My strategy is to eat junk food and crap in great quantities, year round. That way my body is optimized for it.

Also seriously sugars and protein powder aren't enough. You need fat for all day riding. Try some pocket bacon on your next ride.

My top compact, calorie dense foods are:

- Pre-cooked bacon, 5.4 cal/g
- Trail mix with M&Ms 5.2 cal/g
- Peanut butter, 6 cal/g

A few other things I use:

- Olive oil, 7.9 cal/g (use it to boost calories in dehy dinners or other foods)
- Ground flax seed, 5 cal/g (use it to boost calories in oats)

Although I haven't used it yet, for an upcoming trip I will be making pemmican which serves up a whopping 6.5 cal/g in a very compact form.
 



 

I have a cheap little packable spin rod I bought from my local Canadian tire. The rod packs into a Thomson seat post bag and then the reel goes into another small bag. I put a few spoons in a small plastic container and it's good to go. Mine is a six-piece rod but similar kit to these telescoping ones:

http://www.shakespeare-fishing.com/Spinning-Combos/Shakespeare-Combos-Spinning-Combos,default,sc.html#prefn1=ZZRNPC&prefv1=Telescopic

Without seeing you hands-on it's really difficult to give you any feedback. I can make some guesses about what could be wrong but it's really impossible to know without seeing you on the bike. A lot of it depends not only on your bike but also you as an individual. Either you need to keep changing things up until you find something that works (note: only change one thing at a time!) or you pay a professional to help you figure it out.

Generally speaking, you need to get your saddle position correct before you start worrying about stem and bars. So I'd check there first and make sure that your saddle height, fore-aft position and level are all correct. And remember the saddle adjustment is relative to the cranks, not the bars.

Nobody needs 36 spokes on a mountain bike any more. Maybe on a road bike used for heavy touring but that is about it.

IME, shimano freehubs do not have a good track record even at the XT level. But I don't think you can find anything better at the price.

My go to MTB shoes are 5-10 Freeriders, but typically with bikepacking I find I spend a lot of time doing hike-a-bike, fording rivers or in a packraft. I've been pretty happy with a pair of North Face hedgehogs, they are fairly light and reasonably good on and off the bike and dry reasonably quickly.

My Big Agnes Horse Thief SL (35 degree bag) packs down into a 5 L dry bag. I cram it in there pretty hard (there is room to get 3-4 folds on the top of the bag) and it's stood up to that for over a year now.

Posting food drops is standard operating procedure for people doing long hikes like the Pacific Crest Trail. Go check some through hiker sites you'll find lots of info. They also 'bump' gear they don't need until later from one post office to another.

That looks awesome. Thanks for the trip report, one more to add to the ever-growing list.

I'm using a Big Agnes Horse Thief SL which I've been really happy with the past couple years. It is light, packs small and is warm enough for me. I bought that brand because one of my local shops that  I like to support carries their stuff.

That being said Western Mountaineering is some sweet stuff.

Never used them but they remind me of Awesome Straps which I have used extensively for all kinds of stuff like GPS mounting, packraft straps, and attaching stuff to bikes like dry bags, tubes, etc. They've been completely bombproof for me.

http://www.backcountryresearch.com/

Can you give us some info on your setup in terms of bags? Might help with suggestions.

I have used mine to help give structure to a frameless backpack. Also inside or outside of a backpack. I've seen them lashed on to saddle bags and rear racks as well.

I had no idea that riding the Alaska Highway was some kind of a racing thing now. Will be interested to hear more about it.

Looks like Dylan Stewart has finished his northbound trip at the border, no surprise given reports of conditions on the route (or what is left of it). Sad it had to end that way but a great ride nonetheless, looks like he would have been right around his estimated 20 day finish.

He's a good Yukon boy who grew up running dog teams at 40 below, tough as they come. Way to go Dylan!

Haha, that's pretty awesome. Yukon meets Yukon. Go Dylan!

Alpackas are amazing and they handle just fine with a bike. The biggest thing is figuring out a way to rig it up where it doesn't interfere with your paddle stroke.

Sorry about the pictures. I thought that the forum would re-size them somehow, most of them do.

[Day 3]

Day 3

Last day was a fast 11 km run into Ross River, Yukon. A horseback outfitter uses this end of the trail quite a bit so it was in pretty good shape overall other than some wet sections. Lots of nice-looking singletrack we wanted to explore. After visiting the marble carving of Dena Cho we blew up our rafts and put in to the Pelly River.

The Pelly is in full flood this year (some people in Ross River have had to leave their homes) so we got a fast ride back to Faro. About 6 hours of leisurely paddling to cover about 60km on the river. This section of the river would normally be dead flat and quite slow but due to the high water had some waves and stuff going on. We spent some time to enjoy the novelty of paddling through the forest. Got back to the truck around 4:30 PM on Sunday.

[Day 2]

Day 2

Day two we traveled most of the rest of the trail, about 30 km to the last cabin. We started out with the same slow progress on bush-choked trails but later on opened up to some amazing ridgelines over the Pelly River. Lots of climbing and descending, over 1800 m climbing during the day including some insane grades. Some soft swampy sections to keep us honest.

Earlier in the morning we had to cross a RAGING river that was in full flood and the bridge had been totally washed out. Super sketchy, even with packrafts. I ended up missing an eddy and going for a swim, fortunately I managed to eventually get my, my raft, paddle, bike and pack all to shore.

We got into camp around 5 PM and decided to take advantage of the cabin and hang out there. After our late night on Friday I ended up sleeping for almost 12 hours. (PS - packrafts make an AMAZING bed)

 

[Day 1]

Two of us did a quick weekend trip on the Dena Cho Trail last weekend. It was an interesting time to go as water levels are extremely high right now and we would be the first ones through.

Most of the pics are actually of me courtesy of my friend Paul.

Day 1
 
We started out in the town of Faro, Yukon at 9PM on Friday. It's about a 17 km ride on an old mining road to hit the actual trail. The road was officially closed as one of the creeks it crosses was nearly coming up over the bridge. Getting in to the first cabin, approx 10km from the turn-off, proved to be quite an adventure. Section of the trail were quite flooded and involved some waist-deep and occasionally deeper wading. One section was flooded so deep we had to blow up packrafts to make it through. After that came sections of trail so choked with fallen trees (from heavy snow load) that it probably took us two hours to cover a couple of km.

We hit Cabin 1 at about 1 am, thankfully in the Yukon summer no lights are needed.