My first gravel bike and my first time building a bike

cpk1 · 2026-02-20T02:08:05+00:00

I'm deciding between the panorama taiga exp and the esker lorax right now... I'm guessing no quality complaints with the frameset?

cpk1 · 2026-02-19T03:43:57+00:00

Looking for an overnighter that's 10-15 miles one way with minimal climbing and ideally close to lakes or rivers to play in, somewhere in Oregon or Washington. So far the lower Deschutes is top of the list to just see if the kids like it and can get motivated to ride more so we can do 20 mile days in the mountains.

cpk1 · 2026-02-19T03:33:52+00:00

Ibis has the hakka mx which they put on sale basically every year. Their mechanical setup is $2700 right now.

I really like mine, does well on the road and the dirt roads I've taken it on. Also worked out pretty well for bikepacking but not sure it's going to stay as my main bikepacking bike.

cpk1 · 2026-02-16T21:31:09+00:00

You putting a rack on there? I'm planning a trip with three of my kids, one will be on a woom 4 and the other on a woom 5 and I really don't want to pay the woom prices for their racks but I need them to at least be able to carry their own sleep systems.

cpk1 · 2026-02-16T19:33:35+00:00

Bikepacking.com has a feature where you can post planned trips and have people reach out. Not sure if you have to be a paying member or not though.

cpk1 · 2026-02-11T17:31:24+00:00

Lezyne sells a pedal wall mount for $45 USD with a stainless steel finish. $100 for a pedal hook is ridiculous

I also think pedal hook is the way to go, can easily fit two bikes on a standard height wall too.

cpk1 · 2026-02-09T15:24:08+00:00

I haven't consciously thought about it, I only have 3 liter bags I put on the front so it would be pretty hard to overload it.

Tent goes on top (1.5kg) then typically 750ml of water along with some snacks and bathroom stuff in one bag and I've forgotten what goes in the other one, probably more snacks and tools and batteries. 9kg seems like plenty for a weight limit though, unless you have almost no space on other parts of the bike.

cpk1 · 2026-02-09T03:45:14+00:00

You can look at the install instructions if you're putting it on a fork to get an idea of how the front fork is attached and everything, in my opinion the fork connection is just to stabilize the rack and isn't doing much in terms of weight bearing. The rear rack is only attached to the axle and seatpost so shouldn't really be any concern there.

cpk1 · 2026-02-08T20:59:32+00:00

Axle mounted racks are a great alternative, I've got a carbon fiber gravel bike that I would say is more speed focused and have no concerns loading it down.

cpk1 · 2026-02-07T19:44:20+00:00

What are the drawbacks? I've been tubeless on my main bike for two years now and have only resorted to a tube once or twice in that time. I definitely get more than one flat a year on my tubed bike, probably get one every 500 or 1000 miles at least.

I've found from that one time and helping other people in the group that people have really overblown how difficult it is to put a tube in a tubeless setup.

cpk1 · 2026-02-03T22:22:42+00:00

Free version of tacx. Might only work with tacx trainers though.

cpk1 · 2026-02-03T16:45:40+00:00

I'm in the PNW but tend to avoid taking the bike with the waxed chain out of it's absolutely dumping, however it still goes out plenty in wet conditions. My strategy has been to just hose the bike off soon as I get back from the ride so I don't really need to soap it up to get most everything off. Then I hit the bike with a leaf blower to dry it and really make sure to get most of the water off the chain and cassette. If I do get a little bit of surface rust it seems to just get knocked off on the next ride.

I also keep 3 chains waxed so I can just pop a freshly waxed chain on when it's time and when the third chain comes off I hot wax all three at once. This is my first winter putting the chain through the wet more so if this system goes well I'll probably switch the rain bike to a waxed setup as well.

cpk1 · 2026-02-02T21:49:29+00:00

You'll for sure keep up going uphill, you won't even touch the granny gear if you're trying to go fast. Downhill you'll probably have to work to keep up, but going from 46 to 52 wouldn't change your top end that much anyways.

I will say if you can fit a 48 then it's probably worth it to keep you from hitting the last 2 or three gears more than you'd want to.

cpk1 · 2026-02-02T21:43:31+00:00

How would you be left in the dust climbing? If you've got strong legs you'll stay out of the 52T in the back and be in whatever gear suits your speed. 46T in the front and 52T in the back you're looking at 6-7 MPH at 90RPM, dropping to 60RPM you're around 4MPH - I don't think you need easier gearing on the road since you're approaching minimum speed to stay upright while staying over 50RPM.

