GDMBR 2023: bikepacking gear review, what worked, didn't and what I would change

okay so wanted to do a final video for my Great Divide mountain bike uh trip and I'm kind of calling this I started calling this Gear review but then I realized it's just as much about just in general what worked what didn't work what I liked what I didn't like and I got some notes cuz I know not that many people watch this stuff especially my channel but um this helps one person that'll be great so Excuse me while I read off this little bit I'm going to start off with uh what worked um the bike the I had a salsa Fargo um steel frame not titanium great bike I loved it um I had some advice to put these um red shift red shift cruise control um uh kind of like handlebar pads on them and I'll try to find a link um put it in the description so you know what I'm talking about because I'm really not that good with this bike stuff but if I didn't have those um my hands would have killed me but just in general the Fargo worked really well I loved it and it's kind of my bike that I've been riding at home actually um once I put different tires on it um I went with flat pedals and I'm really a hiker um so I wore my trail Runners um I loved them um I walked a lot um anytime the grades got 7 8% or above I got off the bike and walked um I like getting off and giving my butt um a rest and um I like just uh the comfort of them I like not having to bring bring Camp shoes cuz they could weigh anywhere from a half a pound to another pound um although weight's not everything and they were just really comfortable um I uh saw a lot of people uh in the beginning with clip in pedals but pretty much everyone I saw from Colorado on um had flat pedals and some kind of uh Trail runners or like 510 bik mountain biking shoes or something like that um I'll probably I'll try to put some pictures in on my on the B the bags that I took but I pretty much took a revelate setup I had a revelate harness in the front um I had a revelate pin in the back I originally bought the spine lock U I found out the hard way that doesn't work on the brook saddle um so I had to swap it out for the terrain um and I had a rogue Panda frame bag um they all work great um kind of paying to pack every day but um nothing uh nothing bad to say about them um I put a I had a Brooks B17 and I loved it I started out wearing bike pants and and after like a week or so I started getting a couple Saddles sores two weeks Saddles sores um some guy told me not to wear the bike shorts I switched out to a pair of um Marino underwear and just running shorts and boy I felt liberated U I felt a lot more um cooler and I didn't have to deal with the tight sweaty shorts and my saddle swore went away and it was just fabulous so I highly recommend um the Brooks B17 I mentioned the red shift uh cruise control again um I'll put the picture in right here um had no idea what they were um I had to ret tape my handlebars to put them on a couple nights before I left um I don't think I would have made it without them uh I'm a big lifelong hiker and Backpacker um I'd be happy to answer any questions if anyone actually has any um but all my camping gear has been uh time tested through a lot of uh backpacking trips so um I subscribe to the theory when I hike when I backpack it's a hiking trip it's not a camping trip so I try to go as light as possible and do without a few things um in Camp but I wanted to go light so I was I went the same with the biking trip I considered it a bike trip and not a camping trip so I left a I went with a small lightweight tent went with a small uh pad and anyway if anyone has any questions happy to talk to you about camping gear I'm going to talk a little bit about navigation um I started the trip with a couple guys I met and I basically followed them and I had no idea where I was in the Canadian Rockies after a couple days I kind of just decided to go on my own and I had a lot of trouble in the beginning um just a funny story um when I left elkford British Columbia wherever wherever that that is in in British Columbia um I rode around the first day I was by myself I rode around 7 and2 miles before I found the trail um so I learned quickly how to navigate um what I used was the ACA bike Navigator I paid uh I think it was about a 100 bucks for the uh GPS file and um I used that as my kind of like my macro um navigation tool and uh a secondary tool to my Wahoo which I'll talk about in a second I also brought the maps which I used every night I just like looking atam in Camp and I used them for Logistics like where the next town was I looked it was nice just nice to see the elevation profile how how far and how many miles and the type of terrain so the maps came in handy for that for planning more than anything um I think I downloaded the Sarah swallow GPX files that I put on my Wahoo um what I learned was