Colombia Bike Rig
The Colombia bike rig. This was a serious setup. And one of my more important rigs to focus on as this was an international bikepacking trip and resources may be slim. For this one in particular, we’ll be riding for 17 days so I needed to make sure everything was tight. I custom build a set of wheels specifically for this trip and others to follow. It was my first set of MTB wheels built by hand and I was excited to put them to the test. The gear for extended trips is also extremely important. I took time rounding this up and usually start a couple weeks before departure. This setup for my bike derived from past trip experienced knowing what works and what doesn’t. One of the things I would have changed for this trip would be riding disc brakes instead of rim. I learned the hard way. If you haven’t seen the film for the trip I will leave a link to it at the end for you to watch. You will see what happens.
Chime in with a comment below if you have questions about this setup. Would love to know what some of you pack for extended international trips.
Ridden & Written by
Dwayne Burgess (Manual Pedal)
2 Comments
Sean O
Dwayne, awesome content on this site (and Youtube), thanks for publishing it. I know this is ancient history but did you ever try 30T or 34T chainring up front? I have had a similar 1×11 setup (34/11-42 with Shimano SLX M7000) on my 2010 LHT for while, definitely inspired by your overhaul video on Youtube a few years back. Oddly, I could never get the 32T or 30T rings to work for me, the chain pins would hit the top of the chainring teeth as the chain came over the chainring instead of meshing nicely. The 34T was absolutely fine (same cassette, same chain)… Clearly I was doing something wrong (since it worked for you) but I could never figure out what. Did you ever run into this? Thanks again.
Dwayne Burgess
Thanks for the kind words! No I have never tried a 30T or 34T ring up front on the trucker but I had no problems with a 32T. I think going to a 30T shouldn’t be a problem for the XT but I’m not to sure of the SLX series. If I remember Shimano SLX is more for downhill mtb.