Custom bikes aren’t always about the bling; they’re about designing form for specific functions. For Dylan, his love of touring through the Australian outback pushed him to get a custom Meriwether Cycles longtail fat bike for touring. Read on for a dusty Readers’ Rides…

Looking closely at the non-drive side chainstay, you will see a few spare spokes taped there for the unlikely and unlucky event of breaking one while out in the bush. Any bicycle with spare spokes taped to it, especially on the chainstay or seat stay, I think ought to be referred to as what it probably is: a touring bike. I humbly and pedantically submit my Meriwether custom-made steel longtail touring fat bike.

Over the last Austral winter, I rode about 9,600 km over four and a half months in the central and western deserts of Australia on this bicycle. The crux of this tour was the Canning Stock Route, which I rode over the course of 28 days, but I also had delightful times on the Abandoned Gunbarrel Highway, Sandy Blight Junction road, the Sandover Highway, the non-abandoned Gunbarrel Highway and all the connecting roads between these places. Old Andado Road was great too.

Two winters ago, I cycled across the Anne Beadell Highway and have also ridden on the Border Track between South Australia and Victoria. (This final one was during the Covid border lockdown years, and I was intercepted by SA police on patrol in an unmarked Hilux while out there.)

Honestly, it rides like a bike. Unloaded, I often look behind myself to ensure that the rear rack is still there; it tends to disappear on me when not loaded down with dozens of liters of water and a week or two’s worth of food. This bike has cable routing for down tube shifters mounted on the seat tube, which I refer to as suicide shifters and have installed in the past. Motorcycles do this sometimes, but I first saw it on an Ira Ryan bicycle when I lived in Portland in the mid-aughts.

The fork takes a 197×12 hub so I get to have two rear wheels. You can’t take the Pugsley out of the boy. I took a Singletor in my repair kit in case of rear derailleur destruction, and maybe if things went pear-shaped, I could have swapped wheels and toddled out with a 22×20 singlespeed.

With racks, pedals and sealant it weighs about 22 kgs. It has a sparkly white paint job. White light, white heat. This bicycle is between and six and seven years old. I know that I am extremely lucky and fortunate to have a bicycle as amazing and well-built as this one. I would love to check out what’s in the deserts southeast of Broome, and am also curious about those sand tracks that go east from Cape Arid National Park into the Nullarbor.

I could also ride my exact route again next winter and be happy! It would be fun to cycle the CSR with someone, so in that small window after dinner when staring at the fire and before passing out with exhaustion, I could talk with someone about how beautiful the country is.

Build spec:

• Steel frame and fork, removable front and rear racks Paul Klamper brakes
• Paul Love Levers
• 180mm rotors
• Cane Creek Viscoset headset upper (set to full sticky)
• Chris King headset lower
• Spank stem
• Hunter Smooth Move handlebars
• Ergon GP2 grips
• Race Face Turbine cranks with 22/32T chainrings
• Chris King bottom bracket
• Burgtec composite pedals
• Shimano 105 chains (all I could find in Alice Springs mid-tour). Takes more than one and less than two given its length
• Shimano XT 11-42T 11 speed cassette
• Chris King 20T singlespeed cog on the front wheel
• Sram XO 11 speed rear shifter
• Sram GX 2×11 rear derailleur
• Microshift 2 speed front shifter (set to friction)
• Shimano XT front derailleur
• Brooks B17 saddle (it is a touring bike after all)
• Thomson seatpost and collar
• Bontrager Jackalope 26” rims (82mm external width) laced to DT Swiss Fat Ride 350 hubs with DT Swiss Alpine III spokes
• Three bottle cages, two on the fork and one underneath the downtube
• Schwalbe Jumbo Jim 26×4.8 tires
• Possibly more sealant than you would expect
• Accessory highlights:
  • Four Ortlieb panniers in the rear
  • Yeah Nah Thread Works rack bag
  • Custom bolt-on Revelate Designs framebag
  • Prototype Revelate Designs front panniers
  • eTrex 22x

We’d like to thank all of you who submitted Readers Rides builds to be shared here at The Radavist. The response has been incredible and we have so many to share over the next few months. Feel free to submit your bike, listing details, components, and other information. You can also include a portrait of yourself with your bike and your Instagram account! Please, shoot landscape-orientation photos, not portrait. Thanks!