If the moon didn't exist, I would have preferred the black ano muk. Already wifey is making noises about marge lites, also considering a nuvinci for her too. 

Is there anything available to allow a Garmin 800 to be charged (from a dyno) and used at the same time.

Powermonkey have partnered to make a garmin solar panel and lipo battery pack, this is a garmin genuine accessory, BUT you cannot charge from solar and discharge to recharge/run your device at the same time. Shame, as the battery pack is really neat. Now, SON make dyno hubs, they pair well with the b&m E-werk converter and float battery. I know the e-werk comes with a lot of different cables, I'm sure you could either charge/run your device straight from the e-werk output OR from the float battery at the same time. I don't know if there is any smart regulation on the output side to protect any downstream devices, using the float battery as a coarse regulation device. Not too sure how sensitive the voltage and current inputs are on the garmins.

 This is my planned setup for the fargo and maybe the moon, as well as using it for recharging exposure lights.

The reality is, no one who has ever croaked in the woods as done so because their knife was sorta sharp and not really sharp.

Not croaked, but I bet Aaron Ralston would disagree with you about the blunt versus sharp bit

Skeletool for me, sharp as I can make it.

Russ is just back from ITI. Gotta catch up for a fat ride and will get the goss then.

I'm planning mostly the bay islands at this point - Bribie, Moreton, Straddie, Fraser. Fraser will be a week+ trip. Then there are south coast nat parks (Bundjalung etc). Even floating an idea to do Cape York - ride from Cairns to the tip, take in a few side trips (Cape Melville etc and other remote beaches) then catch the freighter from Bamaga back to Cairns. 5 year plan

Well, I ended up getting a small muk frame/fork set, a 16" pug and an 18" moon.

My wife is very small, and was unsure if the standover on the pug would suit her, the muk frame is a tad lower at the seatpost end with a very sloping top tube, to allow for the suspension corrected gemoetry. So plan was to build the pug, test ride, if it wasn't suitable then build onto muk platform. Turned out well, the pug was fine so now have a muk frame to shift.

Bought a moon for me. Oh man, it is haaaawt. I'm more of a function over form kinda guy, but when I built it it was triggering synapses in my brain that get excited when I see tactical response vehicles, APCs, podium baja/desert trucks and rockcrawlers. I took it out on our Friday shop bunch ride (road) and had an absolute ball, but that's not the reason I went this way. The moon will be carrying myself and our 6yo daughter (mid mounted LOCT seat) plus gear, so the float will be interesting to test on inland sandy tracks. Bikes gotta be torn down and rustproofed, if I can get that done in the next few days, then beachy time next weekend.

Visually there seems to be a huge difference between the stock pug (marges and endo/larrys) and the stock moon (clowns and bf larrys) in tyre width, almost seems like another class. Width in our polished, soft sand can go against you too, but time will tell. Our beaches and island tracks have very clean, fine grain white sand with very little organic debris, making it slippery and difficult to maintain traction. Outback red sand is superfine and even worse, as a mate told me of the sand on his outback 10 deserts epic.

Thank you Surly

One question for you, can you chain the battery pack to plug into a device and solar at the same time? For example, can I put that solar panel on the handle bar bag with the battery pack plugged in. Then plug the battery pack into the GPS so it has constant power through the day?

-Tom

To answer this for the Powermonkey unit, no you cannot charge the battery from the solar panel AND charge a device from the battery at the same time. The powermonkey does have a neat LCD screen to show the level of power though.

I bought the Garmin solar/battery combo (for the 800, but it is rebranded Powermonkey unit) for phone and GPS, pretty happy with it. Last year on a week long tour I stuck the unit (pretty light) on my helmet and worked very well. The solar cell panel folds out, has a short lead, and plugs straight into the Li/po battery pack, has adaptors for UBS and mini USB. I think the Powermonkey comes with more adaptor plugs etc. Takes about 18 hours to charge the batt pack from dead flat to full, but I found I could recharge my GPS overnight or phone a few times before the batt pack was depleted, so a daily cycle of charge and recharge device overnight was easy, with margin for poor weather.