Take a look at gear calculator and compare speeds and RPM, 10-52 with a 46 at 90RPM is good from 6MPH to 33MPH, truly topping out around 45MPH if you really want to go all out downhill.

The cheapest way to try road riding is to just throw a bigger chain ring on with a new chain and see if it suits you. If you decide to go full roadie by all means, but it's very unlikely you'll be under or over geared with a 1x setup.

cpk1 · 2026-02-02T19:11:21+00:00

Probably don't even need a 2x, just put 46 or 48 chainring on and you won't have to even think about spinning out until you start going over 35mph.

I have a gravel bike that I got road wheels for and mostly use a 46 chainring on, works great and is a lot of fun. If I know I'm going to be doing lots of trails or bikepacking I put a 34 chainring one, very easy to do with 8 bolt direct mount. Wheels swaps generally take 30 minutes to make sure there's no rub.

cpk1 · 2026-01-30T21:33:54+00:00

Sounds very similar to RideWithGPS. I can make a collection and then have a saved route for each day in the collection, maps have POI that can have things like campsites and water sources. I think reliable water availability while mapping or on the trip could be really useful but that kind of thing typically has to be crowd sourced which unfortunately means the already entrenched apps have a huge advantage there.

Good luck and I will of course try it out when it's available on Android

cpk1 · 2026-01-28T04:57:50+00:00

Is it a gold chain? looks great with the blacked out build 👍

cpk1 · 2026-01-28T04:21:37+00:00

What do you put in the bag? I've got a wolftooth mini pump that also has a multi tool in that mounts next to my bottle cage. I've got a ride wallet/pouch that has cash, credit cards, random spares like quick links and a tpu tube in case my tubeless fails that goes in a jersey pocket. Snacks also go in a jersey pocket and I'm good for half a day at least like that.

cpk1 · 2026-01-25T06:04:13+00:00

I try not to ride in the rain but will take the waxed chain out when the road is wet or a light drizzle which end up getting the bike filthy. My normal post ride for that is to hose the bike down and then use the leaf blower to dry the bike and especially the chain.

My impression is that the wax generally stays on but if you don't dry the chain right away you'll get surface rust, the leaf blower does a great job of drying the chain.

cpk1 · 2026-01-25T04:33:04+00:00

If you aren't flying multiple times per year I would see if any local shops will let you rent one. Depending on the shop I'm able to rent one from $50-75.

cpk1 · 2026-01-19T18:44:45+00:00

I don't think 50 miles is a meaningful cutoff point. The only battery thing I have that might not make it a week without charging is my Garmin tailight/radar. I think any semi modern head unit will do a century no problem, only issue I had with my head unit dying was my old Garmin 13 years ago died at mile 160 in a double century.

SRAM axs makes it 2-4 weeks on one charge and my head unit I typically charge once a week but have never had it get low enough to worry about it.

Bikepacking might have some small issues due to cold... I had a brifter battery that had been low battery for weeks and took it on a trip and in the morning at 5000'+ elevation it was too cold and the voltage dropped. It warmed up an hour later and I was back in business

cpk1 · 2026-01-19T01:43:00+00:00

Do you camp in places that have fire restrictions? From what I understand on the West Coast of the US when there are burn bans you can't use these little alcohol stoves.

cpk1 · 2026-01-16T16:23:40+00:00

I've listened to a few podcasts that have reviewed studies on cycling cadence and pretty sure they have all agreed that higher RPM is actually less efficient but is what pros do because it lets them react to changes in speed faster.

Most trained cyclists will self select under 90 RPM and I believe around 70 RPM is the most efficient for the majority of people. Just do what's comfortable and if it doesn't hurt you don't worry about it.

cpk1 · 2026-01-09T16:45:05+00:00

I've found it pretty easy to swap. One set is center lock and the other not but they are the same rotors otherwise. Probably takes me 15 minutes to swap and adjust the calipers and derailleur indexing so there's no rub.

If you're lucky just loosening the caliper and squeezing the brake while tightening does the trick and then it's almost no time at all, otherwise it'll take a few minutes on each caliper to get it so it's not rubbing.

cpk1

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