I hope this post is appropriate for this sub, I considered it to better fit into here than to r/MTB.
I have recently gotten into taking longer tours with a bike and am wanting to get any last doubts out of the way. I want a base bike to cover a) long tours on rugged, (sub) alpine terrain and trails with autarc equipment ( tent, sleeping bag and such) and b) short, fun MTB trails. So basically I want to get it up the Mountain with all the equip, set a base there and go downhill. I was hoping to fit all of the major camping components into a rear mounted saddle bag, a little frame bag and a front mounted bar bag.
I‘d love to hear your thoughts on my planned setup!
by Accomplished-Bread-8
2 Comments
Not sure of your size but none of my 3 medium sized bikes with a dropper post can realistically fit a saddle bag beyond maybe 2-3l, i.e. the type people put on their bikes to hold a co2 pump, tube and tools. When fully down, I have maybe 3″ between bottom of saddle and rear tire. You could swap the dropper for a rigid for bikepacking, or just don’t use it when saddle bag is installed. Also you have to be careful when attaching saddle bags to droppers that you don’t scratch the upper. There are solutions to that which usually involve reducing the travel of the dropper which might help your possible clearance problem. Racks fit fine on the hardtails, haven’t tried with my full sus but assume one of the seatstay mounted solutions (i.e. aeroe) would work. Also, under my downtube, I can not put much of anything in the upper position as you show because when the fork is fully compressed I get maybe 2″ of clearance. You might be able to fit a tube or other thin thing in that position. YMMV.
I have the Scott Scale 970 (which is a hardtail) and [here is my set up I used for an overnighter](https://i.imgur.com/cfXrGf5.jpg). I’m still working on making some more bags for my kit, but I can fit a good amount of stuff in it with this setup. I’m making a full frame bag and a set of panniers for the front rack next.
The front rack is a Minoura MT 4000-SF, but if you’re doing serious downhill stuff you probably don’t want to use that.