Cheers for that, I’ll look out for your blog.

I’m just getting sorted for bikepacking on my charge cooker 3 29er and wasn’t sure about the bar harness, though the rest of the alpkit gear I’m hoping Santie will bring 🙂 I assume your brake and gear cable seasily fit behind the kanga bar harness, just not sure whether to stick with just tent of bivvy n tarp strapped on instead for now as I can fit them in with the brake pipes infront of the bags. The rest of my planned gear is not too similar to yours.

Hi Kevin, I can’t complain about the alpkit gear for the money but I think I will get a Revelate bar harness so I can use my bar’s. The cables and everything work fine with the Kanga it’s just how high it is on your bars unless you have a really tall head tube and spacers. It’s a good system for carrying a big bag as it’s very stable but obviously that has it’s limits as it will have to much effect on your steering/control. My big purchases for lightening my setup will be a nice 500-750 g down sleeping bag and even though I have a pretty light tent already with the Terra Nova I have set my sights on the Z-packs ultra light cuben fibre tents which for about 500 g are pretty amazing.

Nice setup. I’m thinking of doing a similar thing myself. How do you find the Lurcher in terms of durability? I see they are around 999 online currently, how do you rate it overall and do you race it (single day) I’m not heavy (75kgs) but am looking for a very reliable and robust bike for doing long single track missions on; as in 1000kms + on single track and I tend to thrash it a bit. Also wouldn’t mind just taking it out to the local bike park and be able to keep up with mates. Also I would be interested in seeing more photos of your up front mounting, does it move around much over the bumpy stuff?

Nice setup. I would loose the water bottle and put in a larger frame bag. It will be much more comfortable than having so much stuff elsewhere on the bike. Lots of companies sell bags so you can mount the water bottle elsewhere on the bike without sacrificing prime storage space.

Hi Chris, I have had the Lurcher nearly 2 years now and it hasn’t missed a beat. I haven’t raced it but I know others have although it is aimed more at trail riding. Planet X do have 29er carbon hardail that has been designed more for racing which is a bit lighter/expensive. I’ve managed to get the weight of mine down to 22 lbs without any real lightweight stuff so you could easily build a lightweight race setup. But you stated your after a reliable robust bike and for me the Lurcher has been exactly that. In short for the money I don’t think the lurcher can be beaten. I’ve not got any photo’s at the moment of the harness system but I can say that it’s a very stable system which has been designed to carry dry bags up to 20l. The only drawback to this system is that unless you have a really tall head tube & a lot of spacers your bars are redundant for mounting lights etc. If you google alpkit kanga harness there are plenty of pictures online.

Hi Kevin I wasn’t to keen on a full frame bag at first but after my last couple of rides where I had to use a backpack I see the benefit of being able to carry more on the bike. I have one of alpkit’s bar mounted stem cell’s for carrying waterbottles and here in the UK you don’t really need to carry a lot of the stuff as it’s everywhere. What I need to do really is to slowly replace/upgrade my stuff for lighter less bulky stuff.

I have had this tent the terra nova voyager for just under a year now mostly took out out in fair weather I decided to camp on top of Pen-y-fan 11/04/15 the wind condition’s were moderate to strong at the time’s but with this being rated a 4 season tent I was confident it would withstand the weather being thrown at it , but boy was I wrong the arch pole over the door kept being blown back onto the tent and me inside all night despite being pitched correctly the result in the morning was a broken pole and where the red pole sit’s over the two blue horizontal poles it had rubbed holes in both pole sleeves and the stitching inside was tearing through the inner tent where the pole sleeves attach, now I cannot insert the poles through the sleeves without them coming through the holes . I contacted terra nova about this they were useless after many emails and pictures of the damage were sent I had to send it off to them, 2 weeks for them to look at it and after they make a dissension another 2-3 weeks for them to repair it at my expense when it is clearly a design fault as there is no reinforcement protection where the poles overlap on the front of the tent but there is protection on the rear. Truly disappointed in there poor customer service I expected more form a British company I have lost faith in there product’s and will buy a Hilleberg for a better experience .

Hi, Newbie here, gonna try my first ride right after labor day- just a shakedown through bikepaths, light singletrack and some road riding.
My idea for the Lights on the handlebar issue will be to mount the light on my helmet, and the battery in my hydration pack, with a 2 foot cable attached.