My birthday tour bike check
In my previous blog post I shared a bunch of photos and stories from my 3 night birthday dirt tour. In this post I want to highlight what I racks and bags I used, how I used them, and what I would do differently next time.
For this tour I opted to ditch the basketpacking setup I used on my previous overnighter, mostly due to the fact that I didn’t want an empty basket on my bike when going out for a shreddy day ride after stripping my bike and setting up camp. Also I’m all in on the traditional boxy rando bag, partially for the practicality and usability, and partially for The Vibes™️.
The Bike
Stooge Rambler 52cm aubergine
Stan’s Barons 26” with a Shutter Precision dynamo front hub + Koozer rear hub
Vittoria Booze Light 2.3” setup tubeless (they blow up to about 2.5” on the 35mm internal rims, and are super light and supple)
160mm Goldix cranks with a 40t Wolf Tooth chainring
ZTTO 11 speed 9-46 cassette
Shimano XT RD-M786 GS short cage derailer with a road link tab
Crust x Nitto Towel Rack 630mm
custom tall stack Larkin stem with integrated bell mount (using a PDW Graham Bell)
Gevenalle levers in friction with a 3D printed dropper lever
The racks and bags
In front I ran a Swift Peregrine 15L rando bag (RIP) on top of a Sunlite Goldtec rack (slightly modified to fit the disc Rambler). It was affixed to the bike with a Velo Orange decaleur under my custom tall stack Larkin stem with integrated bell. That decaleur is kinda mid, but I think the huge interface of the tall stem on the seat tube keeps it more solid than on a 1” threaded setup. The Sunlite rack doesn’t have a proper tombstone, so I strapped the bag to the little stubby tombstone using Voile straps connected to the webbing on the back of the bag. Coupled with the decaleur and velcro straps under the bag, this was solid as a rock, even when skidding down singletrack or bumping along decommissioned roads.
In the main compartment I used the webbing to vertically organize our sporks, Portawipes coin tissues, and trowel. In the inside pocket I jammed all my cables for charging. The main boxy area held my little cooler bag, rain shell, gloves, a musette bag, snacks, and whatever else I needed to jam in there. In the front outside pocket I kept things I wanted readily available for camp, including a lighter, headlamp, paracord, and a koozy. On the top flap I used a Rossman Cycles GPS mount for my bike computer. I used the side pockets for garbage and sometimes my phone when it was charging and we were on smoother terrain.
I used a Randi Jo Fabrications Bartender Plus bag to hold my Soma Further bottle + snacks or my phone on the side pocket.
The frame triangle held my Saris adjustable frame bag, fully extended. This held tools, tubes, a huge battery pack, my camp stove, more paracord, and sometimes more food. I also used a Velo Orange Mojave water bottle cage for my giant Nalgene.
On the rear I used that Velta rear rack that magically appeared at my house one day with two REI Link panniers. One pannier held my sleeping bag + sleeping pad + pillow with room on top to spare. The other held my tent in the Link stuff sack + rain fly in the other Link stuff sack with room on top to spare, which sometimes housed my JBL Flip 6 bluetooth speaker or my sandals. On top of the rack I lashed a 7L dry bag holding my clothes (1 extra pair of Ridge Merino boxers, a pair of 686 Anywhere pants, a long sleeve shirt, a smart wool t-shirt, an extra pair of socks, an extra bandana, and an extra pair of shorts. I didn’t end up wearing the extras at all, but I was happy to have them) and my toiletries. Later on I put Eliisa’s pillow in there too. On top of the dry bag were are tent poles/stakes, which ended up being much better oriented perpendicular to the rack to haves less dropper post interference. Unlike the last tour I lashed these using the extremely expensive but oh-so-luxurious and useful Voile Rack Straps. I usually buy Voile strap blems on eBay for super cheap, and I try to min-max most things on my bikes (see the Ali Express drivetrain, etc.) But these straps are super legit and well worth the extra coin. They make working with the panniers much easier.
I also affixed some Problem Solvers Bow Ties to my fork legs just in case, although I didn’t end up using them. I had some extra Voile straps packed, which came in handy for lashing bug spray, my bluetooth speaker, or a bottle of bourbon to the Stooge’s double top tube.
