My sleeping bag isn't small enough to fit it in with all that, but during the summer when I use just a bivy, I leave it inside my hammock when I stuff it in my sweet roll. The rain fly I fold up separate and strap to the underside of the sweet roll since it is usually wet.

Getting a pad in there is going to be a bit more difficult. You will probably have to pre-deflate it and close the valve so that it doesn't hold on to its air. I do have grand plans for a nice little bed roll made up of a ground cloth, bivy (or sleeping bag in a bivy) and pad that get all rolled up together. It would make camp setup SO fast.

Also make sure to get one that lets you adjust the elbow pad location. A lot of cheap (and really high end) aero bars put the pad in a fixed location. This works ok, but I find depending on stem length and all, I like my elbow pads to be way closer to me than the default location. Remember, we use the aero bars not for aero, but for resting, so it needs to be a super comfortable position.

I have some basic AL Profile T1+ aero bars. They work wonders and are waaaay more affordable, often found on ebay for $50-80. I also had some AirStrykes with the flip up rests. Super cool concept, but I found I'd rather be in the aero bars than on the flats of my drop bars, and the flip up pieces got in the way of my face when I was in the drops. YMMV.

Hed also makes some super weight weenie aero bars, but they may be less flexible in positioning.

You'll see a wide range of of advice from people, especially depending on how fast they ran through it. The racers finish it in just 2-3 weeks. Others taking a more leisurely pace finish it in many times that. As such, the amount of gear you have to bring varies widely, and  the mount of food you need between towns varies depending on how many days it will take you.

But what it seems like everyone agrees on is you need big fat tires, super beefy bike, loads of mud clearance, waterproof (and mud proof and snow proof and sleet proof) bags, and a great attitude.

Wow, that is fantastic! I love the personal feel you get from the gopro on your chest. I'll share this around!

Lovely! I learned a similar trick with other mats that don't have that nice cork sized valve, but rather have the thermarest style valve.

Fill up the bag
Bunch the bag up as if you were going to close it, like you showed
Seal it around the sticky-outy part of the valve
Squeeze the bag to inflate your pad!

Man, these lights are so multifaceted I entirely forgot to address those issues.

The Luxos has a USB charger. This is amazing. It can charge my phone to give me GPS directions home. It can charge my AA batteries (with a USB battery charger) to recharge my GPS. It is totally unnecessary for the first 2-3 days of a trip because a backup Anker battery could do all of these things for much less cost. Still, amazing.

The "high" beam setting is useless. Yep. Never noticed a difference. I have a Fenix BC30 that I use for commuting during the winter. I run it on low, but have the high button accessible at all times. When a driver doesn't see me I can blast them with 1800 lumens in a few quick pulses and you'd better bet they see me then. Much better than shouting at the top of my lungs "don't run me over please!"

However, the light does have some cool smarts in it. It has LEDs pointed at the ground that illuminate the road at night. During the day, these dim and the front facing wide beams get more power, serving as "be seen" lights for other drivers.

I also have the "Toplight plus" attached to my Luxos, which is a super cool tail light. It runs off the dynamo, mounts directly to the plate in the rear of my rack (not sure how you would mount it without that plate - I've got some jerry rigged ideas in my head), it has a brake light that comes on when you slow down, making the light brighter, and it has a retroreflector built in so car headlights will shine back even brighter. Super amazing all around. The only thing is I wish it would be a little bit brighter, particularly for nasty rainy/snowy weather.

Would be curious to know how the beam pattern differs between the Luxos and the Revo, from a mountain biking perspective, once you get some time riding with the Revo. I've heard the Luxos has more of a traffic friendly beam pattern, since it was probably designed for the Euro market.

The Revo is like a flashligh, and the Luxos U is like a car headlight. Like you said, the luxos is "traffic" friendly, as it it lights up the road instead of blinding people. This is amazing, because it only puts light where you need it. If you are riding on a road or bike path, or anything like that, it will not blind everyone coming towards you. However, on really sudden slope changes like you see while mountain biking, this can be a little annoying because the light distribution is so shaped that when it isn't level, things are all the wrong brightness. This can be really diminished by also using a headlamp, even if it is a pretty dim one.

I'd say the Revo is only really even an option if nobody else is around. I would never use it if I planned to be riding on roads. Since it doesn't have a shaped beam, it will do a better job of illuminating any branches that are about to smack you in the face, but like I said, will also blind anyone coming your way.

