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Some Sort of Rhythm: A Bicycle Touring Story From the BC Epic Route

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Some Sort of Rhythm: A Bicycle Touring Story From the BC Epic Route

“Oh, shit is that a skunk? I’m pretty sure that’s a skunk”. This sentence can always cause a moment of trepidation on any trip, multiplied in this case by the tough day of pedaling we just had. When my partner Alycia uttered those words, we were already a few hours past the time we both would have preferred to stop for the night, and dinner was a distant memory.  Alycia’s DSLR had recently hit the eject-from-bike button and taken an un-dignified crash through the dirt and rocks.

The Westfjords Way: Bicycle Touring One of Iceland’s Most Remote Areas – Part 02

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The Westfjords Way: Bicycle Touring One of Iceland’s Most Remote Areas – Part 02

The table has a basket of homemade hot rolls; some with dried fruit, some with seeds, all with a bit of salt. There are two loaves of hot fresh bread, wrapped in towels and a plate of cheese– local paprika and pepper sheep’s cheese, brie, gorgonzola, sliced Havarti with labels for different percentages of fat. There’s sliced ham and salami, hot scrambled eggs with herbs, bacon, and butter. There are sliced cucumbers and tomatoes, red bell pepper and pickled fish, a plate of fresh fruit– slices of melon, pineapple, grapes, apples, and oranges, all perfectly ripe. There’s thick Icelandic yogurt, a carafe of coffee, and containers of juice. There’s cereal and milk and homemade jam.

Join Bikepacking Roots and Win Big!

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Join Bikepacking Roots and Win Big!

Why join Bikepacking Roots during this summer membership drive?

Because summer isn’t over quiet yet, and we’re giving away some rad prizes – a complete Xtrada 7 mountain bike from Polygon Bicycles, a Revelate Designs bikepacking bag package, and a set of Cane Creek titanium eeWings cranks! And for a limited time only, you could get a Bikepacking Roots T-shirt, too!

Your contribution will help Bikepacking Roots . . .
-continue creating exceptional and impactful bikepacking routes and guidebooks for new adventure opportunities
-support more equitable access to the bikepacking experience through the expansion of our BIPOC Bike Adventure program
-develop community-building and educational initiatives like our new Go Bikepacking! event series
-broaden our advocacy engagement capacity for bikepackers and the places we ride

How do you enter the contest? Simply join Bikepacking Roots as an annual or monthly member, or make a donation. Each $10 of your donation/membership gets you an entry (up to $100)! New monthly donors will receive 2 entries, and all our existing annual/monthly members will receive 3 entries.

Let’s continue together to support life-changing bike adventures. Join today!

Wren Sports: Beefcake Carbon Gravel Adventure Fork

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Wren Sports: Beefcake Carbon Gravel Adventure Fork

Wren Sports just announced the pre-order for their new Beefcake carbon adventure fork, designed for gravel bikes. The Beefcake has a 425mm axle to crown, with ample clearance for either a 27.5 x 3″ or 29 x 2.6″ tire. Its retail is $499.99 for the base fork or $549.98 for a 12mm thru-axle conversion kit. The pre-order is open now with an end of October delivery date.

Specs:
Material: Fully hand laid, aircraft grade carbon monocoque
Fits Wheels: 27.5 x 3.0, 29 x 2.6
Axle: 15 mm thru-axle standard. Optional 12 mm thru-axle kit available
Axle Material: 7075-T6 premium alloy
Hub: 100 mm
AC: 425 mm, plenty of room to clear mud and snow
Offset: 42 mm
Steer Tube: Tapered, 266 mm long
Post Mount: 160 mm standard, can run up to 203 mm rotor with adapter
Finish: Matte black with full color Beefcake logo on crown and gloss black Wren logos on each leg.
Weight: 770 grams

See more at Wren!

Cycling Westfjords Way: Bicycle Touring One of Iceland’s Most Remote Areas – Pt 01

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Cycling Westfjords Way: Bicycle Touring One of Iceland’s Most Remote Areas – Pt 01

Wind in your face, wind at your back, pockets of light, sideways rain, hot springs, wild blueberries, glaciers, Arctic fox, sheep laying on the thermally heated roads, waffles and whip cream– this is the Iceland I’ve seen from the bike and we’ve only been here for three days. I’ve heard about a volcano erupting in the past year, polar bears floating on ice from Greenland to the north coast of the Island in the past ten years and a pregnant cow that swam 2km across a fjord to escape the slaughterhouse. The substance of legends, these stories are actually true. This place is dynamic. Volcanoes and lava create new land. The wind and rain create new lakes. This place is constantly changing and you feel it while you ride through it.

