Tag: bikepacking bikes

6 New Bikepacking Bikes That You Need To Know About

The recent popularity of bike travel is turbocharging bikepacking bike and gear innovation.

I’ve been working on a lot of long-form, highly-researched articles of late, which has meant I’ve had less time to highlight cool new bikepacking bikes… so today, let’s go back to the CyclingAbout roots.

Here are my handpicked bunch of recent bikepacking bike developments that you need to catch up on.

Fairlight Faran 2.0

A Fairlight Faran 2.0 decked out with Wizard Works bags. Image: Fairlight Cycles

Fairlight has been making some killer bikes for a few years now, but it’s the Faran 2.0 that really piqued my interest.

I’m not even going to scratch the surface in terms of frame details here. Instead, you should refer to this 73-page document to see the Faran 2.0 in all its glory.

What I love about Fairlight is that they not only make their bikes in five different sizes, but they offer a ‘regular’ and ‘tall’ frame option in each size.

This essentially determines the height of your handlebars in relation to your saddle, allowing riders with strong core strength and high flexibility to set their bars lower for a ‘performance’ fit; those who want a ‘relaxed’ bike fit can set their bars higher.

These geometries can also be useful for riders who have long torsos and short legs (where a regular frame is best), or short torsos and long legs (where a tall frame is best).

An unpainted Fairlight Faran 2.0 bikepacking bike. Image: Fairlight Cycles

Onto the details. The top tube has been ovalized to provide the equivalent lateral stiffness of a bigger/heavier tube. This is a really neat touch that’s not found on many stock bikes, especially at the £899 price point (frameset).

The Faran 2.0 has some really neat modular cable guides that screw into the frame, allowing you to use the cable guides that suit your build. For example, you can mount the cable guides for both a front and rear derailleur (2X), just the rear derailleur (1X) or you can fit small plugs in lieu of the cable guides if you have Shimano Di2 wiring.

In addition, there is internal dynamo wiring up the fork (see page 36 of the Faran document), which enters the downtube (page 41) and pops out at the rear dropout for a rear dynamo light (page 43).

Otherwise, there are all the mounting points you need for racks, cargo cages and bidon cages.

Excellent tyre clearance on the Fairlight Faran 2.0. Image: Fairlight Cycles

You can find ample tyre clearance on the Faran 2.0 – enough to fit 27.5 x 2.4” Continental X-King tyres on Hope XC rims. Or if you’re more of a smooth gravel rider, you have ample clearance for 700 x 45mm slicks.

The steering speed is particularly quick on this bike, which is mostly a function of the long 60mm fork offset. The idea behind having a quick steering frame geometry is that once you’ve put luggage on your fork, the weight of the luggage will slow the steering back down again, resulting in a bike that steers just like a regular gravel bike (without front luggage).

Low trail is a pretty sound way of designing front-loaded bikes, but keep in mind that the steering works out to be pretty twitchy when you don’t have any front luggage attached…

Read more about the Fairlight Faran 2.0 HERE.

Tumbleweed Prospector

The latest Tumbleweed Prospector fitted up with 27.5 x 3.0″ tyres. Image: Tumbleweed Bikes

The latest Tumbleweed Prospector was unveiled about six months ago. I like this bike for a number of reasons…

Firstly, it’s built around the 14-speed Rohloff internal gear hub. If you’ve been around this website for a while, you’ll know that I think Rohloff hubs are the ultimate gear system for a touring/bikepacking bike.

Rohloff gears replicate the gear range of a normal derailleur drivetrain, so you won’t miss out on any high or low gear ratios. But the key difference is that the gears are hidden away, protected by the safe confines of a sealed aluminium hub shell, making everything extremely resilient against mud, grit, dust, snow and sand.

In addition, your gears will never skip, you’ll never need to buy a cassette again, the maintenance is minimal and there are almost no parts that are susceptible to external damage.

You can read my 16 reasons to use a Rohloff hub HERE.

The Tumbleweed Prospector uses an eccentric bottom bracket to keep the chain tensioned. Image: Tumbleweed Bikes

But Rohloff aside, the reason why I wanted to share this bike is the updated tyre clearance.