I gotta say, that seems pretty perfect if you don't need the massive volume of a large drybag. You get all the benefits of a front pocket and two feed bags all in one package!

Well a good place to start is to look at the factory recommended pressures for a rider of weight = your weight + gear weight. That said, I imagine that gear actually counts a little over a pound per pound because it doesn't come with knees to absorb some of the shock.

It seems to me you don't necessarily need to take it out to singletrack to test it. Hit a few curbs right out on the street, and use a few curb cuts as jumps.

I think they basically all swing. Besides the rail wing and the Mr. Fusion of course. One thought I've had is to make sure there is some nice compressible stuff packed right against the part that touches the seat rails so you can really compress the bag down.

That said, I've yet to see a seat bag not wobble.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but how do you attach the bike lights to your helmet? I've been fiddling around with that for a while and can't keep them from slipping off one way or another.

Side note re: patch kit.  Make sure the glue hasn't dried up / gone bad.

I always keep a brand new patch kit on my bike. If I have to use it on the trail (I get more flats than I have spare tubes) then it becomes my shop patch kit and I buy a new bike patch kit. That glue will dry surprisingly fast after you open it.

The biggest challenge will be preventing myself from covering it with all the things I'd be so tempted to put on it!

I actually do expect to get some serious weight savings. The Fargo claimed weight is around 27.5lbs and the Warbird falls somewhere around 20lbs (of course depending on the build). I understand that much of that may come from wheels, fork, etc, but 7lbs is quite a lot of weight to lose.

To be fair though, I could get a similar savings by moving all my commuting gear off the Fargo onto a different bike (rack, fenders, U-lock), but I could double the gains by never putting that sort of stuff onto the Warbird (or similar bike) in the first place.

27.5 fargo

I love those welgo platform petals. I just got a set for both my mountain bike and commuter/bikepacking bike. You do need to be a bit careful though because those studs will chew though your shoes over time. They are VERY aggressive.

I've thought about carbon fiber, but I'm a bit worried about whether it could last for years, or would need to be replaced frequently. That said, I'm testing a Warbird in a week, and I'll see how I like that. The biggest problem with most of the bikes I've seen is lack of tire clearance. Most of the light and minimal bikes are set for 33mm or under tires.

When I am headed out with the girlfriend, I usually carry the majority of the load, so I'm happy to take the Fargo with a rack and lots of bags. But when I go out alone I try to limit myself to just the soft bikepacking bags, and no racks. I probably wouldn't need any of the standard braze-ons, in that case, just space for a 45mm tire or so. I suppose I could even switch out for a firestarter fork (or lots of hose clamps) if I wanted to add on anything cages or water bottles up front.

Short of making a custom bike I think I'll start looking at "relaxed" geometry "cross" bikes made of CF/AL/TI.

For starters, let me just say that I am the proud owner of a Salsa Fargo, and have ridden many times with it heavily and lightly loaded. I've also gone shopping at Harbor Freight for anvils and sledge hammers, and put 40lb of steel on the rear rack of my aluminum city hybrid bike without issue.

My question is this. Since I weigh a scant 145lbs, and my bikepacking weight is never over 30lbs, do I really need a "bombproof" "bikepacking" bike for bikepacking? It seems like I could make due with a road bike built for someone weighing 175lbs and be just as well off. Is there some fatal flaw in my logic, or should I really be shopping more for cross bikes than for bikepacking bikes?

How do you account for rider weight when determining bike strength?

It seems like you are not actually asking about ultra racing. It seems like you are asking more about bike packing. As in all races, ultra racing is about racing, not about angry birds or selfies. Bikepacking on the other hand, is all about having fun in the wild outdoors.

I bring my phone for maps, internet, phone, camera, and any emergency needs.

Spot tracking, a working Garmin with path navigation, and a headlight you can ride by (under a new moon) seem like basic essentials for any bikepacking trip, race or no.

My cell phone has downloaded GPS maps, which is all well and good when I'm not too far from civilization, even in poor reception, but it can be flaky, so I wouldn't trust it for a high stakes back country exploration.

Battery life is miserable with modern entertainment devices. I can get a pretty full day of GPS out of my phone on super low power mode, but have to recharge it every day from a battery pack that I fill up during the ride with my hub generator.