daveywaveyboy

This is a bike to go a long way on. Also its stupidly fast. And it corners and stops - all the good things. Here with rack, bag, and a mattress. Happy days.

Southern Schwarzwald in October. It’s such a nice easy fun bike to ride. More tiring over longer distances as it‘s naked except the dart screen but that’s not what its about.

Don’t take this list too seriously - it was only a week. But it felt like a long week.

1 - Spurcycle mini bell (not an aliexpress copy) looks good also sounds nice when getting hit by branches and other foliage 2 - Aeroe bags pricey but tough 8l each. 3 - focus dry bag rack. Had to use p clips to fit to my seat stays. Was fine 4 - sea to summit straps. Better than voile for me - the 60cm straps fit round the Aerobags with plenty to spare 5 - race king tyres. Good tyres on mostly varying gravel sizes and some sand, and a little made road. 6 - wolf creek chain pliers. The little valve core cutout bit saved the day 7 - nemo tensor long wide - tiny quiet comfortable quiet and quiet. And comfortable. 8 - old timey triple chain ring. Used biggest and smallest. Grateful for the range. The winner - mont bell carry bag. See other post for updated pictures

Things to do better: The chain wax I was trying was fine for commuting but wore out too fast with day after day of mud and dust. Def using a dry lube next time and suffer the black gunk on everything. Sadly as the wax is great, clean and quiet.

Things I thought I’d love but were meh: SQLabs bar inner ends. Next time I may try the ones that sit on the outside more like riding on the hoods.

One week over the Gd St Bernard and into Italia

For flying with my touring or hardtail I have the amazing Groundeffect Tardis but I although it folds quite small it still weighs over a kilo. I am cycling over the Alps and into Italy and to return by train the bike needs to be in a bag. I am super excited to find this MontBell bag. It packs to 16x8 and weighs under 300g. It’s really nice quality (although very light so it’s not going to be robust). For my bike i need to take the seat down a bit, wheels off and handlebars loose. This is fine. I will leave the rear dry bags and tool bag on, carry the front roll and seat pack. I am so stoked to find such a small light solution. Not cheap- of course- but as it means my bike is now hand luggage I won’t need train tickets so straight away it will save its own cost. So I wanted to share this with people who will understand why I am excited.