Bump.

Phil is great! He's a friend and a team mate and loves to do stuff like this.

FYI - stuff like this is great but always keep in mind that things randomly open & close and you can bet that the stop you count on most is either closed or it'll rain, etc. I'm just saying, keep a couple of bars or something in case of emergency. The section after Pie Town took me totally by surprise in that I had it in my head that it was 80 miles and in reality it was 180 and I spent two nights out, unplanned, with nowhere to resupply. Those bars tasted like steak and potatoes on the second morning. Also, at least on a singlespeed that section is brutal as it's up/down in equal parts with the potential for a lot of mud beforehand. Ugh! Anyway....just plan ahead. :-)

Try Seattle Outdoor Fabrics and there area few others in the States. Just search for outdoor fabrics or cordura. Lots of the same stores carry the "simple" and more functional sliders like you want. I know of a German source (extremtextil.de) if anyone needs that info.

Looks quite good. Is the plastic mesh hard? If so, do things rattle? Very innovative side pockets too. A tip, on the bottom, if you loop the Velcro, you get more leverage and I find it to hold better than the way you have it. Just an idea for your next iteration.

I'm so jealous that you can get Honey Stinger. I fell in love with them while on the TDR last year but the one place I found them in Europe, stopped carrying them.

I saw these and kind of drewlled a bit. Would be great with The Plug and a dyno hub. Then you'd have a light for off the bike too.

Sadly... I missed this message completely until now. I would have contributed something.

Is there not going to be a digital version of V4? Please say yes, otherwise, I'll never read it.

I love the idea, the stories and the cause and would love to help but we have too many books and magazines around the house already.

Thanks...

I agree... nicely done.

Things can look a lot heavier in photos than in real life. Strangely, it does look really Harley biker to me too.

I would avoid the underneath attachment points. I have them on my on my Carousel seatbag and have always wondered why they were there. The elastic cable continually rubs the tire as would anything that would be attached under the pack (in my case). There's, at most, 1.5" between the bag and the saddle.

Your comment is true about the relationship of the seatpost/saddle/bag. If the saddle wasn't so far forward the bag might lay a little more horizontally.

As a fellow bag maker, I have found that padding on most things is overkill and weighs things down.. .a lot. I also think that lining everything is going a bit too far as well. That's me though. I don't see bags lasting long enough (even though I make mine to last a long time) to warrant it. My one run on the TDR with X-Pac 21 did a lot of damage to the bags. Of course, that's pretty lightweight material. The Ortlieb bag (I live close to where they're based) will last a lifetime though.

Congrats on setting yourself apart and doing your own thing. That's quite cool.

Personal knowledge of what works for someone is a great starting place for those that have never done something like this before and need/want to collect gear. Having said that, what "works" for one person in a given situation may not work at all for someone else in the same or another situation. Case in point... if I'd had a my SuperNova dyno light last year on the TDR I could have ridden a lot more in the dark. Sadly, I had another light which was seemingly lighter but in the end, unreliable as it broke and then I carried the weight of the light and batteries for 4500 km for zero sum gain. I'd rather have carried the extra few ounces of something that worked. Hopefully that made sense.

Anyway... my list was back a couple of pages.

I still have both the BC1 & BC3 for sale. It's just the cost of shipping from Germany. Both are barely used and would cost less, with shipping than some would realize.

My worst day on a bike.... Also sliced a tire miles from nowhere a few hours before this and later ran out of food. Ugh!


The view many of us see...

The intersection of the TDR and CDR

I've got one I'd be willing to part with. It's probably 3 years old and has maybe been used 10 times max. The biggest issue is that I live in Germany. I'd let it go for 50 Euros plus shipping if you or anyone else is interested. I also have a BC1 that I'm going to sell as well.

Wow.... at this point, I'm attempting to contact the German company (Germans don't typically return emails) for either a wholesale or retail source here in Europe. I have one retail source (can't find another) but he's often out of stock and rarely carries any of the good colors. Grrr. If that doesn't work, I might be ordering from the States and tacking on the shipping and import tax costs to the bags. It's really weird to me that I can't find any other retail or wholesale sources in Europe and it's even made here.

