Yeah, we have a few on the floor atm and had a good look at them, no way I'd be comfortable barrelling down some techy single with downward forces on the seatstay.

Not even sure how a BOB or Extrawheel would go, with the torsional forces they apply to the rear triangle, as the Flash is more of a race frame weight with tubing thickness. I tow my Ibex on a few bikes, super flexy on my old VT dually, moderate on my alloy frames, super stiff on my old steel '88 GT karakoram.

You could use a tandem BOB skewer with a few spacers to get the mount out past the frame dropout.

But I reckon the best option is go lighter with gear (if possible with time and budget contraints) and utilise framebag, seatbag, backpack and handlebar harness system.

Flash is race only in my view. A friend broke his flash when a stone jumped upat him in a rock garden while training for one of our gnarlier races over here : (

I'd be wary of fitting any kind of rack (Freeload) that clamps to the seatstays on the Flash, due to the design of the SAVE seatstays. The cross section is ovalised in the centre, weak to resist downward forces.

Fair comment Troy, they can be cranked up very tightly. The Flash is pretty light weight.
Jeff

Yeah, I am sure they all have their pros and cons. I haven't used a bag system and wondered what it would be like with all the weight up high. I am sure I'd get used to it, the same way that I did with the Freeloads rearward weight bias, but I definitely had no flexing or hula issues on my Santa Cruz Super light. One thing I probably wouldn't do again is mount my front dry bag longitudinally on my aero bars. I did this for aero purposes, but it was a bit of a handful in tight single track, and set me up for some scary speedwobbles when descending at 60+ kmh.

jeff

Hey, good point about the lefty....

Plenty of real world experience with the Freeloads on here, I am about to put a review on "this" site, but here is my personal experience.
http://jeffsbike.blogspot.co.nz/search/label/Freeload

I like this photo from the 2010 Kiwi Brevet, because it shows them used in a number of different ways.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qpLL3V1aa4E/TnfkP-9RSMI/AAAAAAAACfQ/5mBf2DHbfTw/s1600/free-rides.jpg

We all used them again this year in the Kiwi Brevet, except Jonty used a Relevate on the back for a change, still had a Freeload on the front tho. Probably half the field of around 60 riders covering 1100kms of very tough terrain used them again this year. I just set one up the other night for a lady about to embark on 2 months touring of Vietnam, with the touring deck and panniers. It looked bombproof, as their was still the top-deck free for more gear after the panniers would have been full.

Cheers
Jeff

All the cool kids use rackless systems now. But on a hard-tail, I think that panniers work just great. Alas, I'm now riding a full-suspension bike, and racks don't work well on it, so now I'm a cool kid too.

All the cool kids use rackless systems now. But on a hard-tail, I think that panniers work just great. Alas, I'm now riding a full-suspension bike, and racks don't work well on it, so now I'm a cool kid too.

The freeload racks work on fullys, front and rear : )

Http://www.freeload.co.nz  is good for 25kgs and does not require frame mounts.
Can use with our without panniers.

Jeff

One of the guys I met earlier this year used heavy duty plastic zip ties. He works in telecommunications and I think he said its the kind of thing they use for strapping stuff onto things in high wind areas. Aerials and the like. No way he reckoned they would fail. He was right. Think they may have even had metal clickers in them, but they would have been a bit easier on the paint than a hose-clamp/radiator clip.

5 of us sleeping in a hedge row on day 2 of Kiwi Brevet. Warm, dry and soft underfoot : )

That's a very pretty rig. Functional to boot.

Well after quite some time, it's done!  
 I was about to head out on a ride yesterday morning as the mailman rang the doorbell.  The frame had arrived!  It took only 7 days to get here, which was much quicker than I could have hoped for.  I had all the parts collected to put it together, so my anticipation beat out my desire to go for a ride...

I cannot speak any higher of Triton and the service/product that I have gotten.  There was a delay in the construction, but I am beyond ecstatic with the results!!!  Everything I hoped for was accomplished with this build, and more.  

I wanted a do-it-all bike with a large emphasis on bike-packing.  I added a third water bottle mount on the bottom of the downtube, as well as one on each for leg(similar to the Fargo forks).  I also asked for large tire clearance, sliding dropouts with belt drive capability, a matching titanium rack(for carrying a packraft mostly, weighs only 362grams), and of course custom geometry.  Dmitry nailed every aspect of it!!!

I have some Salsa Anything cages that I'm going to mount up to the fork, and now have a new project of making a frame bag for this one.  I'll keep this thread updated as I get her setup for my first trip, which I'm hoping will be May 26th.  That will be a shake down run for the CTR...  This bike and I are going to go places!

Here she is....  21.87Lbs as shown, no carbon, with huge 2.4 tires and not yet tubeless....  I could easily get it sub 20lbs in "race form" with some smaller tubeless tires and lighter bars and grips.



The geometry inspiration with a few minor tweaks...


Tire clearance with 2.4"!!!!

First ride!!!!  Wouldn't change a thing!!!

