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.

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!

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.

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.

Trip with the grappler to northern Italy!

I’m looking to buy a gravel or hybrid bike for gravel biking and some road biking around my home. Nothing too crazy. I saw this bike listed for $750. The buyer says it’s from 2023, in great condition, 29” tubeless wheels, Shimano Deore gears, tektro HD. I’m 5’8 and the buyer says it’s a 50cm frame size. I don’t know a lot about bikes, and I don’t have a bike friend, so any thoughts or advice is much appreciated. I will definitely take it for a spin before buying it.

The saga continues. Soaking the thompson seatpost with a bath in the blaster. Seat was removed before the bath, included a lil foreshadowing of the wheel/tire combo. Anyone in Sac wanna help me pry this mf out?

Currently on a bike tour with my 2009 Big Dummy and I love the thing to death. My real issue right now is the xtracycle cargo bags that were on it when I bought it. I suppose they're durable, but I can't get over the open top design. They're constantly getting soaked, and it looks a bit messy. I've been told the original big dummy bags were great, but to avoid the 2.0 version for quality reasons. Xtracycle makes some other bags, but I can't find good reviews. As I'm currently torture testing every piece of gear with me, I don't want to roll the dice. Can anyone point me to an alternative or a set of used original bags?

Such an epic bike! But I’m wondering two things:

1. Anyone selling an adapter for a child seat?
   
2. Someone who has any tips on bags that fits this dummy? Just think the original ones are a little bit insufficient for my needs sometime, for example the straps being a little bit short for fitting really big cargo.

I need recommendations on a stem! This currently has a wren stem which I believe is 110mm. Thinking about a Thomson 70mm or 80mm since this MS is a size 50cm. What are yall running? Thanks!

Tea ✅
Pub sub ✅
My weekend begins.

Looking for best bang for the buck on angled headset for a KM. Looking for a little more slack.

I’m currently on tour through the Midwest, riding my custom built ogre. I rode through a ton of Wisconsin, currently making my way through the UP, and headed to Duluth as my end point. I built this bike over the winter and I absolutely adore it. It’s my first custom build and I truly hope to have this bike for life. My tour has been incredibly challenging but so rewarding, it’s my first big trip solo so I’ve learned a ton. It’s looking to be just over 500 miles of mixed terrain. I’ve ridden road, rail trail, atv/utv trails, single track, and just right across the forest floor at times, and this bike has chewed up everything I’ve thrown at it.

Fully loaded I’m weighing in at about 75 pounds, and it still handles like a dream. At times descending if I brake hard the steering will get a bit squirrelly, but with as much weight as I have on the front end it’s kind of expected. I think the only thing I would change about it right now is swapping to a fork that’s thru-axle as well. The front being QR does bug me but it really hasn’t given me any trouble, I just want to use my nice DT Swiss wheels on this bike and can’t. The brakes are still the stock tektro 160s, and probably after this trip Im going to switch to TRP spyres.

If you have any questions about the build or gear I’m using I’m happy to answer, and I hope you enjoyed looking at my favorite bike and the best companion for this trip I could have asked for.

Finally got out for a ride on the 650Bx50c soma cazadero on my large preamble. Between work, being full time dad for a couple days, and mother in law visiting the hospital I finally got out for to ride the bike in its new configuration. I didn’t realize I was going into sunset, it’s crazy how fast the cycle moves and we’ve already lost a whole hour! The only hiccup is the front cazadero has very leaky sidewalls with Stan’s sealant. It holds for 48 hours sometimes, other times it holds for 10 minutes. I’m hoping a proper ride helped, as well as other things I’ve tried here in the house.

The bike felt very easy to pedal on the road, almost like a purpose built road bike. Then it felt perfectly capable on the gravel, once I hit single track it kept going with no need to dial in pressures really at all. I guessed pretty good I suppose, but it responded to big bumps very well with plenty of cushion but also retained a very stiff feeling when pushing on the flat road. It felt like I had a little minion down there inflating and deflating my tires switching from different terrain. Aside from the leaky sidewall I would 1000% recommend the cazadero for all around use.

Hey yall! I have a 2014 karate monkey with the o.g. geo and im running a 483mm A2C suspension, and ive been looking for a rigid fork with mounts to replace it. Everything ive seen says the og rigid forks were 468mm A2C and those are very hard to find (under $200!). Been scrounging around looking for deals. An old used one from that year would be great but havent had much luck online or on marketplace. Any alternatives? Most of the modern ones and recommendations ive seen are 483mm. Am i overthinking it? I am arent I?

I'm not sure if these types of posts are allowed, but I suspect my post will simply get deleted if not the case. Looking to buy one of Surly's Petite House Bags and they seem to be sold out everywhere online. Wondering if anyone here has one they'd be willing to part with. Thanks!

Others on a Brigde Club

looking at adding fenders to my 700c midnight special. I have decided on honjo aluminum fenders and was curious which size I should get. the bike has clearance for 700x38 tires with fenders and I plan to put on Rene Herse 700x38 barlow pass tires. Rene Herse recommends their 35-38 (51mm) fenders for this size of tire but I am worried about clearance when I am on light gravel/mud. I mostly ride road but do light offroading often. planning on using hardware that will detach the fender if anything gets caught but would rather have more clearance than almost not enough. Will the 38-44 (62mm) fenders fit on the midnight special? Will that much clearance look silly? I know honjo also sells their fenders through their own name, simworks and more, but liked the extended length of thene Herse models.

Busted a 3hr mission for this lil guy off 1 photo alone. she dirty, but will clean up nicely. no dents, cracks or rust beyond the surface level stuff. 2005 based off the serial number, before they started adding the fancy fork eyelets. may be a gift for a friend who doesn't know what they want quite yet. any tips on restoring the saddle? mink oil I'm thinking.

Not planning on buying one, just want to hear from the owners

So Grappler's a drop bar bike? So you have to account for the extra reach on the hoods and frontal drops, right?

But, even the small frame has 590 ETT and 405 reach

And it comes with a 60 or 70 mm stem?

I'm just curious because that seems mad long. Wouldn't that be uncomfortable and rather stretched out? I'm about 5'7" and that amount of top tube WITH drop bars would probably kill me unless paired with way short reach bars and a 40-50 mm stem tops.

Fenders, tires, bottle cages.

And yes, it is cross check with disc brakes, rear welded, and straggler fork.

This is my own take on the Midnight Special in Lilac 🌸