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36 Hours in Kitsbow: The Mysteries of Saint Anthony

Just minutes north of Harrisburg, Stony Valley is part of the second-largest roadless wilderness tract of land in Pennsylvania. Originally called Saint Anthony’s Wilderness, the land is marked with remnants of an industrial haven from coal and lumbering industries, where more than 2,000+ people lived along the mountains of this beautiful valley in its heyday. After recently moving to the area, a mom and daughter venture out to explore their new backyard, and uncover some of the valley’s hidden gems along the way.

See more at Kitsbow!

Seven Days  Mountain Bike Touring Across the Uncompahgre Plateau Along the San Juan Huts Telluride to Moab Route

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Seven Days Mountain Bike Touring Across the Uncompahgre Plateau Along the San Juan Huts Telluride to Moab Route

The idea of a true-to-form vacation, or holiday, is pretty foreign to me. As someone who’s spent their entire adult life living, breathing, eating, photographing bicycles 24/7, it’s hard to leave work, i.e. a camera, behind. A few years ago, right after Josh posted his Reportage from the Durango to Moab route along the San Juan Huts network, we put a reservation in for the Telluride to Moab route. Then the pandemic hit, delaying the trip indefinitely. We finally agreed upon a week this year and began planning. I hadn’t been on a week-long tour in years and with work seemingly stacking up, I was glad to disconnect with seven other riders touring across the Uncompahgre Plateau from the San Juan to the La Sal mountains. We all began packing, preparing, and the excited chatter resonated through my email inbox daily…

Squid Bikes Took their Gravtron Gravel Bikes from Reno to Sacramento

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Squid Bikes Took their Gravtron Gravel Bikes from Reno to Sacramento

Today we’ve got a special bit of Reportage from the crew at Squid Bikes showcasing their new handmade in Taiwan steel gravel model, the Gravtron. Read on below for a look at the owners’, Chris and Emily, personal Gravtron builds as well as a friend Nick’s bike loaded down for a trip from Reno to Sacramento with a trip report by Emily. Check it out below!

A Look Back: Rider Portraits from the Inaugural Race on the Oregon Timber Trail

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A Look Back: Rider Portraits from the Inaugural Race on the Oregon Timber Trail

Last month, bikepackers from all over the country gathered in the southernmost Oregon Timber Trail Gateway Community of Lakeview for the inaugural OTT700 Race. Lakeview’s mayor, Ray Turner, set up his famous BBQ station the evening before in the city park and treated the racers and their families to a final warm dinner before days of eating ramen and snickers bars. It was great to see the camaraderie already building between riders and proved the value of bringing the rider community together around an event like this.

Tailfin’s New Mini Panniers

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Tailfin’s New Mini Panniers

Tailfin, makers of ultralight carbon and aluminum bike racks, just announced their new Mini Panniers, which work with both their racks and other third-party racks. These new roll-top panniers are long and slender, in a 5L ($85) and 10L ($110) size, and feature a new X Clamp aluminum mechanism designed to bring the ultimate clamping power. These panniers are shipping August 24th, so head on over to Tailfin to see more information…

Big Agnes’ Bikepacking Collection is in Stock

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Big Agnes’ Bikepacking Collection is in Stock

Big Agnes’ Bikepacking Collection features lightweight tents that pack up into stuff sacks that fit perfectly on your bike’s handlebars. These tents feature shorter poles and have tons of details specifically-designed for bicycle touring and bikepacking. After some production delays, the entire Bikepacking Collection is in stock at Big Agnes, including this impressive Tiger Wall UL3 3-person tent. See the full Bikepacking Collection at Big Agnes.

Babad Do’ag Backroads: A Sonoran Desert Sampler Bike Touring Route

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Babad Do’ag Backroads: A Sonoran Desert Sampler Bike Touring Route

Babad Do’ag, roughly translates to “Frog Mountain” in the O’odham language. This mountain is now commonly referred to as Mt. Lemmon, named after botanist Sara Plummer Lemmon who studied the botany of the mountain in the late 1800s. The imposing profile of the sprawling mountain range that lines the north and east sides of Tucson is impossible to ignore. While the paved road up into the range is the stuff of road biking legend there is a huge spectrum of unpaved roads that circle the mountain as well. While Patagonia, AZ has been an epicenter of gravel cycling in Southern Arizona, I wanted to bring some attention to a route that was more Tucson-focused.

Chasing the Tundra: a Foray into California’s Lofty Frontier

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Chasing the Tundra: a Foray into California’s Lofty Frontier

There it was, carved into the side of the mountain like a serpentine scar, slithering its way up toward a sky riddled with barren peaks; their toothy prominences ripping through the leading edge of a building storm. A keen eye and a pointed finger could trace its path, lurching upward from where we stood at the western edge of the Great Basin Desert, zigzagging all the way up through Pinyon/Juniper woodland, wandering between stands of Ponderosa and getting steeper as the Foxtail pines got shorter. Miles away it could still just barely be seen, emerging atop an alpine ridgeline some four thousand feet above.