Nice rig, and ride Troy. Wicked photos. A shame you couldn't make it to NZ but you guys have wilderness coming out your ears too. You can have those bloody spiders tho !! 
Jeff

My blog covers all bike related stuff, from MTBing in general, Time Trialling, I have done Track racing in the past, even an Xterra event last year, but the last 10 or so posts are about the Kiwi Brevet.

http://jeffsbike.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/final-day-kiwi-brevet-pelorus-to.html

Cheers
Jeff

There is also Sifters Brevet, I cant even pronounce it myself !
http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.co.nz/2011/02/te-tawhio-o-whanganui.html
Its in Maori. Oh I see, Tawhio means "to circle".  The circling of Whanganui sounds about right : )

And, I just found someone else's report on it.
http://nzbybike.com/about-nzbybike/the-ride-blog/
I haven't done this one myself. Apparently you can choose your own course, as long as you meet up each night at the same place. I think that's the idea, and because there is accommodation, you don't need so much gear.

Cheers
Jeff

[The first 1-day summary is here]

Its early days, but I have my first day's instalment up. There are many more coming, and many more other people's already out there, plus I was blogging as I went.  I hope you find something of interest here:

The first 1-day summary is here:
http://jeffsbike.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/day-1-kiwi-brevet-blenheim-to-hanmer.html

And all of my fotos are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/41957928@N00/sets/72157629276020231/

This is the first live post from during the actual event.
http://jeffsbike.blogspot.co.nz/2012/02/team-voodoo-lounge-makes-it-to-hanmer.html
Click on "Newer post" on the left to get them in Chronological order.

Portal for all kiwi brevet stuff is here:
http://kiwibrevet.blogspot.com

Ollie here from New Zealand. Inspired by tales from Simon K and more recently Lance Griffin I'm throwing my hat in the ring for 2012 departing Banff.
I’m hoping that TDR will go a long way towards satiating my thirst for long mountainbike adventures!
We have a couple of good races coming up which will be a good tests for body and gear; The Great Southern Brevet (http://www.greatsouthernbrevet.blogspot.com/) starts this weekend, with Simon's own Kiwi Brevet (http://www.greatsouthernbrevet.blogspot.com/) two weeks later.  I'm flying in to San Francisco and driving a rental car to Boulder for some acclimatisation and other adventures, so would be cool to catch up with some fellow TDR riders prior to the event.
Otherwise I'll see you all in Banff!
Ollie

You got the same link in there twice Ollie!  Will you be wearing that same skin-suit from the Single Speed worlds?
Simons link :  http://kiwibrevet.blogspot.com

If anyone is interested in what people are riding in the Kiwi Brevet starting on Feb 4th you can check out the profiles page.
http://kiwibrevet.blogspot.com/p/rider-profiles-2012.html

Its a work in progress, I am adding to it as the info comes in, only about 12 so far, another 70 or so to go... gulp.

Cheers
jeff

Yep, we are all hanging out for it. Cant wait.

If anyone is keen, now is the time to put your money where your mouth is and donate your "koha" to the cause.

http://kiwibrevet.blogspot.com/2011/11/kiwi-brevet-support-for-project-k.html

Cheers
jeff

Bummer! Maybe you guys will have something else in 2013? Would like to ride an event in New Zealand. Beautiful country!

Phil

Brevets are a very new thing in NZ, and the interpretation of them may not be strictly as per the original instructions, depending on the event. We have had a couple already, 3 in all, so I will include some links to a guy here in Wellington who organised one, and rode in another. He is a great writer. Known as "Sifter".

http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/2010/11/mon-petit-petit-brevet.html
Le Petit Brevet, held on Banks Peninsula in NZ's South island.
The actual site link here:
http://lepetitebrevet.blogspot.com/ (its on soon!)

http://sifter-writes-bikes.blogspot.com/2011/02/te-tawhio-o-whanganui.html
This one Sifter organised himself. Te Tawhio o Whanganui. Amazing history in the parts the guys travelled through.

Another one being held this next year, not been done before so a bit of an unknown quantity. In the lower south island.
http://greatsouthernbrevet.blogspot.com/

I'd love to fly over and ride the Kiwi Brevet; next year my energy is going into the TDR so I'll have to wait until 2013.

I'll be watching on Trackleaders though. :-)

Phil

Cool! Pretty sure its every two years tho Phil. But there will likley be another Brevet in its place to fill the gap : ) Good luck in the TDR

When I was setting up for the  Single Speed worlds here in NZ last year this system worked very well (for training or commuting)
Two sprockets on the front: 34/32 and on the back, I cant recall, one was small, a 15 and the other an 18 or 19 I think. The difference at the rear wasn't an issue. I would ride to the race in the 34-15, slacken the rear "singluator" and swap the chain over to the 32 - 18 and re-tighten it. There was enough horizontal play in the rear roller to handle it with no jumping at all. All I needed was a good sized allen key. No enos or ebbs, just a standard (retro)  bike. I used standard sprockets, but dont know how the free-hub body would stand up with touring loads. Probably better than my knees : )