Bike Check | Lachlan Morton | Tour Divide | Cannondale Scalpel HT
g'day uh my name is Lachlan Morton I just finished riding the tour divide route last night and this is my bike setup. it's a Cannondale scalpel hardtail well I ride a size medium it's got 100 Mil Lefty on it um so pretty standard I went with a hardtail because I could fit this Frame bag in here which is pretty crucial to be able to store more stuff my idea behind the bag set up on this was to have a lot of space because I wanted to be able to make sure hey I could have everything I wanted and needed but also extra room for more food and water and things that you know are picked up on the way so that's why I went with the the Aero pack on the back um and use the the big boy side panniers um because yeah just like gives you a lot of space I like the Simplicity of it I can get to everything I need really quick and yeah that's kind of my thought process so I guess I'll start here at the back um this was kind of always a mixture of uh clothing and food and stuff so I had my my rapho explore down jacket that was absolutely crucial I wore this for a lot of hours every day also slept in it when I was sleeping out great bit of Kit folds down really small so that was very crucial uh I also stuffed my hydration pack in there I like the ability to have more water when I needed it but I don't like the feeling of having a bag on all the time so there's enough space that when I needed it I could bring it out the longer stretches and fill it up I had a one and a half liter bladder plus uh it's not here but the 500 mil flask um so that gave me two liters just with this which was really nice to be able to have what else we got in here this was my kind of extreme weather jacket it's a raffle one it has like some down in the middle but it's rain proof and a hood this was worth its weight in gold I thought it was Overkill when I was packing it but actually ended up spending a lot of time in this so I was very glad to have it um I thought I was going a bit overboard with clothing but used everything and could have used more for sure um I also had a set of rain pants which are not packed in here but they're also very helpful uh extra pair of Nicks so I could alternate when I got a chance to wash the necks when I was sleeping inside I'd wash swamp hair switch them out so I always had like a dry fresh pair which I think was a good call in the end because one pair of Nicks can get a bit rough if you're constantly in wet bibs or you know it was a pretty extreme weather out there uh my first aid kit packed in the in the bottom thankfully didn't have to use it but uh all kind of bandages clotting sponges just regular first aid gear um just as a precautionary measure more than anything but yeah as I said didn't need it um so then this is the main bag uh which was basically just my sleeping gear I like to have the sleeping gear separate than everything else because it's easy when you stop and you're trying to get out everything quickly they also have these this side Pats here that were actually super useful I could stuff extra food I kept my chain lube in there water filter just little things that you want to be able to get to easily without having to open everything up so I really enjoyed that feature so yeah in here is my sleeping bag it's a big one um it's good down to minus 15 I think uh Celsius so definitely a much bigger heavy heavier sleeping bag takes up a lot of space but um it was cold the nights I slept out and was really glad to just be comfortable in this um and it was also warm enough that I didn't need a pad and the last night I flipped out didn't even need the bivvy you could just jump in this under a tree and it was good to go um so then comes to my baby just the REI super light bivvy um has a pole four four pot uh four plugs pegs Four Pegs it's kind of like a mini tent it's nice if you want to keep you know a bit of space between you I don't really like the feeling of being in a flat bivvy it gets a bit sticky and wet in there so um Great Piece of Kit I only needed to use it a couple of times but it's good to know you have it so you can sleep anyway even if the the weather's bad the other side I guess more of the same miscellaneous stuff oh I got given this uh cowbell when I was going through just before Silver City um it's a cowbell from the 2016 tour of healer which I won and yeah there was a guy there who was had seen that race and gave us to me um pretty heavy it didn't really set much function but uh would have been good in bad territory if I'd had it but I didn't want to leave it so carried that along with me um ended up with these gas station sunnies uh to paid by 15 bucks for which you get what you pay for they're not great but I lost my pox sunnies when uh when I was messing about like borderline hypothermic one day and didn't realize for a couple of days till the sun came out and was like oh no my son needs to pick these up um probably won't wear them again but they just did the job um here's my rain shell uh it's a new explore jacket from rapper again super helpful uh because it was very wet the hood is crucial I can't speak enough about the hoods I could layer up between the down jacket