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@launchpadboi
attended a bikepacking overnighter, which was primarily meant to be a training ride to prep for the italy duro and the pennine rally. it was a bit ambitious of me to go after having ridden the bike only around the block to test saddles. i'm glad i did as it was a cracking ride and i got a lot of valuable feedback for further adjusting the bike.
if the bike was set up haphazardly, the bags were even more so. the frame bag is meant for another bike and doesn't fit. the other bags won't be used with this bike either, but made a passable temporary setup. i could've survived with much less kit as well. the witslingers full frame bag that's being designed as we speak will solve a lot of these issues. the front will likely change to this and i already have the wayward riders dropper post compatible butt rocket for the rear. the bike kind of necessitates switching from the tetsuo ehara style neo-retro bag setup to an ultra race style setup. a bit extra but weight savings are always welcome.
surprisingly, the only thing that caused trouble was the slipping seatpost clamp. i was quick to blame dkg for loose standards, but turned out the seat tube is just of an odd diameter, somewhere between the common 28.6 and 30.0. this explains the slipping and why the frame came with gunnar's own (boring black) clamp, which i, heart full of brain worms, stupidly swapped out. nothing worse than a couple extra tightening stops and slight marks on the saddle bag.
i didn't want to start brake wars earlier, but maybe i do now lol. i didn't expect much from the hybrid cable discs, but soon realised how laughably bad they actually are. i'm now in the process of upgrading to the 4-piston model juins and the yokozuna compressionless housing, but still not expecting them to brake nowhere near like my paul motolite rim brakes. the only upside i've noticed so far is that the performance isn't much diminished in wet conditions. my riding will mostly be in the dry though. verdict is not getting hydros unless there's a nicer looking lever alternative to the hope tech 3 duo, which oozes full face helmet energy.
despite of the above, the big picture is the bike slaps. it just bombs through everything. the rollover is clearly superior to the 650x48b i had earlier. no more slipping in the mud yet maintaining a decent rolling resistance on the road thanks to jan heine's magic knobs. it's also light enough to climb well. absolutely no problems even on the rockiest and steepest ones between shoreham-by- sea and midhurst. apart from having to hold up a bit due to the brakes, descents were happy days too. in contrast, i was struggling a lot on the stumpjumper with the said 650x48b on the same ground. the steel-carbon combo is obviously showing its damping characteristics here. the slightly longer 450mm stays can also be felt contributing to the stability.