Yeah I rode the Maitai side pre-brevet with a minimal load and still had a couple of short walks where it was loose and steep. Its gonna be fun!

Should be an awesome adventure.

Hmmmmmmm...

Q. 29er HT or CX bike?
Q. Fly or Bivvy bag?
Q. Racked bag or backpack?
Q. How many water bottles?

Yeah, we had good advice from the adventure racer guys who say, keep as much weight OFF your back as you can. Will save your lower back and a$$ as well I imagine? Thats what i Iiked about my aero bars, I could lean forward and take the weight off the rear.

Eljefe wrote:Yeah, we had good advice from the adventure racer guys who say, keep as much weight OFF your back as you can. Will save your lower back and a$$ as well I imagine? Thats what i Iiked about my aero bars, I could lean forward and take the weight off the rear.

Keep weight off your back as much as you can. I did use a pack but mainly for ready access stuff I needed - anything remotely heavy went on the rack. There are are heaps of opportnuities to fill up with water. the only time I ran out was on the Molesworth Rd, on the hideous false flat, that will still be a hideous false flat going the other way! I drank from the stream with no ill effects. 2 bottles should be fine (well it was for me)

29er HT with suspension front fork will be easy when you are tried IMHO. You can also fit fatter, higher volume tyres, on an MTB making the ride a little nicer. I will be going for comfort. I was grateful for the fully I used last time

craigofnz wrote:Should be an awesome adventure.

Hmmmmmmm...

Q. 29er HT or CX bike?
Q. Fly or Bivvy bag?
Q. Racked bag or backpack?
Q. How many water bottles?

29er ridgid, bivvy bag, 1xfreeload, 2xlarge bottles whoo hoo may book a night at some place nice mid mission

sifter wrote:I'd often start the day with a bottle of iced-coffee in my rear pocket too (a hot drink at the start of the day would've slowed me down too much!)

On recent missions I've carried a tube of nestle condensed milk and coffee as an emergency ration (I can always drink coffee no matter what my tummy is up to). 190gm 2500kj. Sucking a whole tube down would be a good pick me up.

Eljefe wrote:Yeah, we had good advice from the adventure racer guys who say, keep as much weight OFF your back as you can.

After being the test bunny for trying to ride the Heaphy with all of my gear in a backpack, I will completely support this advice. I had somewhere around 20kg total (with a body weight of 64kg) and I suffered horribly. It was great entertainment for Tama, Jono, Colin et. al. but it sucked to be me.

Freeload racks appear to be the poison of choice and will be on my bike for any multi-day rides.

heh heh. Yeah when we rode the Heaphy, (about 15 years ago), I wasn't even aware of racks, so a heavy back pack it was. It was horrible. It was a there and back two dayer tho so we didn't need that much (only to the last hutt tho). I am surprised the Freeloads are still not getting more uptake with the hard core bike-packers states-side. I reckon that if they are on a fully they go with the "monsterous-seat-bag" scenario. I wonder if there are many failures with those? I certainly hear of a few failures with those "beam" ones that attach to the seat-post.

I have heard of the condensed milk coffee combo. Do they still make it?

Haven't heard of any of the seat bags failing, but the Freeload racks have more capacity.

When I first did the Heaphy in the 80s, everyone used racks and panniers. I think Dave Micthells crew were the first to abandon panniers; which kinda makes sense when you do a lot of bike carrying.
These things go in cycles, eh.

Eljefe wrote:I have heard of the condensed milk coffee combo. Do they still make it?

Yeah I had to go to a few supermarkets though.
Or: http://www.shopenzed.com/nestle-coffee- ... 99405.html

hdb wrote:

Eljefe wrote:Yeah, we had good advice from the adventure racer guys who say, keep as much weight OFF your back as you can.

After being the test bunny for trying to ride the Heaphy with all of my gear in a backpack, I will completely support this advice. I had somewhere around 20kg total (with a body weight of 64kg) and I suffered horribly. It was great entertainment for Tama, Jono, Colin et. al. but it sucked to be me.

Freeload racks appear to be the poison of choice and will be on my bike for any multi-day rides.

To be fair it was more that the pack was twice the size of you that was entertaining us, rather than the pain you were in.

Slim wrote:

hdb wrote:After being the test bunny for trying to ride the Heaphy with all of my gear in a backpack, I will completely support this advice. I had somewhere around 20kg total (with a body weight of 64kg) and I suffered horribly. It was great entertainment for Tama, Jono, Colin et. al. but it sucked to be me.
Freeload racks appear to be the poison of choice and will be on my bike for any multi-day rides.

To be fair it was more that the pack was twice the size of you that was entertaining us, rather than the pain you were in.

Hey Slim, sorry if it came across that I was offended - in reality I was laughing at my own foolishness. The whole group was amazingly patient with my riding pace and tussles with the swing bridges.

sifter wrote:

Zoom wrote:

Eljefe wrote:Yeah, we had good advice from the adventure racer guys who say, keep as much weight OFF your back as you can. Will save your lower back and a$$ as well I imagine? Thats what i Iiked about my aero bars, I could lean forward and take the weight off the rear.

Keep weight off your back as much as you can. I did use a pack but mainly for ready access stuff I needed - anything remotely heavy went on the rack. There are are heaps of opportnuities to fill up with water. the only time I ran out was on the Molesworth Rd, on the hideous false flat, that will still be a hideous false flat going the other way! I drank from the stream with no ill effects. 2 bottles should be fine (well it was for me)

29er HT with suspension front fork will be easy when you are tried IMHO. You can also fit fatter, higher volume tyres, on an MTB making the ride a little nicer. I will be going for comfort. I was grateful for the fully I used last time

Will have to see how light I can get my gear for a backcountry brevet. Might check out the recommended freeload racks. Although, personally as a semi-retired tramper I do find that when I can get the luggage light enough, the bike handling is far superior with luggage on me than on appendages attached the bicycle. Got by with a hydration bag and three jersey pockets for the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200k last month. Allowing a few extra days for off-road, backcountry travel and a well deserved distrust NZ weather, I'm pretty sure I will have a little more cargo for this occasion. Still, no need to bring along a fully laden Winnebago.... http://chamoisnews.com/?p=9