The Prospector will now squeeze in 27.5 x 3.8″ tyres, which bridges the gap between a plus-bike (~3.0″) and a fat-bike (~4.8″). The boost in tyre width simply gives you more options with where your Prospector can go, which is a good thing if you prefer the adventurous side of life.

27.5 x 3.8″ tyres are not as uncommon as you’d think. You can find them on mid-fat bikes like the Canyon Dude and Salsa Beargrease.

But what is uncommon is the fact that the Prospector is using a rather normal bottom bracket shell width (73mm), which will put your feet a normal distance apart compared to all other fat bikes (100mm wide shells are pretty standard on fat bikes).

Read more about the Tumbleweed Prospector HERE.

Salsa Timberjack

The Salsa Timberjack all loaded up with bikepacking bags. Image: Salsa Cycles

I’m a sucker for a good value, well-designed bike.

Salsa has just given the Timberjack an update, and it’s now a more capable and more fun mountain bike. Priced from just $1699, all Timberjack models get a 130mm travel suspension fork along with a size-appropriate dropper seatpost (200mm drop on XL bikes!), which will help you to confidently conquer more technical terrain.

There are four different build specifications to choose from, and each of these is available with either 27.5 x 3.0″ or 29 x 2.6″ tyres.

If you ride looser trails with lots of sand, snow or mud, you’ll undoubtedly benefit from the wider 27.5+ wheels. If your trails are smoother and more compact, or you’re heading out on long dirt roads, you’ll likely enjoy the faster-rolling, less-squirmy 29″ wheels.

The Salsa Timberjack is available as a frame only. Image: Salsa Cycles

Inside the frame, there is full-length cable routing – a feature normally reserved on much more expensive bikes.

I like that the Timberjack has 17mm of chainstay length adjustability at the rear dropouts. This means you can run the chainstays shorter if you’re carving up singletrack trails, or longer if you’re out bikepacking and want some more stability out of your rig.

There is also a non-driveside dropout available that’s specifically designed to equip a Rohloff internal gear hub.

Comparing the frame geometry of the older Salsa Timberjack with the new one. Image: Bike Insights

Diving into the geometry details, we can see the frame length has been increased at the front, which will give you more confidence when riding down steeper terrain (this is because the endo angle is larger).

Increasing the front centre of a bike shifts more of your body weight from the front tyre to the rear tyre, resulting in a bit less front end grip when you’re riding seated.

To accommodate for this change in front-to-rear weight distribution, Salsa has cleverly steepened the seat tube angle by 2-degrees to put bodyweight back on the front wheel, allowing the bike to have similar amounts of front grip as previously (perhaps even more).

You can get the Timberjack frame for $599, which could be the ticket to a rowdy custom bikepacking build. If the front suspension isn’t necessary for you, pair the Timberjack frame with a Bombtrack BPC or Trek 1120 rigid carbon fork for a lightweight frameset under $1000.

You can read more about the Salsa Timberjack HERE.

Curve Titanosaur 36er

The Curve Titanosaur is not a bike for shorter riders. Image: Curve Cycling

Yep, I added some weird 36″ bike into the mix.

This prototype titanium gravel bike is currently getting manhandled down in Australia. We have deeply corrugated roads in the remote parts of our country, which can go on for 5 or 10 days – without respite.

The idea around having gigantic wagon wheels is that the ‘angle of attack’ of each corrugation is reduced, which allows you to conserve more of your forward momentum and, therefore, go faster on bumpy roads.

These wheels will technically roll along with less effort, provided the 2.25″ tyres don’t bog too far into softer road surfaces. Curve test rider, Jesse, shows that it’s pretty easy to ride up some stairs with the big wheels, which gives us some proof of concept.

A titanium fork up the front of the Titanosaur. Image: Curve Cycling

One of the downsides to a bike with wagon wheels is the weight.

Even using titanium for the frameset, carbon rims and a top-of-the-line SRAM drivetrain – it’s still 18kg/40lb. But given that Australia is flat through the centre, the weight should make almost no difference to your average cycling speed.

A bike like this is never going to be agile on trails, is limited by tyre options and will no suit shorter riders for obvious reasons. It’s also very terrain-specific.

But given I’m 198cm/6ft6 and I love to head out into the desert, this kind of gravel bike could be right up my alley.

