Bikepacking set up

In my humble opinion, bikepacking is the shit when it comes down to outdoor activities. I mean, you can cover more ground than backpacking so you can see more scenery, it gives you thunder quads and calves as a mountain man plus you got all the camping, exercising and nature packed in one neat package.

You might be wondering how the hell you bikepack. There is several ways to go about it. You can do bikepacking on the roads, which is more like a touring type of deal or you can take it off road and do more of a mountain biking type of bikepacking. Each of these awesome outdoor activities includes bike, bags, and human power.

I did not do yet any road touring as I do not have any road bike to be able to set up with bags, but I do some off road bikepacking namely fatbike bikepacking this time of a year (winter Hurray!). There is nothing more scary than sweating like a pig in 0F somewhere in the middle of the snow covered field while the wind start blowing pretty hard. For this particular reason you need to be packing and biking smart.

In the non-race scenario I rather take more stuff with me which I might not need than less and after be fucked in the middle of nowhere. I'm not going to go into what to pack with you in this post but rather I just want to show you my winter bikepacking set up. By set up I mean a fatbike and the bags.

I'm rocking out 9-zero-7 aluminum whiteout with carbon 9-zero-7 fork, GX-1 drivetrain by SRAM, 11speed, carbon handlebars and seatpost. My tires are 3.8" Bontrager Hodags tubless set up. I'm fully packed with revelate bags and pogies, which includes: visacha seatbag, handlebar harness (I use 20L Outdoors Research dry bag with it), 9-zero-7 specific Ranger frame bag, Gas Tank and Williwaw pogies.

I will do reviews of my bike and bags later on.

Link to 9-zero-7 bikes:
http://www.fatbikes.com/

Link to Revelate Design bags:
http://www.revelatedesigns.com/

Here are some photos:

 

 

 

Yay! Winter Socks!

VS.

Recently, I was browsing the Facebook (yes I do have one and no I'm not ashamed of myself) and I stumble across the post with outrageous claim as "The best cold weather riding socks period", hmm the best you say, than I have to have those miraculous socks!! I proceed on their website to find out that the pair of knee-high socks cost $58 bucks....$58 bucks!!!

Well, apparently these socks are made from merino wool and possum fur, the company is called Pearly's Possum Socks. I was very curious how you come up with this shit to make socks out of possum and charge 58 bucks for a pair, so i did my research.

Apparently the possum fur is from New Zealand Brushtail Possum and the craft of making all kind of clothing has huge tradition down under. Unlike the American opossum the New Zealand possum is very cute. It is also considered as a pest (so do fur handlers say).

Anyhow, I browsed through several reviews of these socks and find out only positives such as "best socks I ever have","I want to make a love to these socks!" or just plain "fucking awesome", " so soft and warm" or "I'm never going to take these off".

The idea of warm feet in -20 degrees and softness of the socks got better out of me and I decided that I have to try these socks. Fortunately, I was not ready to shell out $58 for a pair and i started my  hunt for the same quality for better price. After little googeling, I finalized payment of just $23 for the pair of merino wool/ possum fur socks, which should be the same pleaser as the Pearly's Possum socks.

I bought couple pairs directly from New Zealand with only $7 in shipping. It has the same consistency of 45% merino wool, 40% possum fiber, 10% nylon/lycra, 5% Isofil as the Pearly's.
I might just need to wait for a while to get it, as New Zealand is not exactly next door.  :-)

Here is the link for Pearly's:
http://www.pearlyspossumsocks.com/products/moto-pearly

Here is the link where I bought the socks:
http://www.possummerinonz.com/collections/footwear/products/possum-comfort-top-sock

I will be updating this post with how these socks stacked up against Alaska winter once I get them and wear them.

Alaska photos

 

 

45NRTH Wolvhammer

I have these boots for over a year and I cannot imagine winter biking without them. I'm not saying that your feet will not get chilly in 0 degree but you put pack of toe warmers in there and you are going to be toasty.
i was little worried about the bulkiness of the boots as compare to mountain biking shoes, but to be honest i do not even notice it.

45NRTH Wolvhammers are not the only winter boots in the lineup of the company. They also carry Japanther (Fasterkatt) and Wolfgar. Fasterkatt are more for fall riding and Wolfgar are full on freaking expedition to north pole in -50 degrees kind of fun.

Anyway back to the Wolvhammers, if you are considering to buy those I would recommend two sizes bigger boot than you usually wear. The reason for that is that you need to have a space for socks or toe warmers. I was little hesitant at first thinking that my feet will be loose in the boot, but with couple socks it fit perfectly. Even on the warmer days when i only use one thin sock i do not have any problems with loose foot in the boot. I'm using crank brothers candy and it is one smooth ins and outs of the clip.

Wolvhammers are also great in a hike-a-bike situation. I had to on multiple occasions walk through knee deep snow up and downs, while pushing the bike and I can tell you these boots are rugged and can take a beating. One thing I did not truly try is to see if it is waterproof. I had couple incidents where I had to bike through the overflows, but I never fully submerge it. On those wet occasions I did not experience any wetness inside my boot.

One little negative about the boots which i noticed is that in faster speeds, let's say about 15mph, and about 15 degrees i can feel the air breathing on my toes which will start to make your toes little chilly. So if you are planning to ride in cold temperatures in high speed or windy conditions than maybe you want to consider wearing over boot cover or toe warmers on the top of your toes (that is what i do).

Otherwise, I'm absolutely satisfy with these boots and i really do recommend for comfortable winter biking from 0-33 degrees. If it's colder than that you should go with Wolfgar and if it is warmer than that go with Japanther (Fasterkatt).

Here is the link for 45NRTH website:
http://45nrth.com/