Set for the Tour Aotearoa brevet.

I'm off to NZ soon for the Tour Aotearoa, 3000km ride from Cape Reinga to Bluff (the northernmost and southernmost points of the mainland).  Specifically, the brevet that one has to complete in 30 days or fewer. 34km or so of climbing too.

I'm riding a heavily modified 2016 Orbea Katu, an urban city bike that usually looks like this. Changes include:

• Microshift Advent 9-speed cassette and super-short rear derailleur
• Addition of a Microshift 3x front derailleur, limited to 2x for the 32-44 Alivio crankset, with an old Shimano friction shifter
• DM-24 rims with 20 x 1.85" Smart Sam tyres (thanks to everyone who offered suggestions in a previous thread
• Tern Pack Rack with DIY adapter to replace the basket.

In the pics, the bike is about 98% of how it'll be during the ride (a couple of cargo cages are missing on the front fork, and I now have a different dry bag on the front).

It isn't the first serious bikepacking trip it's done, but it'll be the longest. I took it on the Victorian section of the Bicentenntial National Trail in 2025 (through the high country, lots of pushing up and down steep gradients), and it performed admirably until smoke haze and an impassable section due to burning off work meant that the trip had to be abandoned.