I've done some tyvek roll-tops:

This one rolls over the top tube. There's another small bagmaker who does this where i got the idea.



This one opens on the side like most other bags.

Any chance you can repost / upload your photos to this thread again!?  I recently purchased a tyvek for a winter hot tent and have an extra 9x100 feet or so. I love that I can tape it with white gorilla tape since I have no sewing skills. Even though I already have revelate frame bags, none of them have roll tops. The idea of making a custom one in white for my fatbike has me jazzed. Also thinking about making waterproof stuff sacks, rain skirt, snow mitts... The sky is the limit. I heard once their was a guy whom hiked the AT with nothing but tyvek. The grandma gatewood of tyvek, lol. So much fun as a protype material.... and yet may be something more then just fun.

Hi mmeiser,
just perused the pics from your trip. Where is this? The North Country Trail (NCT), Michigan section (UP or LP?)? I live in Ohio so I'm constantly looking for longer trails/trips (severe lack of offroad around me). This would be ideal.

Sorry for the delayed response. Have not been on in awhile.  I HIGHLY recommend the NCT up through Michigan. I recommend starting either in Grand Rapids as it starts off on the white pine trail and then gravel and dirt roads. If you want to skip that stuff, the singletrack starts in the manistee national forest area.  There is hundreds of miles of awesome gentle rolling singletrack which is wonderfully when riding loaded. Just be sure to obey the rules and go around sections of trail that are closed to cyclists as there can be stiff fines... or worse, cyclists could loose access.  It gets a technical along the manistee river and there will be some stuff that is hard to climb loaded and some stuff that requires a little hike-a-bike, but the section along the manistee is my favorite section. North of the manistee it is beautiful but the back roads get sandy. We had to edit for time to get to the ice man and skipped most of the trail between manistee river and Traverse city instead, just opting for back roads. We will be doing it again in 2018, but we're going to opt for staying on the gravel and dirt back roads in the hopes we can entice more people to join us.

Attached below is a picture.

If you care there are more pics from my first trip on it at https://flic.kr/s/aHsm8DQqqd

Some details.

Have a knard 120tpi on the front, panaracer fat b nimble on the rear. It measure in at about 2.8" though it is advertised as a 29x3" thus it leaves me with very ample tire clearance of about a half inch. More of a happy accident on he narrower width in the rear then a plan. I wanted the fat b nimble for its fast rolling design and the knard for its control up front. I suspect even the knard would fit well on the rear though this frame was only designed for 27.5x3. The front fork is a Salsa Cutthroat fork which of course was designed for 29x3. As mentioned rims are Surly Rabbit Hole. Hubs are XT, standard 135 in the back and thru axle in the front for the Cutthroat carbon fork. They are set up tubeless with some Gorilla tape, Stans and a little bit of Slime to keep the stans from gubbering up to bad.

I think it weighs in at about 25-26lbs without all the crap and pedals on it. Weighed in at 27 with pedals, cages and some other crap on it. Just didn't have a chance to weigh it before the trip.

Drivetrain is an older 9sp era 180mm XT crank, i love it so much i have two, but the other is a 175 for general touring use.  Surly stainless steel 32t chainring and stainless steel chainring bolts. Road a 20t on the trail and switched to an 18t for riding iceman. Have both installed on the freehub body.

Toasted the KMC chain in less then 350 miles as we had rain, sleet, snow or some other form of precipitation daily. Despite constant cleaning the sandy michigan backroads just ate the chain. I will be putting a surly singulator on it and probably a 22t for technical trail biking here in ohio (mohican 100 trail) and snow. Don't know if i will leave the 20 or 18t on. They were more of a cheat since i had so little time to dial in the new build before the trip so i probably will not keep them on.  

I am planning on using the Surly Singulator chain tensioner in the future because it will mean i don't have to tension the chain repeatedly as it stretches. The cantilever dropouts on the Timberjack are great but i had to adjust the chain several times on the trip and even shorten the chain. Keep in mind i am 6'4" / 250 pounds on a good day. It is crazy how much a stretched the chain, even given the bad weather. If anyone has a favorite brand or model of single speed chain for durability let me know. I just used a standard KMC 410 for this trip. I will be trying others as time goes by.

Other stuff.

Brooks cadmium saddle. I absolutely love it. Put it on for the tour but will be taking it off for general everday use and putting on something cheaper. Cadmium will be going back on the ti fargo or whatever bike i am touring on at any given moment until i get a second and /or third. Have a brooks b17 still in use and one older retired one i have stretched out and bent the rails on but while a broken in b17 is technically more comfortable the rails aren't as tough as the cadmium and the leather does not hold up to the constant rain and moisture I find myself in while touring.

