What bikes do experienced marathon and stage racers take to a 1000km bikepacking event that runs across the Australian Alps? Mountain bikes of course. Imogen signed us up for the Hunt 1000 earlier this year, a non-competitive bikepacking event that runs from Canberra to Melbourne in 2025, but the direction changes each year.
The event doesn’t have an official start, but a ‘grand arrivee’ – the aim is for everyone to finish on the same day. In this case that will be November 29 in Melbourne. Some riders have headed off already on November 12, and we will be starting our journey on November 20, with plenty of riders also starting later than us.
This is base training for us. A fun way to get in massive miles and big vert with a purpose and a goal after a lazy off-season and a big drop in fitness. For this event we want low gearing, good brake capability, and a bike that can easily carry luggage. With well over 20000m of climbing, the gearing of a mountain bike just makes sense, especially when we load up with camping gear, food, and clothing for an alpine area. I’d bought a Salsa Timberjack frame set earlier in the year and so we bought another, and went to town.
The Salsa Timberjack in bikepacking spec
These are an alloy trail hardtail frame, not specifically a bikepacking bike. They don’t have any additional mounts for racks. Built to take a 100-150mm travel fork, fit two huge bottles in the frame and with a top tube bag mount and outside of the downtube frame mount. There’s clearance for 29×2.6″ tyres, the seat tube is straight for a long dropper post and the frame uses internal routing. There are event adjustable hangers to provide wheel base adjustment.
We are using a mixture of parts we owned, and some new ones. To start with, we took the Fox 34 SC 120mm forks off our other hardtails, using remote push to unlock levers.
We are also using existing wheel sets, with EIE carbon rims on DT Swiss 350 hubs. Carbon wheels may sound risky but we are using Tubolito EVO SL inserts in the rear wheel. Both wheel sets are 28 hole, but Imogen is using my ‘race’ wheels which are 30mm internal and lower profile. The rear has just been rebuilt as I did crack a rim on Jacobs Ladder in May while in Cairns… My wheels are some EIE rims I’ve had since 2018, with a 29mm internal width, and rebuilt last year with double butted spokes and brass nipples.
As for tyres, we opted for Maxxis Rekon Race in 2.4″ with EXO casing and MaxxSpeed rubber. Imogen has a 2.35″ on the rear but I may sub that out to a fresh tyre before we leave. We have Joe’s NoFlats sealant in all tyres. We chose the Rekon Race as it’s got enough tread for most things and not too much on smooth terrain. I was tempted to ride Aspens for the rolling speed and even the rounder profile, but feel happier with a few more edges in the dirt once we are loaded on the steep descents. We have Dynaplug Racers packed for any punctures, with replacement plugs and 3 TPU tubes and a pump.
Drivetrain was an interesting choice. We built the bikes up with XT M8100 mechanical at first, as we had it already. But having changed our Factor Lando XC full-suspension bikes to the Shimano XTR M9200 Di2 shifter and derailleur, we decided to fit Di2 for these bikes as well. The impact of electronic shifting has been really good – especially on tyre wrists and thumb joints. This does mean we are packing a charger and a spare battery each. Electronic shifting may raise eyebrows for bikepacking in some circles but it is pretty tried and tested.
The 10-51 cassettes are being spun by 30t chain rings – last fitted part way through the 2019 Swiss Epic! Imogen is using XT M8200 160mm cranks and I pinched the XT M8100 170mm cranks off her old hardtail. There are a few reasons for this, but we think the low gearing and shorter cranks should work to keep us spinning up the long climbs, on the bike and not on our feet where possible.
To keep the drivetrain running we are using Ride Mechanic Bike Cream – it’s proven to be long-lasting and easy to clean up.
Also all new – brakes! Two piston XT brakes are really good, but given we’ll be on 20+ kg of bikes, gear and water with 20000m+ of climbing AND descending, new XT M8220 brakes were purchased. These are Shimano’s 4-piston design, and we paired them with 180/160mm new rotors. Maybe 180/180 would have been better, but I had spending fatigue and didn’t want to buy new adaptors! The brakes have metal finned pads in, and we are taking a full set of spare pads each. What’s cool is the hoses are way closer to the bar on the new levers, which actually works really well with the bar slings.
As for pedals, I’m using Shimano XT Race and Imogen is using Assioma MTB pedals as data is king (or queen).
For the cockpit, Imogen has some of my Mt Zoom flat bars (760mm) on a Koryak 60mm stem. I’m using a BEAST Components riser on an inverted Syntace Liteforce 60mm stem for a more upright position and for enought tyre clearance for the bar bag. Imogen is also using a nifty RideFarr mount to keep her Wahoo more visible.
We have straight posts in for this ride. Imogen has a Mt Zoom carbon post with a Specialized Power Saddle (143mm) while I have a random alloy post that was in a drawer with a trusty PRO Stealth saddle. All said and done Imogen’s bike weighs 11.6kg and mine is about 11.8kg.
Bikepacking specific equipment
Luggage on the frame and not on us was the goal. We both own Bike Bag Dude bar slings, and I’ll be using a 13L Sea to Summit dry bag and Imogen has an 8L. These are stock items and a very low cost way to get some luggage. I used this bar sling setup (with an 8L bag) when riding the #1 Alpine MTB route across Switzerland. It’s a perfect way to carry compressible items (like clothes!).
We also added chaff bags, which can take anything you like, but we’ll use them for high volume 975mL bottles – one each side of the stem. These are also an item from Bike Bag Dude. We need them as we ordered custom frame bags which take up the space of bottle cages inside the frame. I made a template for both frames, posted them to BBD and chose the colours. The result is incredible! They have 3 pockets, utilise every cubic centimetre of space, they’re light, and they match our bikes.
To go with those we also have BBD’s large top tube bags. These are handy for snacks and the like. I’ll also run a smaller one from the seat tube, for bike spares.
And lastly, saddle bags. Imogen has a Camelbak MULE saddle bag she’s used on the Mawson Trail, BVRT/KKRT and also on the Tasmanian Trail. I have borrowed a Revelate bag. However it looks like Imogen is trading in her Camelbak saddle bag for an Orucase bag about the size of a caramel slice, after offloading some of her gear to me, to equalise our power to weight ratios.
Seems fair.
On top of the above, we are both using Attaquer cargo bibs for phones and snacks, and Albion Cargo Vests with flat pack bottles, as they can carry a lot of things you want easy access to – while also being very visible for vehicles when on any roads.
We’ll have to wait and see what the trail brings, but we are looking forward to 9 days straight of riding from point A to B, with some good snack stops along the way – and likely plenty of catch ups with other Hunt riders on the route and in Melbourne. Got a question on the spec? Drop them in the comments.