the extreme one and then this uh it's a lot of protection over the head keeps the water out and it also dries very quickly which was um crucial on a few points not sure what I got in the pocket of this one something in here oh yeah my gloves um just some cat gas station gloves I had to load up a bit extra on the gloves because uh it was particularly cold out there so again you get what you pay for not great but it's better than the alternative most of the time uh what else is down in here what do we got what do we got uh okay this is my trusty old Woolen Rafa undershirt I've used this on every Ultra I've ever done um love it it's really good just like keeps you warm but also you can wear it when it's hot dries off quick doesn't get too stinky it's uh great undershirt I brought this was debating it but I'm glad I brought it this was another Rafa undershirt with the neck gator very warm ended up spending a lot more time in this than I thought I was going to um so we're super glad to have it that's like the key base layer when it was really cold I'd bet I'd use the the other undershirt under this and then the three layers which seems extreme but it was uh particularly cold a few times um so again worth its weight in gold I used Merino almond leg warmers I like the feeling of those um they're like soft again dry quick very warm and comfortable this was a dry bag just with the stuff I could wear off the bike so I just had a pair of shorts little eye mask which is actually very helpful I find to fall asleep quickly and I'd also keep my undershirts in here when I wasn't wearing them just so you have something dry to get into which is crucial all right that's all it's in there so that was everything that was in the back on top of that I would obviously put extra food and sometimes extra just like I'd buy a liter of liquids stick it in there there was plenty of extra room so it was always topped off I think the most water I ever carried was about five and a half liters and yeah there's a few times I definitely needed all of that uh this was my little top tube bag mainly uh food storage and uh rubbish so I'd put my wrappers in there when I was done with them and also kept my multi-tool and uh my knife and scissors in there just there the probably the tools I used the most so kept them accessible in there so then this Frame bag is a custom frame bag for this bike as you can see fits super nice the top top bag was all my electronics I like to keep everything somewhat separately I think organized is probably too nice of a term but uh anyway I basically had a uh I had two power Banks this was the first one the anchor um it's 26 000 milliamps I think that's the um the the yeah the amount of parrot hat I actually never needed the second one I was able to charge this quite a bit and could run you know all the batteries in my lights Wahoo phone everything off this puppy so it was a really good bit of Kit to have uh my Phoenix headlamp again headlamps are great not so much I had enough lights up front I didn't need it that much during the night but uh it's good when you're electronic organized things off the bike you know you get off looking through bags or whatever setting up a tent uh good to have the headlamp um what else do we got in here just cables it's absolutely [ __ ] show off cables in here um SRAM battery charger uh you go through a surprising amount of batteries on a loaded bike because you do a lot of Shifting because you go from Big to small big to small quite a bit just because of the weight so I was generally charging constantly a battery and would usually go through two every day and I had three three batteries uh so the only benefit of my derailleur when it stopped working was I didn't have to charge batteries anymore so there was a bonus in here this was my I had my backup uh backup power bank again as I said didn't use it twenty thousand milliamp um stayed charged the whole time uh I had two spare batteries that I could charge off the bike um I mean not off the bike not on my lights these are all light batteries so I had two I could charge if I needed to while the other ones were still running again only used one of these but was just nice to know you're never going to run out of light um this is the rest of this is more cables and uh yeah my other derailleur batteries uh what else have I got down in here it's almost there oh and obviously pretty crucial the uh wall charger double double Banger for when I would stop at a hotel I could plug this in generally we just charge my phone and the power bank and then do everything else on bike spare Wahoo with the root and everything loaded up just because you you never know I only had to use that once when I forgot to charge my Wahoo because I was busy uh trying to get my derailleur functional there's the other battery for the derailleur uh down in here this was uh kind of like hygiene and stuff I guess you would call it I did take this little uh small foldable backpack which was super helpful uh going into gas stations and that I could have a bag feed everything I needed in here or if I finished a day and was going to go stay somewhere I could load up dinner and stuff put it in here throw it on and not