AMR2020 Gear Shakedown: The Rig
#AMR2020
Sour Bicycles
Sour is a small company in Dresden making some polarising designs with a more modern spin on an old classic. Many people would make the argument that such a frame as the Purple Haze is just an “old 90’s MTB”, and they wouldn’t be wrong… but did your Rockhopper have 4-pot hydraulic discs, carbon fork, and thru-axles? See what I’m saying…? Although the PH has the geo of a bike that other companies may straight-up call a mountain bike, this bike can handle everything from twisty singletrack all the way to the manicured asphalt roads of the Dutch polder. Drop your heel, and push through the berm with your shoulders and you’d be hard pressed to tell the difference between an XC bike and this frame, yet it remains nervous enough to not be boring just riding on the road.
Cycling in Morocco
The Atlas and Anti-Atlas regions of Morocco are amazing places. They are beautiful and sometimes barren with minimal infrastructure, and fairly unstable ground. It’s this unstable ground that makes something like the AMR2020 even more interesting. The race is a first edition, and the route has been scouting, but not fully ridden (by the organisation), so a solid rain storm could already change the landscape just around the corner into something not even recognisable compared to just a few weeks prior. It’s this wonderful unpredictability that asks for a higher level of preparedness.
Why not a MTB?
In my decision process, I jumped between a “true” mountain bike and the Sour Purple Haze a few times. I won’t dive into the pro’s and con’s, that list is too long and also changes per person/personally preference. For me, and my mountain bike, I know that the tempo is already set and that tempo can really only be described as “not-in-a-rush”. I love my mountain bike, partly because of this relaxed attitude, but given the roughly 300km of asphalt and plenty of long gravel stretches that are not technical, the Sour will hopefully shine. With the MTB genes mixed into this gravel bike, it should compensate well for those few sections that are probably going to push beyond the scope of such a bike… but worth the risk.
Goals
My biggest goal with this bike was packability and efficiency. Weight is a losing battle in my experience, and although I’m sure I’d notice the difference between a 15kg and a 20kg rig, I’m not going to notice the small weight savings made by choosing something light over something packable. Additionally, I’m really bad at eating as constantly as I need to on this type of adventures, so I’ve modded a few bags to get them up near the handlebars. These feed bags + my jersey pockets should give me enough options to keep eating the whole day long.
The bike.
It’s all about the bike.
Below I’ve listed off a few highlights and given a short explanation about who, what, why. Scroll further down for more raw details.
Highlights
kLite Ultra MTB Dynamo System
It’s this bit of kit that ties it all together. It is becoming increasingly popular to log KM’s deep into the night, and start even earlier in the morning, and especially in February, this means riding in the dark. If I could chose one single bit of bikepakcing kit from the last years that has most impressed me, it would undoubtedly be Kerry’s dynamo lighting. Kerry sent me one of his newest over-moulded Ultra MTB lights to click into my exsiting kLite harness with USB Charger. The beauty of this light is it’s simplicity, no fancy electronics or batteries to fade away, just pure light and efficiency. I bought a prototype of this light years ago from Kumo Cycles and was immediately set back on my heels with the beam pattern and brightness of this light. Kerry addresses many of the inherint problems with dynamo lighting (flickering, low speed dimming) in ingenious ways and I’m so sure this light will provide an advantage through the impressively dark Moroccan mountains.
Hope RX4 Brakes
Okay, I’m just going to get this out of the way here and now… as a bike mechanic, electronic shifting and hydraulic brakes scare the crap out of me for bikepacking. It’s not that I don’t understand them, I mean I’ve literally based my entire well-being on understanding these systems in my shop, but rather that failures occur unexpectedly, are generally small problems, but are always crippling. For this race I decided to stick with hydro brakes (sweet sweet hydro), but you couldn’t pay me to use SRAM’s calipers, so I gave Hope a call to scrounge up a pair of RX4 calipers. Hope’s RX4 calipers are a direct replacement for SRAM and Shimano road hydro braking systems. These calipers are beautifully machined, flat and post mount, 4-pot brakes. Through their increased volume and jump up to 4-pot their power is increased which in turn means you’re not pushing the brake into it’s red-zone on long and loaded descents. Watching SRMR and other races, you’ll see tons of cooked brake fluid in hydro systems, and while this is possible with every brake and every bike, Hope will help me potentially avoid this crippling mechanical… Plus, they look just stunning.
