With the success of the Bikes and Faces of the Oregon Outback post, I figured diving a little deeper into one bike couldn’t hurt. As I said before, a lot of people were on hardtail or rigid MTBs. While the top two finishers (Ira and Jan) were on drop-bar touring / road bikes, a majority of the field chose the stability and control of a full-on 29r, 27.5 and even 26″.
Shawn from Ruckus took the Oregon Outback as an opportunity to create a bike, specifically for this bikepacking outing and the resulting design is pretty bad ass, not to mention, featherlite!
Read up more below!
Words and photos by Shawn of Ruckus
Our base chassis was the ultra fast Scott Scale 900 frame paired it with a Niner RDO fork. We decided the end goal was that this is a bitchin’ mountain bike and should stay that way. Our scope was to “ride to your campsite, set up camp, shred trails, pack up and ride home” all on the same bike rather than a one trick pony. With this focus we decided to simplify everything by putting on a SRAM XX1 drivetrain. We put on a set of Stans ZTR arch wheels with Stan’s The Crow tires. Tubeless rims with tubeless tires. Lots of sealant. This proved to be an awesome decision, the 2 inch tires kept me rolling quickly and smoothly while I was watched other set ups get bogged down in lava rock.
We wanted to add a few custom tricks, so we modified the frame to run all the cables / housing/hoses internally. Doing so allowed me to remove all external cable stops; this made strapping on the frame bags significantly easier and then there wasn’t any cable abrasion/shifting issues to deal with. We then added some extra h20 capacity to the fork legs and added a “party cage” to the bottom side of the downtube. We usually reserve this spot for tallboys of Tecate but it could also hold a water bottle if times got desperate. One of the coolest features we added to the fork was the ability to mount two waterproof cases. One is first aid and the other to be bike tools. I figured if I needed medical attention or bike attention I don’t want to be digging through a “used” chamois to find band-aids.
One of the most fun aspects was coming up with the possible paint jobs for this rig. We ended up laying down a fun patchwork of colors and masked it for a deep matte black top coat. Overall it is kind of a ‘funfetti’ scheme and it looks playful against the dusty terrain. Overall the bike performed flawlessly. I had more than enough water, more than enough room to carry food (an entire chicken from Cowboy Dinner Tree) ,more than enough storage room, plenty of gear range, tubeless tires, this kept the bike incredibly lightweight and nimble.
We have it measured in a few different modes
Trail mode: No bags, no gear, 3 water bottles. This is for when you already set up your campsite and want to shred local trails with pedals. 17 lbs 5 oz.
Empty bag mode: 4 Revelate bags, 3 h20 cages ready to stuff with whatever you want. 22 lbs
Travel mode: All my bags, all my gear, (no water). 32 lbs.