Mahall Expedition Series Gravel Bike

The Mahall Expedition Series gravel bike is built around a long chainstay length. Image: Renaissance.Cyclist

I recently stumbled across Mahall Bikeworks and their semi-custom expedition gravel bikes. This is a bike that has been designed around 500mm chainstays, which are about 10-15% longer than a typical bike.

There are two big advantages to having longer chainstays:
(1) The longer wheelbase provides more stability at speed, which will keep your bike more composed on rougher terrain.
(2) You can more comfortably climb steeper gradients with the longer chainstays. This is because the looping angle at the back of the bike increases, meaning your front wheel will stay planted, even on the steepest ascents.

There are disadvantages to long chainstays too, but they are significantly reduced when a bike is loaded up with luggage.

Shorter chainstays are usually preferred on both mountain and road bikes. They make a bike feel more nimble when making quick direction changes, for example, when riding on singletrack, or changing your position in a peloton. And a particularly big advantage when cycling off-road is that short chainstays make your front wheel easier to lift over obstacles.

As technical singletrack makes up on a tiny percentage of most bikepacking trips, long chainstay bikes with their ability to climb well and offer extra stability, are a great direction for the industry to go, in my opinion.

It’s great to see Mahall Bikeworks joining the long chainstay ranks, along with Rivendell and Jones. A handful of European touring bike manufacturers are running 470-490mm chainstays too.

To learn more about chainstay length, dive into my Frame Geometry Masterclass.

KHS Grit 330

The KHS Grit 330 is a nice carbon gravel bike, but it’s the drivetrain that really caught my attention.

If you have the proclivity to ride on steep gravel roads like me, you’ll know that most gravel bikes do NOT have appropriately low gear ratios. You end up dropping your pedalling cadence significantly on anything long and steep, resulting in the rapid fatigue of your muscles.

And this issue is only exacerbated further when your bike is loaded up with a bunch of gear.

When your bike is loaded up with gear, it can result in your gear ratios being too high for the terrain. Image: Focus Bikes

So, why not just be a hero and push harder?
Big gear ratios are simply not efficient for cyclists.

The key to riding comfortably in the hills, and more importantly, enjoying yourself – is to not overexert yourself when you ride.

By using appropriately low gear ratios, you will find you can climb at the same pedalling cadence (RPM) and push the same amount of power into the pedals as when you’re riding on a flat road (mechanical advantage is your friend).

According to the data from my Bikepacking Bike Buyer’s Guide, the average climbing gear across all 700C gravel bikes is 26 gear inches. In order to make this bike a climbing machine, KHS has paired 46/30t front chainrings with an 11-36t tooth cassette. The result is a low gear of 23 gear inches, which is 11% lower than average.

More gravel bikes with a 23″ climbing gear: Bergamont Grandurance, Jamis Renegade S3, KTM X-Strada, Litespeed Watia, Norco Search XR S2, Obed Boundary, Rock Machine Gravelride, Specialized Diverge Elite.

See more modern low gear ratio 2X drivetrains HERE.
Learn about why hills are not harder than cycling on the flat HERE.
Learn how to calculate the steepest hill you can ride up HERE.

March 21, 2021
Touring VS Bikepacking Bikes: What Are The Actual Differences?
How is a bikepacking bike different to a touring bike? Is it just the bags? Or is there something unique about the bikes themselves?

I can already sense the keyboard warriors informing me that you can go touring or bikepacking on any bike. While that’s 100% true, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t optimise a bike for our purposes. After all, you could drive a Ferrari around the world, but is that really the best car for the job at hand?

This article will be a comprehensive overview of the eight bike distinctions that separate a touring vs bikepacking bike.

Bikepacking Bikes Are Less Overbuilt

Touring bikes are designed to handle very heavy loads. The safety test protocol for most touring and bikepacking frames is usually around a rider and equipment weight of between 125 and 136kg – but this testing sets a floor, not a ceiling. While bikepacking bikes are designed closer to the minimum, top-tier touring bikes are regularly designed to handle more weight – even if the manufacturer doesn’t state it anywhere.

That said, we’ll soon see touring bikes advertising higher maximum weights, as bike testing companies are now providing certification right up to 180kg/400lb.