#BudgetMullet Hack
One of the more important things I focused on for the AMR was gearing. Everyone has their own theories and I’ve seen everything from nearly 1:1 gearing all the way down to 30 x 51 MTB gearing. I figured that MTB gearing was in any case the best option, but being limited to "road” shifters on my Sour I wasn’t able to use such a large rear cassette… this is where #budgetmullet comes in.
There are any number of aftermarket solutions that work medium-well, to pretty-well, but I’m a huge fan of using native products whenever possible, especially when hacking. By switching the cable fin from my SRAM Rival1 onto a GX Eagle derailleur I was able to utilize a 11-50t cassette (max. 9-52t), without any expensive modifications from third parties.
To see more about my hack, check out this article on Bikerumor:
Cane Creek eeSilk Seatpost
This seatpost has been one of the single most game-changing components for me in the last bit. I do as much core and back training as I can stomach, but nonetheless once the KM’s start to stack up on bumpy backroads, my lower back starts to complain. This seatpost really starts to make a noticeable difference with longer distances and really gnarly tracks. Cane Creek really did their homework on this one by making it tuneable and decreasing the travel to make sure the rider is still doing most of the work and thus staying in touch with what the bike is doing, but giving it just enough “cush” to save your back when your destination is just over the horizon.
The Kit
Bas at Detour Studios in Arnhem is just getting off the ground with his company, not that you could see that, the quality and attention to detail here is off the charts. I went to Bas for my full frame bag, because there’s nothing worse than an ill-fitting frame bag that’s missing half of the features you need. During my meeting with Bas we exchanged ideas and put them together into what the bag is now, some things are from my experience, and a few I never would of thought of without the expertise of Bas. The rest of the bags are made by Daniel at Cordel, still a champion in the game. Daniels bags are getting up there in years, and still going strong.
Sleep System
At the heart of my sleep system is a Liteway Sleeper Quilt. Liteway is a new-to-me company making some simple, cost-effective, and lightweight equipment in Ukraine. I decided to play it safe(r) with my sleep kit for Morocco, because I’ve seen how fast the weather can change in the mountains, and with so little vegetation/cloud cover, the temps can drop all too quickly in the night, and miss one good night’s sleep and that could spell the end of a lucky streak.
Rounding out my sleep system is a Thermarest Neo-Air Xlite, again chosen for it’s warmth (did I mention I run cold?), and a Borah Gear bivy. Together this will keep the scorpions out, and the warmth in.
Tools
I often try and round out my toolkit as far as it makes sense. As a small bike shop owner/bike mechanic, any trail repairs are no problem for me, as long as I have the tool/parts. Obviously bringing a whole shop with me on the road is exactly what I want to do, that’d be so sick! Wait, chill. No, you can’t bring your whole shop on the road. That’d be crazy…. right?
I generally dedicate a large portion of my toolkit to keeping my tires in one piece. Below is an outline:
Dynaplug Racer
Kevlar Strip
Needle and Floss
Superglue
Patch Kit (Vulcanising)
Innertubes (2)
Next to all sorts of rubber bits to keep my tires in one piece, I have a couple of special tools with me for when the shit hits the fan.
Hypercracker cassette lockring tool
Crank Bros M19 Multitool
Wolftooth Pack Pliers, loaded with two quick links
Lighter + paraffin matches (the prudent explorer)
These tools, plus a few others you’d expect, an extra bit of chain, spokes, and gaffer tape from Japan, will carry me to the finish.