BB choice is as much derived by crank choice as anything.

- Christophe Noel

What he said. What cranks you planning on running?

Nice work, live to ride.

Andrew it wouldn't matter if you went with the latest plastic model or the gen 2 cage - both are good.

I visited my local SKF bearing supplier, pawed through their tech manuals and found a superb grease rated down to -50C / -60F and up to 230C. Recommended for small, high speed bearings, low friction. Stripped down every bearing, repacked and tested down to -25C (coldest our freezer will go to) and the hot ones felt the same as the cold ones.

Another tick for Exposure - Diablo is my pick.

Power monkey extreme for batt and solar pack. E-werk for dynamo regulation.

I might go and pick up a tube of mag 1 from Chain Reaction when I get there. Thanks for the heads up!

Seems I wasn't the only one to have issues initially with this first batch, a bit of searching around the forums reveals similar tales of woe. But I think it's all fixed now

We don't have a Phil supplier here in AU and I've not physically played with tenacious oil before, so no idea on it's viscosity - I assumed it was around 10W? Limited options for cold lubes here.


I decided on ringdrive lube. I was happy with its viscosity at -25C after 5 days (coldest I could crank my freezer to). The Hope pawl leaf spring pressure should overcome cold soak stiction anyways.

Hey Nick, they were a super fast rolling tyre, uber light, everything I wanted. Low centre tread blocks, higher side blocks, quiet and good traction. These were the very first generation to hit Australia, got them about 3 weeks before I headed to NZ.

My first preference was actually the Geax Mezcal, had these for years and 100% proven, but just couldn't get them in time. Thunder Burts were available.

But we failed together. I should have added WAY more sealant initially to account for how much these things weeped. As in sweated on the whole sidewall. They have refined perfectly the amount of rubber to use on the carcass, but then gets made up on the inside in a latex coating. I had little spray jets of latex puffing out all over the place, ended up sticking some cloth patches on with super glue. Sealing particles all done used up   The bead bucked off the rim on the second day and couldn't reseat with a handpump, I had to stuff one tyre with fern fronds (after my last spare tube flatted)  to get me to a place where I could beg another tube from a racer until the next town.

But the woes didn't end there. The back tyre started to split down the middle. Due to very little rubber covering the carcass between the tread blocks, the rough trail surfaces were chopping the inter-block spaces to shreds. The rubber had worn away and the carcass fabric was wearing on the rocks. Had little choice but to swap the front to back so I could keep an eye on the tyre. Was 2/3rds into the ride, and the closest shop that would have a tyre was about 300metres from the finish, so I had to finish on this tyre.

Should not have raced a tyre with no proven track record  (I normally prefer to have a season on gear to prove itself trustworthy). Should have loaded up with more sealant.

Damaged tyre was replaced under warranty.

Still great fun

Doing some prep on the winter race bike, got me thinking about lubes for winterizing my Hope freehub, and other bearings.

I'll be using it on the Iditarod.

My thoughts were leaning towards Tenacious oil, or possibly chris king ringdrive lube.

I don't want to hijack the thread, but in the theme of the thread I'd like to share what I'm slowly building here in Australia:

http://bicyclingaustralia.com.au/2014/11/fat-bikes-rule

I've pushed really to hard to get this far, but I reckon I'm about a quarter of the way to my goal. Lots of firsts though - only shop with BBD bags and Oveja Negra 'packing bags, largest range of fatbike brands and gravel stoke down under.

I'm spending someone elses money too, so I've gotta prove the market first before I can commit to product.

Back yourself man, that is simply awesome. Just awesome.

I dream of doing something like that here at work, but Australia is a different market than you guys, still heavily entrenched in the online world and most people are yet to come back to bricks and mortar for experience, knowledge and paying a bit more for that.

Do what you love.

I often think we need less than we think we do. Food these days is pretty refined, and energy is plentiful and easy to extract. More often than not it is our pre-conceived idea of how much food we think we should have at each meal, not necessarily how much we actually need.

Our bodies are pretty good at making do and efficient at extracting a lot of what you need if you train it right.

Topeak, the morphs work quite well, having a flip down foot. Blackburn Mammoth too is pretty durable. Both these are rebuildable.

We used our IBEX with our tandem a few years ago for a long family tour - pet monkey on her weeride seat up front, us on the tandem and the Ibex dragged outback. Packing was so simple and with the load low, the bike handled very well. But loooong, OMFG it was a pain to put on the train!

I've also used the Ibex behind my dually, lots of flex when out of the saddle, but oh so cool to cache the trailer and flow some singletrail on a bare bike for a few hours.

Best thing you could do if hire/borrow one and try it for yourself. They have their applications, but only your own experience will tell you where and when they suit the trip!

I still use mine a lot - and not just for tours - great for hauling firewood, bulky packages from the post office (we all know what they are!) and bulky bike parts to and from work.

Add in a top tube bottle mount:



More here:

http://troyszczurkowski.blogspot.com.au/2014/10/salsa-fargo-ti-kiwi-brevet-2014-setup.html

Shimano M088 have served me well, available in wide foot too. Great traction rubber outsole, flex in the toe for walking but stiff overall with good protection for your foot on sharp rocky ground. 

One of those SOL emergency survival bags work well as a vbl - cheap and compact, but as mentioned a garbage bag works the same.

For me - I don't wear a helmet on our beach rides, too hot and I replace the helmet with a large brim hat to keep the sun off - more at risk of skin cancers in Australia on the beach than of helmet issues!

Also won't be wearing a helmet for Iditarod, easier for layering and lighting.

Check out Muru cycles titanium frames (gratuitous plug). Aussie brand, the price is good and even better with AUD/USD conversion.

For me - titanium hands down. The material will put up with way more handling abuse over the long term (flights, train travel, stuff rubbing on it, back of pickups etc) than carbon. Plus the ti option gives you 29 or 29+, belt drive, rocker dropouts, rohloff flexibility to basically run whatever kind of setup you want now, or 5 years time. Future proof investment.

I like that carbon can be designed/engineered and laid up to match load cases for racing - but no-one yet seems to be designing and constructing a carbon frame to suit bikepacking/ultra-racing loads. So the stiffness they build in for racing purposes may be a hindrance for your bikepacking application. The only section of the market that is tuning their bike frame designs for 'packing and racing are the bigger fatbike brands, but moreso for snow racing/ITI/Arrowhead types.