A bike designer not only needs to engineer their frames for the heaviest expected load of any of their customers, but they need to carefully select components that will not break too. As the wheels are the most likely component to fail on a touring bike, you will usually see very heavy-duty rims and higher spoke counts than on a bikepacking bike.

The downside to an overbuilt bike is that it’s heavier. Most bikepacking bikes are in the 10-14kg range, while similarly priced touring bikes are 14-17kg.

It’s worth noting that the components of your bike don’t really care whether you weigh 50kg and carry 40kg of luggage, or whether you weigh 80kg and carry 10kg. However, the location of weight does matter. If your equipment load is high, your frame needs to be stiff too.

Bikepacking Bikes Usually Have Less Frame Stiffness

Co-Motion uses the biggest diameter steel tubing available to maximise the frame stiffness of their touring lineup.

Frame stiffness usually goes hand-in-hand with an overbuilt bike. The top tube and down tube are the most important frame tubes, as they are the medium that resists most of the twisting forces between the front and rear luggage.

Touring bikes regularly use the largest-diameter, thickest-wall tubing. As the loads are more minimal on a bikepacking bike, frame designers can opt for lighter frame tubes, which aren’t as stiff but result in a more ‘lively’ ride when you go out pedalling without any of your luggage.

I characterise ‘liveliness’ as a frame that has noticeable but very minor amounts of frame flex. Optimising the liveliness of a bike requires a look at the riding style, power output and weight of the rider. It’s essentially impossible to create a ‘lively’ feeling bike that is also stiff enough to carry a heavy front and rear load. You can, however, use a lighter built frame, and carry a load at just one end, or you could carry your gear in a trailer instead.

Bikepacking loads can also be very heavy, especially if you’re carrying food for a week and 10 litres of water. If this is the kind of riding you do, you’ll want to make sure your bikepacking rig is just as stiff as a touring bike.

Bikepacking Bikes Have Different Mounts

The mounts are usually different between touring and bikepacking bikes, but the lines are getting pretty blurry these days.

A touring bike will always have rack and fender mounts, while a bikepacking bike will only sometimes have them. A bikepacking bike will almost always have a few cargo cage mounts, while a touring bike may not.

Additionally, bikepacking bikes can have mounts for a direct-mount frame pack and top tube bag, along with occasional mounts on the seatstays and chainstays too.

It’s pretty rare to find a kickstand mount on a bikepacking frame, but that’s ok – it’s easy to lean your bike to its handlebar with narrow bikepacking bags. A bike with panniers doesn’t lay down well, so that’s why kickstands are commonplace on touring bikes.

Bikepacking Bikes Have Shorter Chainstays

A touring bike has long chainstays for three reasons:
1. There is usually a significant rear weight bias due to the larger rear bags, and longer chainstays help to shift the centre of mass further forward.
2. By extending the wheelbase, you get a stability boost at speed with a heavy load.
3. To make sure your heels don’t strike your panniers when you ride.

In comparison, bikepacking bikes usually have 20-30mm shorter chainstays. Given the differing bag designs and low expected load, a bikepacking bike shouldn’t have any problems with heel strike or ride stability. The shorter chainstays will make the bike feel a bit more nimble and it will also be easier to lift your front wheel over obstacles.

If you’ve ever heard people say that short chainstays make a bike accelerate faster, well, it could be true when you factor in a handful of grams saved from the frame – but generally, it’s a pretty nonsensical claim.

Bikepacking Bikes Are Usually Intended For Off-Road Terrain

My Bikepacking Bike Buyer’s Guide bike categories:
Gravel & All Road Bikes – with 700C Wheels
Gravel & All Road Bikes – with 27.5″ Wheels
Off-Road Adventure Bikes – with 29″ Wheels
Off-Road Plus Bikes – with 3.0″ Tyres
Full Suspension Bikes – with 2.2-3.0″ Tyres
Fat Bikes – with 4.0-5.0″ Tyres

Just a quick look through the categories in my Bikepacking Bike Buyer’s Guide, and it’s clear these bikes are generally more purpose-built for off-road terrain. I classify bikepacking bikes based on the wheel specification because this is a key factor in determining how capable a bike will be on off-road terrain.

