Rotterdam Backroads

Rotterdam Backroads

Backroads, or B-Roads are often roads just off the beaten path. These are roads that house whole villages, that when a new highway is built just parallel, the whole village dries up due to all the traffic going around, instead of through the village. Backroads are where cyclists can thrive. Ride in the middle of the road, three abreast, try to learn how to wheelie… Granted, it’s probably wise to check for cars behind you every once in a while, it is the Netherlands after all.

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This first route is part of a series of routes we here at the Paralel HQ Route Development Agency (PRDA) have been playing around with for a while. Many of you will already know the areas where this routes go through, but hopefully you will take the time to follow the route to the letter, as most of these routes will take you to well-known cycling hotspots, but then parallel to the roads you know so well… on, you could say, that backroads.

Backroads are not necessarily unmaintained, gravel, or of otherwise “poorer” quality. This is especially the case when you live in Zuid Holland, with a budget for road maintenance higher than some countries GDP. But nonetheless, one or two of these roads will fall into disrepair, or be stripped back to gravel for cost reasons, so come prepared. Bring big(ger) tires, a Dynaplug or two, and maybe and innertube for good luck.

Grab the route here.

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Heads up! This route is potentially dangerous, just like all cycling… but who are we kidding, not cycling is also dangerous. But in any case, Parallel accepts no responsibility for crashes, damage, or any other liability while riding the route.

AMR2020 Gear Shakedown: The Rig


#AMR2020

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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.

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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.

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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:

https://bikerumor.com/2020/02/07/how-to-hack-a-sram-road-group-with-eagle-derailleur-for-massive-budget-mullet-gearing/

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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.

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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.

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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.







Bikepacking Driedaagse

Hello!

You are receiving this email because you expressed interest in the Bikepacking Driedaagse in June. Also, I'm going to write it in English for the international crowd. If English isn't your favorite, and you need the info in Dutch, let me know.

First off, there are some changes to this years event. Due to the growth in popularity, I have to make the event much more independent than last year... I'll explain what that means in a minute. The idea of this event is to organise a free, fun way to get people on their bikes with tents and other gear, wandering the countryside looking for snacks before sleeping under the stars. However, with the number of registrations I've received, I'd be forced to charge a bunch of money to rent whole campsites and organise every detail of the event to keep everyone safe and happy... and that's just missing the point... So, without further adieu, the new Bikepacking Driedaagse for 2019...

Bikepacking Driedaagse 2019

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Registration
This is still required. Even though this is a self-supporting event, I'd still feel guilty if you got lost. Before you can join, please register giving your name, email, phone number etc. And yes, there will be a WhatsApp group made, and yes, it's a little annoying, sorry not sorry.

https://parallelhandbuilt.com/bikepacking-event

Structure
We will meet at Parallel HQ/Coppi Koffie and ride away together, because riding together is fun. After a few KM's, the differing routes will split up on to their chosen route. Additionally on the route itself, groups will split up based on tempo and distance goals. Coming to the event alone and want to ride together with other people? Don't worry, there will be groups to join, just ask what their plans are first (speed, distances, etc.) and make sure that matches your idea of a fun day.

Routes
A couple routes will be made available, varying in length and difficulty. These routes criss-cross a bit so there will be plenty of places where you'll see other people out bikepacking. Places like the Velosoof in Eindhoven and the Leeuwen van Vlaanderen are on the route and will be "checkpoints" where most people will likely eat a meal and chill out for a bit

Checkpoints
There are couple points where all three routes will cross over each other. The routes are designed in a way that if you maintain a specific average speed, you will arrive at the crossover at roughly the same time to other cyclists. For example, you'll have to maintain 20km/h average for the shorter route, 25km/h for the middle/gravel, and 30km/h for the longer route. This is roughly speaking, you will receive another mail soon with more accurate estimates along with the routes.

Camping
There are tons of camping sites in NL/BE ranging from very free to mildly expensive. You can choose. This is an essential skill when bikepacking, so now is a great time to practice! If you're looking for the free spots check here for an ever-growing list. Don't forget to always always always practice No Trace when camping! These free sites get shut down all the time because of people leaving there trash/poop/etc. behind. Don't be "that guy". You have to find your own camping. The reason there are no fixed campings organised this year like there were last year is because of the number of participants. There are no single campings in the area where the routes go that can handle 50+ cyclists at one time.

Food
Everyone's gotta eat. Everyone's gotta find their own food. This event takes place on a national holiday weekend in NL and BE, this means a lot of stuff will be closed... plan ahead!

Finish
Everyone will finish at their own tempo. I personally will be ending at Parallel HQ where the fridge will be fully stocked with chilled beverages and ready-to-go pizza. However, I will update you at a later date at what time this will be at (evening in any case). A shower and changing room is available at Parallel HQ, and yes, you may leave your bag etc. behind.

All the best,
Joergen Trepp
www.parallelhandbuilt.com
+31 (0)638494219