Jones bar. Love it. It will be coming off though in favor of a standard straight bar for running singletrack. Instead the jones bar will be going back on my steel fargo or whatever bike i am lff road touring on at the moment until i get a second and/or third one. Prior to the jones bar i had only toured on drop bars. I like the jones bar cockpit. I like its sit up and take in the world stance. I like its medium aggressive singletrack stance and its aero forward stance. I love all the realestate it gives me for a feed bag/water bottle/coffee, lights, gps, etc. Etc. That said i still think i wpuld use a drop bar for on road touring and the jones for singletrack and back road. They don't really overlap in my opinion. Just different types of touring.

So, it's been a long time. Namely because the timberjack was so hot 2p17 frames sold out before i could snage one, but i finally snagged one when they released some warranty reserve and the results were as awesome as i hopped for. I scred a cuthroat carbon fork to put on it and went with a jones bar and rabbit hole rims for full 29x3. Road it from grand rapids up to traverse city for the iceman. It happened sort of suddenly when i saw it was available so just posting now. The big thing for me is i went single speed. First time in 9 years and first time ever mountain or touring. Will post pics as soon as i get a chance. Posted about 120 or so on my flickr.com/photos/mmeiser2 account.

So,

Anyone else here try the Bryton Rider 530 GPS?  Would love to know what others think.

I thought there was a thread on this but I could not find a single mention of Bryton on bikepacking.net.

I have now been using the Bryton Rider 530 for almost two months for bikepacking, backpacking and everyday use. Prior to that I was using the Bryton 310 as a basic tracking computer (it did does not do route following).  At $180 and with 33 hours of battery life so far the 530 has been awesome so far as primary navigational means on a few quick touring and backpacking trips. It's slightly smaller screen cousin the 330 runs only $130 and due the smaller screen has a few more hours of battery life.  





A pretty decent product page is at http://corp.brytonsport.com/products/rider530?lang=en

So far I am extremely pleased. This is a very basic route following device. No color. No base maps, but then I don't need any of that silly stuff. Basically it just shows your route as a line, simple enough to follow and it has superb battery life.

Little details: Data on tight singletrack under trees seems a bit more accurate then Garmin whether overlaying routes recorded by both or comparing overall stats. I.E. it seems to loose less miles.  Vertical footage seems to record about 5-10% less then garmin's but then Garmin have always registered high on vertical footage. This unit also does temperature which I really like.

Battery life: I used a Garmin Oregon on my Divide Trip in 2013. I was forever throwing batteries at it. About one set of lithium ion AA every day and a half of riding. A major chore to keep it in the juice. I have never been happy with Garmin's battery life and they are just so overly complex and expensive for my needs.

So far I can get at least two very full days of *recording* on the Bryton on a charge. That'd be sunup to sundown. (Technically past sundown this time of year.)  Sometimes a third day if the days are shorter. Indeed I have recorded four days of hiking with it. That's very close to the 34 hours of longevity they publish. Note that route following may differ then route recording. I have still not put it through more then two days of "route following" so I haven't got a good estimate of how long it will last following a route.

I back it up with Gaia Application on my Samsung s5, a couple spare batteries which will give me up to 10 days of heavy use for photos and other needs on the S5 when it is in airplane mode. One of the things I like about the S5 in addition to the removable batteries is that the GPS works in airplane mode.  I can not say enough about GAIA GPS + Open Hiking Maps integration. If you haven't checked out GAIA you should. It is potentially a revolutionary tool in planning complex multi-mode routes that may use trail, road, power line cuts and even bushwacking. It's ability to quickly plot out a route that "snaps" to road and trail (particularly with the Open Hiking Maps base layer) allows for the creation of maps that defy google, strava and others traditional notions of routes. I.E. google won't plot routes that don't use bike trail or road let alone plot a route that crosses a pass on a hiking trail or even follows a river via packraft.  

So once you map out a route on the GAIA website you can share it publicly, anyone can download the GPX and drop it right in the "Extra Files" folder on the Bryton 530 where it will be parsed and made ready to follow. Even cooler routes saved on the website will automatically be sync'd to the 530 or 330 when you wifi sync the device to the cloud.  Yeah, forgot to mention that the Bryton 530 and 330 have wifi built in and can at the click of a button sync all your data to their website and even automatically post to Strava.  What's more Bryton has iPhone and Android apps that also automatically sync between the GPS and their website.  So... extremely easy to sync data beween your smart phone, your GPS and the web.