Topeak also do the adjustable modula XL and the Java cage, both very adjustable to suit large diameter bottles. The modula XL is designed around a 1.25L soda bottle.

http://www.topeak.com/products/Adjustable-Cage

Kep it coming 

That pic is the Pika - the smaller bag of the two models from Revelate. The larger bag sits flatter and lower - still preventing you from getting behind the saddle, but at least further back. Pika was designed for shorter riders and large wheels, with little rear wheel clearance to the saddle.

Rackless bags are def the way to go.

About the thigh contact - the front of the bag is very narrow and tapers out wide to the rear - yes you may contact the pack if you have big track sprinter thighs, but I've never seen any scuffing on my knicks from Viscacha bag contact. I've found my Topeak mondo bag rubs, as well as the large Ortleib waterproof seatbag, due to the wide shape at the seatpost. I even run the Viscacha on my Cervelo S2, as the bag and aero post get along well. So much can depend on how your seat is set on the post, setback post etc.

Great idea.

On the bluff overlooking Johanna beach, Victoria. 5 day trip in the Otways and Great Ocean Road.

I made a mini pannier rack to sit on the back of my BOB Ibex, out of some 1/2" alloy tube and ply, for a family trandem (2 adults one child) trip we did years ago.

I think it would be pretty cool to design and fab up a rack for particular requirements.

I'm planning out the upgrades already on my next bike (fat), working through the options for rear hubs. Was originally thinking Alfine, cake to service and reasonably tough. SRAMs imotion is out as I've already busted one of these. I know Shimano mention these are load shiftable, but they feel ugly when shifting under load. A rep was in the shop the other day and we got talking about the Nu Vinci - a fully sealed non-serviceable CVP, basically an infinite amount of ratios within the range.

I've done a LOT of 4x4ing in the dunes and on the beaches, the transmissions that excel in the sand are always the auto trannies, manuals always lose that bit of momentum on the gear change . My theory is that a cvp hub on a fat might shift better than a set ratio planetary hub (Alfine, Rohloff etc). Nu Vinci have their own forum, reading through the threads they seem to have many bases covered, with a lot of tech and online support.

Now, has anyone used one?

http://fallbrooktechnologies.com/08_Bicycle_home.asp

Contrail?

Cool trip, thanks for posting. I always enjoy a story about SoCal adventures.

When we do a Di2 install on road bikes, Shimano often send us a cage relocation bracket - rarely use it, but I've used them a lot on my bikes with framebags and tangle bags. This effectively offsets the frame mounts up or down a few inches. Part number ISMBA01, the SM-BA01, called a mount adaptor, bidon cage positioner.


There are plenty of side entry cages, Topeak make a pivoting bottle cage too.

Velocity used to make their Velocage, not sure if you guys still get them stateside? The bolt mount clamp design allowed the cage to be positioned up or down independently of the bidon bolts.

I'm going to trial a set of the new GEAX Evolutions, as well as the Mezcals, both in a 1.9 for the Fargo. Very quiet, fast tyres.

Looks good Rhino.

I'll be down your way for Vic bike week later in the year, might plan a ride along a section, unless I hitup the Tas trail.

I've been using a Thermolite Reactor, with my Synmat 7 inside the reactor, for summer trips - add clothing layers for extra warmth if needed.

Planning on cutting up a spare down bag and making it into a bottomless bag sleep system - same premise of having the mat inside the bag, just with lw fabric under the mat.

Are/were you on mtbdirt? Tarex? Friday morning EE rides?

I might be at the HuRT, depends if there is a date clash with a planned trip to interbike.

If all goes to plan, in winter there will be a family adventure on Moreton Island involving bicycles with rather large tyres. Part II of Ipswich-Boonah trail shouldn't be too far off, next time might make it to Mt Joyce.