have to worry about sticking at all back in the bike so again very very helpful uh uh I got shammy cream in here which um the container was a little big so getting it in and out was annoying but shammy cream obviously on something that long super super helpful um and then sunscreen toothpastes uh I don't know where the toothbrush has gone I think you used it last night but that was all in that section um so yeah that's all that in here this is my tool roll so basically any spares tools or anything I need it's all down here um lots of space pretty basic stuff uh had two two spare tubes didn't need any of them uh a spare strap just in case I needed to strap anything else or re-strap but didn't need to use that uh in here this little guy is spare shifter battery spare headphones um and brake pads uh so yeah that was what's in that little guy this is a spare hanger um what else have I got in here it's just open it up and have a look spare hanger oh I had three quick links in here um a Spoke tool that just fell down there and yeah I also had like five Links of chain in there in case I had to length in a chain uh for breaking out uh what else we got in here extra space CO2 chain tool Tire levers all self-explanatory I had two co2s I've have a pump on the other side but sometimes nice to have co2s in case you've got to do a change when you're trying to be quick it might be cold or you're very close to where you want to be or whatever just nice to have these if you're in a rush but again didn't need any of this uh one more bag of goodies oh yeah this was all Tire related spares so extra plugs boots I had a section of sidewall that I cut out as you can see here it's super glue basically just in case there's any catastrophic uh failure with the tire I could fix it all but yeah that uh all pretty self-explanatory and didn't need it I had the plugs uh the muck off where I have like a a bar end plug so I could just stick that in there the plug sits in there ready to go had those loaded up um so yeah that's what was in that bag uh around this little bag here up front uh for food basically extra food I'm not sure if I had much left in here yeah some uh gummy peach rings but basically I could load up like 16 or 17 candy bars in here which was basically my go-to um a little bell on the bars keep the bears away or at least makes you feel good when you want to try to make noise at night riding around grizzly bear country um didn't see too many other bike riders so it wasn't that necessary for that but uh good to have uh these Phoenix headlights uh they're like 1600 lumens I had two of these again I don't like riding at night when I can't see very well I like my lesson with that so uh ran two of these up front um Wahoo mounted up here and spot tracker in the on the error bars uh just to keep it in view of the sky and blinking um yeah The Handlebar set up I run these at like uh I think these are 68 uh centimeters and uh these little bar ends were very helpful because they could get lots of different hand positions um and then the error bars are nice just take a load off I did use the blips up here so I could change gears up there when the gears were still working uh Victoria Mezcal 2.35 tires um a lot of people have told me I didn't need that much tire but I was very glad to have that much Tire um I think you know the more Tire you have the more aggressive you can be so I was happy with that I did have to change the rear halfway along I think I could have made it on one set but didn't want to risk it so I had to switch the rear out when I got to Salida but um that was all pretty painless uh uh scratch extra padded Ms Pro logo seat um yeah the extra padding is definitely a must on something so long like this um did have a Crank Brothers drop a post on here uh not really for getting out of the way for technical reasons more so just so I could adjust my saddle height a bit as I was going sometimes it's nice to just be able to move your position a bit I had a stash of zip ties up here inside the error bars because zip ties are handy a roll of tape here on the seat post just to be able to pull off juice tape when you need have it accessible on the sleeve here on the other side which I forgot about I had spokes which I didn't need for my wheel but ended up using them on the derailleur once it stopped I worked out if you jammed a spoke in you could kind of adjust the tension of the derailleur so when I moved it I could basically shift I had three speeds but obviously stopped to do that manually but was more efficient than running just one gear uh passport for the border control uh and then yeah I also picked up uh stickers where I could and most of them ended up in that in that little sleeve there um but yeah that was called kind of the admin sleeve I guess um just a little thin one beyond that um yeah I don't know what else is uh interesting 38 uh chainring which was I think the perfect gear um and you know 1052 on the back I was very happy with my setup all in all um you know I could get everything very easily um could carry enough stuff and it's everything with the exception of the derailleur held up very very well so yeah that was uh that was my bike and
2023-10-01 08:06