I, strangely, made it all the way to the CTR section outside of Silver City before my knee gave me any problems (the first time in 15 years of singlespeeding). I'm sure spinning all the way to the border at 13-14 mph didn't make it any happier. The only foot issues that I had came after the long stretches of walking across snow where my shoes flexed just enough in the cleat location to irritate my foot and caused it to swell. FYI - I tried the new Specialized Rime shoes which, in my opinion, would be perfect SS shoes if they were an 8 on the stiffness scale and they made the tread a bid deeper so that the cleat didn't scrape the ground/asphalt/gravel and wear down at an astounding rate (I went through 3 sets of cleats).

As fair as taint issues, I had one tough day in after the long asphalt/dirt day somewhere in the middle and then about half way through the run to the border from Silver City I could only sit for a matter of about a half mile before having to stand to relieve the pressure. Weird. Other than that, a good cleaning most nights, a bit of Desitin followed by Euro formula Chamois Butter and I was good for the day.

My hands were good for the most part. I use a Groovy Luv Handle bar with ESI grips (no Aero bars). My normal riding position in "road" situations is pretty relaxed and I ride/steer with the flats of my hands on the grips. Occasionally, I would change positions to a normal gripping position and then back again. After 2 weeks the very tip of a couple of fingers kind of tingles, but it's far less than I actually expected given all the problems people seem to have.

Really, given that this was my first bikepacking event and by far the longest event I've ever participated in, I have to say that I'm super surprised that I seemed to have nailed most of the fit issues that plague most people. Thanks to Phil and you guys for letting me pick your brains. The fact that I've been racing for almost 20 years, mostly SS and endurance probably helps as well, I guess.

Foster... I agree.... you get the SUPER BAD ASS award from me as well.

I ran 32X19 for the TDR this year. In the end, I'm not sure that I'd been happy riding much different. Maybe, just maybe the 33X19 might have been a bit better. I'll never know. I've been riding/racing singlespeed mostly for 15 years. I change gearing depending on the course. When I just have to shoot in the dark, I stick with 32X19 as it works for almost everything except flats (it sucks when you turn around and 10 people are drafting off of you... the only singlespeed!).

I've gone through multiple bikes so thats semi-irrelevant.

Oh... I've also had serious mood facial hair longer than most people have ridden bikes. :-)

Bike:
Chris King headset
Chris King singlespeed cog
Groovy Cycles Luv Handle
ESI Grips
Avid Juicy brakes
Indy Fab Ti frame
Brooks Swift saddle
My self-made SpoK Bags :-) (it surprised me too)
White Indus. Cranks and M16 hubs
SRAM chains
Homebrewed Components front chainring
Sapim spokes
FRM rims
Garmin eTrex Vista HCX

Camping:
Thermarest 3/4 ProLite (15+ years old)

Sock Guy SOCKS and arm warmers! My favorite things ever!!
Icebreaker anything

I used White Indus. M16 laced to FRM 388 rims which worked perfectly. I did have the rear rebuilt in Helena but that was because in the couple thousand kilometers I'd previously used them they'd never been adjusted. It was my fault, nothing to do with the hubs. Oh... I put extra stress on them using them singlespeed. If I hadn't used those I'd have run Chris King ISO. As far as easily servicable, I hate to recommend them, but Shimano are the standard (sadly) and most shops along the way could repair them. On the other hand, I was with one of the Italian guys when the shop told him that his Shimano hub was beyond repair and that a new wheel would be cheaper than trying to save his hub.

I still haven't caught onto the whole Fat Bikes are cool craze. I totally get it for snow/sand, etc. but as a form of suspension or just because they look cool.... not so much. However, as far as constructive commentary, I rode my Indy Fab Ti Deluxe 29'er with White Bros. Rock Solid fork the whole distance and really couldn't have been happier with the bikes performance. I had to change the chain once but everything else worked fantastically.

Great show Joe. Thanks for all the hard work. Will call in when I hit Stateside.

I'm in Jasper (north of Banff) and the weather is warm-ish but changes every half hour. Got a little corn snow at about 1800 meters while out hiking today.