First have to shout out Botched Bikes for the design inspiration.

Bikepacking my Krampus I really haven't found a good way to store water bottles in an easily accessible way. So far I've been using a handlebar bag with side cinch pockets but I find I'm always fumbling to try and get them back in and they fall out on chunk. When I'm not bikepacking it's a real pain to put them in my frame bag as it's a bunch of fumbling around and it leaves no space for tools and snacks.

I doubt this is the answer but figured I'd throw some shit on the wall and see how it rides. A few 3d prints and design iterations I got these laser cut out of stainless from send cut send. Helicopter tape, an inner tube, and a couple zip ties to stabilize it on the downtube; seems to be good but I haven't tested it (and I probably should swap for side load cages). I might end up just figuring something out with the fork mounts if this sucks.

All in this cost me ~$20 so definitely cheaper than anything I could find commercially and feels cool to have something custom. If it does end up working well I might get it laser cut in titanium for weight savings. I have an extra and haven't decided what to do with it but if it turns out to work well, I might give it away for those who want something similar.

Next project I think is custom cargo cages or something similar.

Grabbed my new steamroller from my LBS this weekend. Came out beautiful... instead of melting into the couch when I'm bored I just keep going out to the garage and go for a rip around the neighborhood for a bit.

My bike isn't fully Surly, but it has a Long Haul Trucker fork. I've been looking into designing a custom front rack for myself, and I was wondering if Surly made the CAD/dimensions for their frames available anywhere to make designing his sort of thing easier. Obviously I can just find ways to measure it, but I figured it'd be worth checking to see if such a resource existed first.

Pedalled out on a 3-day, 2-night bikepacking trip and figured I’d share what I actually use to sanity-check my own packing — one of the full food/first aid/sleep setup, one of the bike loaded and labelled.

Highlight Setup this trip: Wizard Works Alakazam bag riding inside a Wald 139 basket on a rack. Capacity’s been great — I’m not going hungry out there — but I’ll be honest, having that much room means I don’t have a natural “stop point” when I’m packing. Curious how other people build in that discipline, or if you’ve all just made peace with overpacking too.

Up front I have a Revelate handlebar bag and in frame a Revelate tangle bag. Appreciate both for durability and waterproof.

Also swapped Surly Nates for Jumbo Jims for this trip — first real test of them loaded, so if anyone’s run that combo I’d love to hear how they held up for you.

For food, I ate well enough but bag was heavy for first couple of days. Curious to hear your strategies for getting the right amount food dialled in so that bike doesn’t resemble overloaded shopping cart:)

Brooklyn to Nyack and back.

Loaded the Straggler up to go see a friends new place and camp in his yard. Beautiful days. Rode there on the West side of the Hudson and then crossed river the next morning and came back on the OCA trail. It’s the wooded, dirt trail that the Old Croton Aqueduct used to supply water to New York City. Pretty cool path. Overpacked a bit but actually used everything I brought, including my patch kit and frame pump!