But back on primary topic. The Bryton should do all the heavy lifting for quick visual reference on the handlebar while touring and then when you need extra details and data you pull out your phone with GAIA. This saves you killing the batteries in your smartphone turning it on and off constantly and all the general wear, tear, damage or loss that might come from putting a smartphone on your handlebar. Smart phones are to expensive, too delicate and to much of battery hogs to use as a primary navigation device. On the other hand smartphones are undeniably here to stay as informational aids, whether that be finding the nearest pizza place or bike when you roll into a small town or checking the weather.

In summary, I'm still waiting for someone to sell a service for daily drone delivery of pizza to me on my next bikepacking trip. No doubt this will be the post-millenial "nature" experience but in the mean this is a no frills unit that does exactly what I want it to do and nothing more. I guess that makes me a neo-luddite.

I have done my analysis of the geometry and even tried putting a 29x3 knard/rabbit hole on the rear.  I cannot say it is for everyone, but for me its a no brainer.

First, the 29x3 did work with ample clearance. Probably about 5mm. Maybe more. Will try to post a picture.

Second. Top tube is about 3cm longer on the XL and head tube 2cm lower then the XL fargo. Given my height (6'4") the extra length is actually a bonus. I can cut my 120cm stem down a little. This might not be for everyone but I barely fit on the XL fargo. That said I may keep it flat bar or try a jones bar to start with. Been wanting to try one of those.

The benifits of setting this up with a firestarter fork over my current steel fargo are tremendous. Lighter frame. Shorter chainstay for climbing. Will do 29x3. Superb frame price. Great paint. No rust when it gets scratched.

Thanks @Inertiaman. Good analysis.

Am torn, I think the Timberjack would make an amazing all purpose touring and gravel grinder with either the cromoly fork or carbon firestarter and a drop bar. Have not done drop bar geometry analysis, but i assume it would be no problem.  The biggest idea being that it's going to be lighter/ much lighter than my steel fargo, so much cheaper and more rough and tumble version of my titanium fargo. Making it more practical for rough and tumble touring.  I also really like the shorter chain stay length. It should make it a quicker climber.   

The only negative is it doesn't do full 29x3 and for me it's got to be 29x3 rather then 27.5x3 because i'm 6'4". There's just no such thing as a tire to big.

I had been thinking of upgrading my steel fargo to the new 29x3 version.  The alternative is I go 29x3 on my mukluk and make that my dedicated back country tourer with 26x4 or 29x3. Maybe even add a jones bar. This leaves me free to pursue my Timber/Fargo all rounder.

I could then upgrade my current steel fargo frame to the timberjack and simply re-use all my components and steel fargo front fork. Lighter, shorter chainstay for climbing, new paint, more rustproof frame.

The ti fargo will always remain my ultimate fast / light tourer... and most ridden. Whether doing 20+mph club rides or just cruising across a state in day or un-racing, ultra-endurance. The Timber/fargo would be the workhorse tourer for wear and tear/ The mukluk my winter ride and back country tourer.

I like it.

After all, how many fargo's does one need?

Haha! I do miss my xxl first gen.  My XL steel 2014 and my Titanium XL fit me pretty well, but i end up with the seatpost at max height. Very nice craftsmanship on the frame bag.  BTW. I also have a frame bag from revelate for my xxl. So glad i got it. I use it on my 62cm trek cronus, but it is a little small for my 64cm fuji touring IV frame. I have a bivy of frame bags and still want more. I use them on pretty much every ride for some reason or another. Worth their weight in gold.

Awesome

Thanks for posting.

Anyone know any good bike shops in salt lake city?

I had to bail on the divide in Lima. Purely a time thing. I lost to many days due the cracked frame. Once I got into Wyoming I'd be all in until Denver. Best logical place to pull out.

Was enjoying myself even as weather went south. It would have redirected more toward the seasonal averages but I didn't have the time to slog through the snow and colder temps. If I did I'd just have someone mail drop me my snow gear which was ready to go.

Update: so bailout plan, am in Lima MT. Just rolled into town this evening and heard there is a bus shuttle to Idaho Falls st 9am and then on to Salt Lake City. Don't want to bail out but if I want east into Wyoming it's be at least another week as there are no other transportation options on the Wyoming portion of the divide. Lima is one scrapy little town. Like it. There is not an ounce of tourism here. It's the real deal. It is a key stop on the i15 corridor just north of the divide pass into Idaho and so far as I can tell that is its key business. It is of great importance to dividers as the next town east isn't for 100 miles. Indeed Elkhorn/Polaris was 100 miles back.

