First bike packing trip completed!

As a follow up to a previous post about doing a shakedown ride with bags attached to my bike for the first time I figured I’d give a quick summary of how the actual bike packing trip went.

Route: Traws Eryri (North Wales, UK) 125 miles (mix of off and on road) over 3 days and then 2 days back to the start via road only (about 70 miles). A few technical sections but virtually all the off road downhill parts were rideable and only a couple of short uphill hike a bike sections.

Accommodation: Stayed in a mix of air b’n’bs and hotels, no regrets on this as camping would have been a bit much extra to deal with I think for a first trip and the weather wasn’t great…

Weather: rained every day, heavy rain the first 3 days in the morning but dried up towards the end of the days, strong winds but mostly tail wind. On the last 2 days there was only the odd light shower but the wind was now a head wind

Gear Highlights:

Bike – Sonder Camino Ti w/Force, was brilliant, no issues apart from slight slipping in a couple of gears on day 3 towards the end of the ride once all the wax had long gone from my chain (went away after overnight drip waxing). Forgot to weigh it with everything attached but think would have been in the 25-30kg range

Tyres – cinturato M front and H rear (both 50mm and set up tubeless around 28psi) these were faultless. Good grip, rolled well, comfortable and no punctures. Was my first time riding them (I usually use lighter weight carcass tyres but figured I’d best switch to something more robust). Only spun out the rear a handful of times and was always when trying to standing climb steep rocky sections, never lost the front end. There were a few short sections of broken slate trails which I was really worried about slashing a sidewall on but had no issues

Gearing – I fitted a 36t wolf tooth chain ring and the 13sp Garabuk 10-52 cassette. The combination worked really well, I quite often used the 52 to grind up 15-20% climbs and when these were off-road it was the difference between me hike a biking (as friends on the trip had to) and riding – personally I hate hike a biking and as still recovering a bit from a fractured hip I wanted to avoid it as much as possible

Waxed chain – I was using my winter mix of Silca super secret + 2 endurance chips + 1/3 bottle of synergetic lube mixed in. I’d already decided not to do this next winter as although it does last longer in wet conditions it’s not enough to justify having a more gunky drivetrain and mess in general, I’ll just use a new chain with lube instead and use waxed chains in drier conditions. On this trip it held up better than I expected (I used gear wipes then Silca drip wax each evening to replenish) but not being able to top up lube mid ride is a pain once the squealing starts and you still have a couple more hours of riding. I haven’t measured the chain wear but it can’t have been doing much good! I also think lack of any lubricant contributed to the slipping gears I had on day 3

Wheels – DT Swiss G1800, they weigh a lot but the near silent freehub was much more pleasant for me and my companions on this more chilled type of riding (for normal riding I usually use carbon wheels with louder ratchet freehubs).

Bags – all the Tailfin stuff worked predictably brilliantly. No issues with anything getting loose, breaking or water ingress. Only tiny niggle I had was the bar bag being a pain to do the roll and loop closure thing without that loop occasionally being a bit in the way when using the drops of my low flare bars. I wish you could close them like you have the option with their panniers using t-straps (possibly you can, I’ve emailed them to ask but don’t have any to experiment with).

Jacket 1 – 7Mesh Guardian Air worked really well, decently breathable and very waterproof. It’s still a bit on the baggy cut side for my liking (I’m a M/L in most cycling stuff but ended up getting size S as the M I ordered first I could have got two of me into, I probably should have tried XS but then not sure if body or sleeve length would be an issue). Its ability to stuff into its pocket with clips on it to attach to your bike is genius and worked great with the end of my Redshift kitchen sink loop bars.

Jacket 2 – I also took a Gabba for the 2 days of road riding and I’d forgotten how good it is. I don’t often cycle outside if it’s mild but wet as generally just postpone for a day or two until it’s dry so hadn’t worn it for months. It was perfect in 12-16c with drizzle and surface water on the roads (with a s/s merino base layer)

Shoes – Quoc Gran Tourer XC. Really comfy, dried fairly quickly and for me a good balance between stiffness for pedalling and being able to hike a bike in them.

Gloves – Castelli Perfetto, I also took fingerless mitts but never wore them. The Perfetto’s are so versatile and even though I usually ride in padded gloves they were really comfy.

Overall I had a really enjoyable week, despite the weather and having wet feet for most of it! I’m not sure I’ve been bitten by the bike packing bug yet but I def want to do some more in drier conditions and maybe abroad (although it’s hassle enough flying with a bike, not sure I want to deal with the extra of all the bags to!). I think next trip I might just catch a train and cycle back over a couple of days, still not camping as that would be a whole load more expense and I’m not sure I’d actually enjoy.