That said, bikepacking bikes can be purpose-built for the road too. Many of the gravel bikes in my book are really just fat tyre road bikes, which makes them the speediest option for a lightweight road tour.

My Touring Bicycle Buyer’s Guide bike categories:
Long Distance Touring – with Drop Handlebars
Long Distance Touring – with Flat Handlebars
Long Distance Trekking – with Flat Handlebars
Off-Road Touring – with Drop Handlebars
Off-Road Touring – with Flat Handlebars
Light Touring / Bikepacking / Gravel – with Drop Handlebars
Step-Through Touring – with Flat Handlebars

In comparison, a typical bike tour is conducted on much less varied surfaces (predominantly smooth roads), so the handlebar type is usually the best place to start when you’re choosing a touring bike.

There is a lot of crossover between bikes! Heavy-duty off-road bikes feature in both of my books, and provided gravel bikes have the mounts for racks and fenders, they often work their way into the “light touring” section of my Touring book too.

Bikepacking Bikes Have Higher Gear Ratios (Sometimes)

A touring bike should ideally have a climbing gear of around 20 gear inches or less. A bikepacking bike can get away with a higher climbing gear, as you are likely to be carrying less weight up a hill.

That said, bikepacking bikes are often focussed around off-road riding where the gradients are both steeper and more slippery. As a result, the best bikepacking bikes will have the equivalent climbing gears as a touring bike, and sometimes less.

Bikepacking Bikes Use 1X Drivetrains More Often Than Not

Across the majority of bikepacking bike categories in my book, 1X drivetrains are definitely the most popular option (42%, 66%, 36%, 70%, 100%, 95%). The notable exceptions are 700C gravel bikes, which are often built around road riding too, and strangely, 29″ off-road bikes.

1X drivetrains offer more tyre clearance and shorter chainstays when compared to a front derailleur setup. While they have larger gear jumps between each gear, on steeper terrain, you won’t need to make fine gear adjustments like you do on the road.

Bikepacking Bikes Use Less Field-Serviceable Components

The expected bikepacking trip duration is often shorter than a touring trip. This typically means that you spend more time around bike shops, so if something goes wrong, you can send parts in for warranty, obtain spares, or get a professional repair.

It’s common to find press-fit bottom bracket bearings, suspension forks, hydraulic brakes, integrated shifters, and titanium or carbon fibre on bikepacking bikes, but these are much less common features on a dedicated touring bike.

A touring bike usually has the simplest parts available, which require the basic tools found in shops anywhere in the world. That said, more complex parts such as integrated shifters and hydraulic brakes have recently proven to be quite reliable, so expect to see more of them on touring bikes in the coming years.

Can A Bike Be Designed For Both Bikepacking and Touring?

Absolutely!

The Co-Op Cycles ADV 4.2 is an excellent example. The bike uses overbuilt components that are kept somewhat simple (thumb shifters!). It has super low gear ratios (16″ climbing gear!), is very off-road capable (3.0″ tyres!) and has provision for touring racks and fenders, or cargo cage bags.

The build is tough, and it shows, with its 16kg/35lb weight. The frame geometry is much closer to a touring bike, with a long wheelbase and upright handlebars. You could set the bike up with panniers for a long tour, or alternatively, as a lighter and faster off-road setup.

Touring vs Bikepacking Bike Summary

TOURING BIKES:
- Tougher frames and components
- Stiffer frames to handle higher loads
- Ride great with luggage
- Lower gear ratios on average
- Rack and fender mounts at a minimum
- Simple components
BIKEPACKING BIKES:
- Less overbuilt frames and components
- Reduced frame stiffness for lighter loads
- A more ‘lively’ ride unloaded
- Slightly higher gear ratios on average
- Cargo cage mounts at a minimum
- More advanced components
Which Bike Should You Use?

I need to reiterate: you can use whatever bike you want for touring and bikepacking!

But if you want to optimise your setup, you should consider your total load, the surfaces you will ride, the steepness of the terrain, the bag setup you prefer and whether you will have access to spare parts or workshops with the appropriate tools.

A decent bikepacking-touring hybrid is an off-road bike that’s overbuilt, has generous tyre clearances, and mounts for racks, fenders and cargo cage bags.
July 8, 2020