The Bike and Gear
Gravel bike, fat tires and bikepacking bags
The setup for this short 3 day/2 night trip was the same as I used for a multi-day ride in Florida a few years ago:
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- Jamis Renegade Escapade - this replaced my 1990s vintage Trek 520 back in 2018. The 1X drivetrain is perfect for a flat ride like the GAP. For the all paved road/trail FL trip I put on some Schwalbe Marathons but since then have been running the stock Donnelly 700 x 40 semi-knobby tires that are kind of overkill for the GAP surface but sure are comfy, though slow. The carbon seat post on this bike fractured on a C&O Canal Towpath ride after my FL tour and Jamis replaced it with a steel seat post, much sturdier though heavier and stiffer.
- Revelate Visacha Seat Pack - I think Revelate has replaced this with the Terrapin. I really like this approach vs. panniers but the down side of a roll-up seat pack is no stable vertical place to mount my fancy radar tail light. Didn't need that on the GAP -really only needed a tail light for the two blocks biking at midnight from Amtrak to the Marriott Courtyard in Pittsburgh! So, just used my standard clip-on blinky on the add-on wallet pack on the top of the Visacha. This bag carried all my clothes, electronics and a long lock cable.
- Revelate Mini Frame Bag - This worked great for carrying my tools and lock on the right side and snacks on the left. But, it did force me to switch to smaller water bottles, and switch to side mount bottle holders. There is a braze-on under the down tube for a full size bottle. but because of the 54 cm frame size it comes too close to the front tire for me to trust that. I thought about using the fork mounts for water bottles, but I was kinda worried about the bike on Amtrak in a baggage car - for that 7 hour trip I figured the less sticking out on the sides, the better. The GAP has plenty of regular water stops, so even on the long day I wasn't worried about not carrying enough water.
- Oveja Negra Lunchbox Bar Bag - The Lunchbox was great as a small bar bag - held my wallet, phone, mask, toiletries, a lock, paper stuff in spare ziplock bags. For this short trip, I would live in my SPD bike shoes, so didn't need much capacity beyond the saddle bag.
Electronics would be a Wahoo Bolt GPS/bike computer for recording mileage (not much need for navigation this trip) and my aging Google Pixel 2 cellphone as a camera and web surfer. The battery was dying, so I made the mistake of having a U Break Em, We Cheaply Fix Em place replace it and they ended up breaking the screen and replacing that for free - but then the microphone didn't work. They fixed that but weeks later the front facing camera stopped working - photos would have to be in selfie mode!
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