Another factor in my bailout is the winter advisory warning. It rained all day today and yesterday and snowed up in the mountains continuously. There is the potential for 6-12 inches by tomorrow morning. Given time I could have gear mail dropped and the weather would eventually swing back more toward the seasonal averages. However due outside pressures I have not the time even though I might myself have the patience. The weather is an acceptable and fun part of the equation. But I'm already a week overdue in my 3-4 week window.

Update: So, am averaging about 90 miles a day on the great divide mountain bike route since replacing my frame in Whitefish. Respectable, but its time to rectify the lost time. My timeline is blown. I was originally planning on bailing in Denver as my plan B. However by my account it is still 900-1000 miles via the divide route to Denver and while shortcuts might save me some time they are not a solution. Either I need an alternative extraction plan or I need to beg for a fifth week off work. I lean toward an artful extraction plan first. Am open to suggestions, especially from those of you who know the divide route. For now I shall continue to knock off miles, but of course it would be impossible to try and make up for all the down time.

To be clear I am dying to let loose and pull an all nighter or two, but I feel I can't allow myself the luxury until after I figure out a solution to this looming timeline issue. Psychologically one has to be in the right frame of mind before playing for a big mile day/night and trying to "catch up" is not the right reason. Otherwise an all nighter in the mountains could make for disaster, at least from a psychological perspective. You need to NOT be in a hurry.

BTW, the all important bridge across the elk river north of Elkford has been replaced just in the last couple weeks. I road the east side of the river north because locals told me it hadn't been replace yet. Is basically a mess of a power line road. That and constant rain nearly did me and my drive train in. Stick to the official route in there. Two bridges were out just south of Banff on the spray river. Fordable but just barely. If the water table was up another foot probably impassible.

So... nothing but time the next few days as am waiting for a replacement frame. Discovered I'd cracked the drive side chain stay across the weld by the dropout. About 3/4 through. Very lucky to have discovered it when I did. So far had done 600 or so miles from whitefish up to Banff and back. Canadian portion was a big awesome mess of an adventure due floods this spring. Only impassible section was the fording river between Elkford and Sparwood.without rappelling gear or a pack raft that washout is impassible. The river is to high and fast, huge tree snarls and washed out banks line the river and the washout is some 100 feet across extending 100 down into the river and 100 up. They will likely have to completely reroute it.

Despite three days of near constant rain headed north the weather has been absolutely perfect headed south. Got down to about 35 one night, reached 85 in Eureka, but in the mountains it probably never get above 75.

Am staying at the whitefish bike ranch. Perhaps I will upload some pics over the next couple days.

As I write this I'm on the Amtrak Empire Builder train approaching St. Paul. Minnesota. In about 24 hours I'll be at the Whitefish bike hostel visiting Bob and Bev. On Thursday I'll be riding up the middle fork toward Banff. I intend to take it easy and use as many roads as possible on the way north to Banff to "acclimatize". After a days rest in Banff and hopefully some visiting with the locals I intend to start down the GDMBR sticking to it as strictly as possible allowing for washes, forest fires, snow and whatever else may come my way.

I am not racing it officially, but I have a powerful need to ride long hours both day and night, and we'll see just how far I get before weather or time push me off the trail in the next three or so weeks. God willing I'll make it to mexico, but realistically I'll be happy if I make it through the best parts of Colorado.

 Have the 2013 route loaded on my garmin and my android phone as well as maps of the first two sections with plans to stop in misoulla or have the aca mail me more maps if need be.

I'm at the point of doing research on specfic day to day points of interest including favorite campsites, lodgings, and other general areas of interest which I can further research to expand on my understanding of the history and geography of the regions.

More specifically when I travelled down the eastern divide I found some great gps data files containing every shelter on the Appalachian Trail among other things.

The ACA maps are a superb place to start, but I was wondering if there are any GPS based data sets that have these and other points of interest. I would love to be able to sync them with Google maps on my android phone and my GPS.

I will do most of my research off the trail on my android phone, but during the day I hope to leave it buried deep down in the bottom of my bags. In an ideal world I'd be able to seamlessly mark POI on my android phone and then import them into my Garmin.

That said I still consider myself a GPX data novice. From what I understand if I were to mark my POI in Google earth or Google maps I could export them via KML but I don't even know where to begin getting them in my garmin Colorado.

While I'm amazed at what i've been able to accomplish on my android phone i am already on the road and i will have at best only occasional  access to a computer.