that the Wahoo won't take the whole trip at one shot so I had to download it in sections and that's what I used with my if you want to call it turn by turn navigation pretty much stared at the um uh y Wahoo um it really came in helpful cuz if I went the wrong way which happened a lot um I it would beep and it would tell me I was wrong so then I would go back to the ACA uh navigator app double check I was wrong or sometimes just double check I was going right so that was kind of my uh navigation setup uh just like again in summary it was the Sarah swallow GPX file on my Wahoo which was turn by turn I confirmed any time I thought I was going off um with the ACA navigator app and then I used the maps um in Camp for just longer term Logistics and navig uh Logistics and um and then I used the um paper maps for more longer term Logistics where to resupply that kind of thing uh sun protection I don't know if anyone noticed in my videos I was pretty much covered head to toe uh I'm an East coaster um I was worried about the sun I just generally don't want to get too much sun exposure especially at elevation I mean I think up until New Mexico I was R you're riding at like somewhere between 7 and 10,000 feet and then in Colorado you can go up to 12,000 ft so the sun was pretty strong so I wore um I'll put a try to put some pictures up if uh if if if it helps anyone I wore castelli Sun uh leggings I started out with the pumi ones the um elastic around my thighs would wasn't that good it wouldn't they wouldn't hold up the castellas work great there were only a few bucks more I wore Outdoor Research arm protectors I wore a Patagonia kind of uh Sun buff and I used to pull it up to here and I'd pull it up around my ears and then I wore a um just a bike hat so I was pretty much covered head to toe um and I also wore sung gloves sometimes um and I wore a pair of sunglasses so that worked really well for me I didn't get sunburn too much except um a few days where I lost my sun block somewhere on the road on a downhill and um my nose got a little red so I call this my slow and light packing style and that worked for me and when I say slow and light this wasn't as much about gear but I mentally just was slow I was probably one of the slowest people out there um there were a lot of strong Riders I didn't want to get up in the morning and know I was doing 50 or 60 mil over these passes over the Divide over rocky roads and like worry about my pace so I just went slow um packed light went slow and I took my time I stopped a lot for pictures take a lot of video which I'll never regret and um I would do that again so sometimes I'd get in a camp a little later than some other people if I was camping with people a lot of times I was by myself but um slow and light work for me it was mentally a calming thing for me and and a few things that didn't work out I left July 8th out of B Canada and I think that according to explor the exploring wild website that was within the weather window to uh miss the monsoons and and uh Miss snow over the passes um I'm pretty sure I left too early to go south I went southbound by the way I'm pretty sure I left too early um it was hot and very sunny and very hot all the time till I got to New Mexico and it rained all the time rained four and five times a day in Southern Colorado it and and in New Mexico it rained at night I hit a lot of mud New Mexico so if I did it again I think I would probably go Northbound um for a couple reasons one is I can time the time missing the monsoons um if I did go southbound I think I would leave later um I'd miss a little of the Heat and I certainly wouldn't miss uh I certainly would miss the monum in uh New Mexico uh this is a quick note I'm probably going to get this wrong but this Saras swallo GPX files that I pull down sometimes they weren't right I don't know if they were the tour divide uh course or just whatever but sometimes I'd find myself on a road and i' say you know something's not right I would check the B ACA bicycle navigator app and for sure I was off the road um got me lost a bunch of times um I just want to mention it I would take it again but after three or four times of kind of getting lost using just the Saras swall files on my Wahoo I I realized I got with it and I realized I have to double check them I did this towards the end and I've done this my whole life um hiking um I would have downloaded maps to Gaia just the overall Maps sometimes you're on the trail and you need to get into town cuz something's wrong with the bike or you need some food and if you have the maps down the the satellite maps downloaded on your um on Gaia or something like that you can navigate when you don't have uh a cell signal which is pretty much all the time um the other thing is uh this actually worked for me I wrote down all the alternates put them on a sheet of paper just so I had them um