In the future I’d like to get a really nice fitting full frame bag to store more heavy things. My gearing was a bit athletic, mostly just on singletrack, but it worked out fine. In the future a 36t chainring would probably be more suitable, but I already had the 40t so I decided to run what I brung. Also, this is anal, but I’m going to get a smaller tent pole made just for the cross section that props up our rain fly. It’s currently 185cm and it breaks into two. The two piece is significantly longer than the rest of our tent poles, which makes packing the tent poles more cumbersome. In the future I’d be happy to lash some smaller dry bags to the fork legs, especially when I’m not splitting the load with Eliisa. Which leads me to her bike…
The Bike
Crust Nor’easter 52cm disc
Velo Orange Blunt 35 a Schmidt SON28 dynamo front hub + Bitex rear hub. Funny story, I realized her original Shutter Precision dynamo was roached 2 weeks before the tour. I had to send it back to Taiwan for warranty service. I heard multiple people in the Path Less Pedaled Discord say that they’ve had repeated problems with that particular hub, and since we knew that the hub wouldn’t arrive fixed on time from Taiwan, we opted to go for the SON28. Anyone want to buy a beautiful and recently refurbished SP dynamo?
René Herse Umtanum Ridge endurance casing
160mm Dixna La cranks with a 40t Amazon chainring
Microshift Advent X alloy spider cassette
Shimano Deore RD-M5100 derailer (it’s better than the Advent X derailer, and they both use the Dynasys pull ratio)
Crust x Nitto Shaka Bar 520mm
Microshift Advent X brifters
The racks and bags
In front E ran a Swift Zeitgeist trunk bag propped up by a Hitch Cycles Crobar. The Crobar is the only way she’s able to have enough room for her dynamo light on the smaller frame. I added some shock cord to the Zeitgeist bags to be able to stuff clothes or a rain shell on the outside of the bag— you can see her drying off some clothes in the picture above.
She also used a Randi Jo Fabrications Bartender Plus bag to hold snacks or her phone, which she charged using a Sinewave Revolution plugged into a Velo Lumino AT Jack— it was dope!
Up front she also ran a Tubus low rider rack with two REI Link Panniers. One of the panniers had all of our food and Sawyer Squeeze water filter, and the other had her enormous sleeping bag.
On the rear she had another Swift Zeitgeist bag resting on a Nitto R10 bag support, which is probably the only way she’d be able to run a bag on her 52cm frame with big 27.5” tires. She came up with quite the system to keep attaching things to the Zeitgeist, including a Crazy Creek chair in the straps and her Chacos Voile strapped to the D-rings.
In general Eliisa’s setup was dialed. Like me she occasionally expressed that her gearing was slightly athletic too. If we were going to be doing more loaded touring on singletrack I’d step her down to a 36 or 38t. She also said her brakes let her down a little bit on the longest singletrack descent we had. It’s funny— the Nor’easter is rated to 160mm only, but the only way to fit a BB-7 out back is with a 180mm, so she was running 180mm front and back. Graham also said his brakes gave up the ghost on that section of trail as well. I personally am really committed to the 203mm up front on the Rambler (which Andy from Stooge explicitly designed it for— he’s a G). If you’re going to do any amount of shredding on a loaded setup your bike really should be able to take a 203mm up front IMO. I digress…
She also said the low rider panniers were really good, even on the singletrack. Where she got snagged and thrown to the ground (softly, fortunately) was on a horrible stretch of deep rutted sand where the only way through was on a tire track, with the height outside of the tire track being sometimes higher than the panniers. In general though they did a great job moving ferns and tall grass out of the way. And given the low trail geo of the Nor’easter it handled really well loaded up front. In the future the plan is to sell that black Zeitgeist and strap up an incoming medium Big Buffalo Bag— even though all of the strapping and lashing to the rear pack worked it would be nice to have a little extra space.
I can’t help but want to dither until I find just the right setup. That being said, if we never really changed a thing we’d still have really great setups for touring int he future. We could always use the Bow Ties to lash dry bags to her seat stays or my fork legs if we need more space too. That being said I’m very excited for this Buffalo Big Bag to come in so that I can also run it up front on my Stooge MK4 in the future. Since I tour on my Rambler, MK4, Pro Tour, and potentially even my fat bike and Murmur one day, I like having some sort of modular setups (ie trunk bags in the back or front, dry bags lashed to the bike, panniers in the front/back/both). I think we’re settling in on our goldilocks setup.
This Friday I embark on a 200km ride to a campsite on my Pro Tour. Stay tuned for how I pack my bike for that all-road journey.