Reading up up on what this covers i.e.

http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/johnmuirtrail/conversations/topics/7490

not as critical:
http://www.14ers.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=15971&start=24

more positive real world example:
http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-22302.html

It sounds like the person injured made the right choice in pushing the button.

I have some serious reservations about wether this insurance is worth $.02 let alone $17.  However it's easier to pay the $17 and change then to risk not enabling it on the SPOT and having no coverage whatsoever, so I will likely enable it, but I sure won't worry any less about getting hit with a massive bill if something were to happen.   

Have been reading up on some of the other options pointed too by the ACA and other long term / professional tourers and the trip insurance options look much better but I'm very leary of going with any service which isn't personally vetted by people I know.

A good example is this one: https://www.mhross.com/index.php/consumer/index/adve0150mt

Recommeneded by the ACA it is however more aimed at travel losses for non-refundable bookings and delays. That said it does have seemingly much better extraction coverage and even medical coverage.  Starting at $34 it would appear to be a much better solution than the GEOS coverage. Much more comprehensive.   I flipped through the policy and could find no exclusions for bicycling or anything like the great divide whatsoever. (Not suprising since it was endorsed by the ACA whom helped create the Divide route. Indeed any sport exclusions were very specific to professional racing activities, spelunking, rock climbing and other things well beyond the scope of riding the great divide.

If I find more useful information I will try to post again on this subject.  Still on the fence on the Spot GEOS coverage.

awesome sauce, only $17.xx to get GEOS insurance on a pre-owned spot, can do it right on their website anytime

https://www.geosalliance.net/geoslogin/orderstart.aspx

I assume it's going to disable it for the person you are borrowing / lending your spot too though so they will probably have to pay to reenable it should they want it in the future.  Very small price to pay for the piece of mind though.

great thread!  Just headed out to do a fall trip down the great divide in a couple days and was wondering how the spot GEOS insurance worked.  The BIG question for me though is is it transferable to whomever has the spot. My guess is that it is not a transferable service.  I'm going to have to do some more research it looks like on how to enable it on a used spot, if even possible.

Just on tourdivide.org. Is there a more up to date resource? Also hoping MTBcast will be covering again this year.

I often carry a smartphone as my only camera and only navigational device while backroad touring since I know I can pick up maps at the drop of a hat at any gas station... not that I've ever needed too. Sometimes I will carry a scrap of an overview map.  I turn the on airplane mode at all times unless I need to make a call. Gets me about two full days of heavy use without any charges. I charge it by always making a point to eat lunch or take a break somewhere with a power outlet.  Only takes about 45 minutes to an hour a day to keep it topped up.

I also choose my lights and other electronics for removeable batteries. I use a 220 lumen Nebo Redline (3AA) as my touring light and sometimes a Fenix HP11 headlamp (4AA). I've started using a Serfas seatstay mount tail light (2 CR2032) as my primary tail light and when I do carry a camera I carry one that runs on 2AA.   I usually carry one spare set of AA or AAA depending on what light I take and a spare set of CR2032 for the tail light since my computer also takes them.

That said, I can no longer avoid carrying a GPS, and at some point I'm going to end up buying a higher end camera, none of which run on AA. I have resisted solar because I honestly don't sit still for long enough. If the sun is shinning I'm moving. They seem delicate/hard to pack, a little bulky and otherwise high maintenance. Likewise I have resisted dynamo because I have multiple bikes I use for bikepacking, not just one. Thus brings me to the biolite.

There's also this:
http://www.rei.com/product/846334/biolite-wood-burning-campstove#video-inner

Honestly, I'm thinking of buying one of these and deconstructing it, but I'm hoping someone else will first.

In the olden days when bikepackinglight.com's forums where hot the gram wheenies were always buying stuff like this and disassembling it / stripping it down to its most essential elements.

After all, what is this stuff at it's core but a heat/electric exchange element and a tiny bit of electronics.   Their "stove" is nothing but a bunch of plastic and metal, which is fine for the average camper, but way to heavy and bulky for me to carry bikepacing.

If I could strip down and repackage the heat/electric exchange element so it could be stuck in any fire or put in any stove I would have an amazingly versatile charging system that would pack down to nothing and weigh only a few ounces.

I guess why this appeals to me is because in the evening, when the sun goes down, I typically take a time out for cooking dinner / campfire and have used almost exclusively wood for years. Dinner is usually the only time I cook as it's a great way to wind down, recover, pack on calories for the next day and a full belly makes for a nice early night so I can get up the next day and do it all over again.