when it was time to make a decision which way did I want go uh a little one more piece of gear a couple more gear items my frame bag I um bought a rogue Panda custom frame bag um it fit great um only have one not a complaint my mistake one of the options is a uh so if this was if this was the zipper to open it they sell like it's a $15 option a piece of expandable um fabric above or below the zipper and I said why do I need that and sure enough every day I was trying to shove more and more food in my pack and sometimes the zipper wouldn't shut because it's made out of some kind of xack that's really stiff it doesn't give and if you put too much in you can't zipper it shut that um expandable fabric would have given a little and it got me to um close my zipper and probably take the stress off the seam so if you're ever buying a frame bag get the expandable uh fabric above or below whatever they put it the zipper it's 15 bucks well worth it I would preferred the frame bag to have been wider to put more food in it I take a lot of food if I had more than say three days of food um I was having trouble getting it in there and uh uh I have a note here uh on my quad lock so I bought the wrong quad lock um but the short story is I had a lot of trouble getting it off most people had trouble getting it back on so I would just say before you go put your quad lock on and test it um I again took a lot of pictures and sometimes I had trouble getting my quad lock off to get pictures and getting it back on for that matter and then final thing that didn't work at all was and I'm not going to get into it too much but I'll probably mention it again I met a couple guys um when I first started and they were total well the one guy who who was my kind of source of information was a total gear nerd and he pretty much had everything you can buy and he convinced me to buy AR bars and I did not like him I never saw any many people halfway through the trip with Arrow bars um I never saw anybody using their Arrow bars in the beginning that had them I think they're 3 lbs of metal that doesn't need to be on your handlebar staring at you all day especially when you don't use it and um I gave him away in uh before I even hit the uh US Border in reville and I I don't miss them and nobody I know that was far into the trip even had them so I don't recommend Arrow bars uh a few things I change I wish I had uh some suspension on the uh front and I don't mean a fork or anything but a lot of people had the red shift um little like kind of rubber um suspension that goes in the stem I'll put a picture up if I can find one um I I wish I had that every day you know you're either climbing all day long or descending all day long and this is on like very Rocky Ruddy roads and it's just constant you know vibration and um halfway through a trip I thought the roads were going to smooth out more I thought maybe I wouldn't need it some days I couldn't find one I didn't have it I wish I had it uh I had um trp spires that's right um they were mechanical brakes um I got them because that's what came on the Fargo um I also kept them I kept them I should say because they were fielded repairable I know I could fix them or I could pay somebody in a bike shop to fix them so I consciously went with them um if I did it again I would have got um I would have put on Hydraulics because there's a lot of downhill um I am not fast on the downhill I didn't want to fall or hit a rut um so I consciously always check my speed on the downhills and you know after a while your hands just cramp up some some of these downhills could be 7 8 9 10 miles long and um I wish uh I wish I had some Hydraulics like the stopping power would have been good um I could talk a lot about gearing but I'll give you kind of the short version uh I bought the Fargo uh stock it came with a 32 or 34 in the front I'm not again I'm not good with this bike stuff and I think a 46 in the back it was a one by um I brought it to my local bike shop they put a 30 on in the front 3 Toth in the front and I had a something I maybe 10 or 11 but it went up to 50 um I had two problems you really and it was it's an apex it's a sham Apex one build so what I found out well my shifting was terrible I had trouble downshifting trouble upshifting pretty much the whole trip and um what I heard was that the Apex one build or whatever you want to call it um doesn't accept a 50 uh in the back and either I needed like a wolf tooth link or uh some kind of thing to change the the the spacing of my derailer um I didn't have that and I didn't know where to get it and I didn't know how to put it on so that was one and two I would have been very happy with a 52 two more teeth in the back would have helped me uh on a lot of the hills especially when I had a lot of food and and a lot of carrying a lot of water um down south uh if I did it again I would um