riding, its such a wonderful sport isn't it? and although I'm probably only 10 years or so behind you, its great how its just as fun as X years ago.
cheers
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Make ******* Grate Cheese Again
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04-25-18, 04:42 PM
#163
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Oh yeah. I weighed a svelte 151 at 5’10”. Today that’s a svelte 190+. The day of that pic I’d just covered 16.5 beach miles in 65 minutes. I loved the dropbars but now I’m all in trekking. Mudguards sorta worked but I’m still blowing through a chain every 500-600 miles. I really want to build a chain guard enclosure and halt that sand eating crud completely.
I guess its just part of the deal.
04-26-18, 08:33 AM
#164
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Don't make AT hikers angry. You won't like them when they are angry.
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Plan Epsilon Around Lake Michigan in the era of Covid
Old School…When It Wasn’t Ancient bikepacking
Gold Fever Three days of dirt in Colorado
Pokin' around the Poconos A cold ride around Lake Erie
Dinosaurs in Colorado A mountain bike guide to the Purgatory Canyon dinosaur trackway
Solo Without Pie. The search for pie in the Midwest.
Picking the Scablands. Washington and Oregon, 2005. Pie and spiders on the Columbia River!
Stuart Black
Plan Epsilon Around Lake Michigan in the era of Covid
Old School…When It Wasn’t Ancient bikepacking
Gold Fever Three days of dirt in Colorado
Pokin' around the Poconos A cold ride around Lake Erie
Dinosaurs in Colorado A mountain bike guide to the Purgatory Canyon dinosaur trackway
Solo Without Pie. The search for pie in the Midwest.
Picking the Scablands. Washington and Oregon, 2005. Pie and spiders on the Columbia River!
04-26-18, 06:04 PM
#165
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The sands of our beach are “black sands” and loaded with iron, chromium, titanium, quartz, silica, magnetite, salt, ground down basalt, granite and that crap just anihilates chains & bearings IF it gets in. I’ve blown through several BBs due to sand getting into in from the seat stay top, vent holes on chainstays. Had to seal up everything. And I don’t splash through water anymore.