bikepacking.com has really good um like kind of how to and what to get um I'd probably I'd still stay mechanical um it's a lot cheaper and I know it's easily fixable and I think you can there's a certain mechanism where you can put a a 52 on and retain the road bike um shifters so short story is my shifting wasn't that great with a 50 on my Fargo and I would have gone to a 52 with this specific build and again I'll try to put a a picture of what I'm talking about uh another thing I changed I would have done a lot better with tire pressure um I was pretty lazy I spent half the trip at 40 lbs which was way too much um constant jarring on the roads with the rock uh the the fire roads with the Rocks then I went down every couple days went 3 38 36 I think I settled on a point where I was probably in the low3s I don't even know again I was lazy I didn't want to pull my tire pressure gauge out I would just kind of squeeze them and every time I met some other people I would has to squeeze their tires and kind of go that route but the short story is I think I I wouldn't have changed pressure constantly but I would have changed pressure a little more the C the other side to that is the minute you change the pressure Murphy's laws the roads are going to change so but anyway that's something I wanted to mention and then just some final thoughts uh if you watched any of my videos especially the end ones I did not like New Mexico uh rained all the time I'll CR I'll chalk that up to the monsoons rained all time I had a ton of mud um and uh uh there was a lot of highway so uh I didn't love New Mexico I think if I did it again I would probably go Northbound get New Mexico out of the way um I was afraid of the grizzly bears um never saw one and uh but one thing I did was keep my bear spray um I did get uh semi attacked by dogs in New Mexico on two different occasions actually fired my uh bear spray once so I would keep the bear spray it's like another half pound and at that point you know you're you're in your last state um another thing I brought a red blinky light um there was lots of times I was on Highway and I'm glad I had it if I did it again I would have brought two Blinky lights just for safety uh just quick note on hostiles and stuff just think ahead um one day I got into White Fish Montana and I could not find a place to stay I started getting nervous after that especially when you get into Colorado and you're going through Breen Ridge and um some of the busier towns so just think ahead on that and again with towns uh I did not do warm showers but some of my stuff shs were expensive some of these places cost um couple hundred bucks a night and I take a zero and then I go out to dinner so just uh keep that in mind if you're not going to do wild wild uh warm showers and the final thing again I got all my gear information from one guy not going to mention him but um he had everything he had a generator and he had all all the fancy lights and and everything and I just brought a 20 uh th000 milliamp uh battery and never once did it go less than half I watched movies in my tent at night that I downloaded and I had plenty of battery power so if I did it again I'd probably bring the 20 just out of safety but I could have probably got away with 10K um and that covered every night charging my Wahoo charging my flashlight charging my phone uh charging my blinky light whatever so I would a 20,000 milliamp battery is plenty I think you could save th000 bucks rebuilding your wheel and probably 3 or 4 pounds not bringing a generator and just extra stuff and on a final note um I think I would keep it I kept it simple because I was a bike Noob but doing again I'd keep it simple gear is not going to get you there there uh gear is not going to um pedal you up the 25 mile climb up Indiana pass or any of those passes and I would just keep everything light and simple and um bring a camera because it is one of the trips hope one of my trips of a lifetime and I'm glad I have all the pictures and video so stop often take pictures don't be one of those people who just crank out miles never stops so um hopefully that helped anybody if anyone has any questions or comments I'd be happy to answer them otherwise um switching over to hiking season and have a great day

Channel: pgreenx

Views: 8,306

Keywords: gdmbr, GDMBR 2023, GDMBR 2024, bikepacking, bike packing, gdmbr bikepacking, gdmbr bike packing, bike packing documentary, GDMBR gear, gdmbr review, gdmbr what worked, gdmbr what didn't work, GDMBR changes, bike packing gear, bikepacking gear, GDMBR gear list, gdmbr bike, gdmbr packing, gdmbr duzer, bike packing setup, bikepacking tent, bikepacking bags, bikepacking gear list, bikepakcing trip, bikepacking essentials, bikepacking setup, bikepacking camping

Id: cOGO5EVPgWM

Length: 24min 40sec (1480 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 11 2023