Cass Gilbert

Surly’s all new 2018 Pugsley sees a return to it expedition roots – the interchangeable front and rear wheels are back, for true back-of-beyond ‘exploratouring’. But that’s not all: unlike its predecessor, it can now easily swallow 4.3in tires, effectively offering a sweet spot between the monstrous-tired Moonlander and the Pugsley of old. Here’s our first ride report…

Peruvians call it El Silencio. The highest reaches of the country’s Andean mountains is a quiet, startlingly beautiful, and unrelenting harsh pocket of the world, interlinked by rugged mining roads and faint alpaca trails. But despite its challenges, there’s nowhere quite like it to ride your bicycle, promises Cass Gilbert, as he ponders the cathartic quality of the solo tour and learns to savour its solitude.

Perhaps your child enjoys riding… but doesn’t yet have the legs for multi-day adventures on dirt roads and trails? A tagalong – or trailercycle – might be just what you need. Cass and his son Sage take the Burley Piccolo to the red rock, mountain biking mecca of Sedona, Arizona, to try their hand at local singletrack, ATV trails, and a self-propelled overnight family bikepack.

Do you follow a paleo diet, or aspire to keep predominantly to its principles of eating more naturally and cutting out processed food? But let me guess… you still want to pack light when you bikepack? Paleo Meals to Go are crammed with simple caveman goodness… Here’s our thoughts on what’s in them, and how they taste.

All City releases the Electric Queen, their trail ripper hardtail, sporting a 120mm fork, short stays, a steel frame… and a great paint splatter finish! Cass got a sneak peak earlier this year at this all glam beast…

Wondering what it takes to forgo the majority of your earthly possessions for two years and ride the length of South America? We caught up with San Francisco-based architect Brian Mulder and checked out his patinaed, battleworn Ventana el Gordo, complete with Rohloff Speedhub, Gates belt drive, and SON dynamo hub… We asked him what he learned after riding from Patagonia to Colombia, how his gear fared, and pressed him for a few highlights from his journey…

An important and growing part of BIKEPACKING.com is the routes resource, covering rides of different styles and lengths, drawn from all around the globe. Each route post is accompanied by a GPX track to load into your GPS, be it a standalone device or a smartphone. These can be downloaded directly from the site, or pushed via Ride With GPS. To make this process easier, here’s how to go about it, as well as a few potential pitfalls to watch out for and some advice on navigation apps…

After riding the Colorado Trail over the summer, we stopped by and said hi to Andrew Wracher and Joey Ernst at Bedrock Bags, Durango. Read on to learn about their obsession with geology, discover where they like to bikepack most, and glean just what makes the business tick…

Sometimes the shortest bikepacking trips are the sweetest… especially if your four-year-old son is involved. Cass and his tribe head off for a family overnighter before winter sets in across the New Mexican desert, and offers advice for those thinking of trying something similar.

Niner’s latest SIR 9 is the company’s third iteration on their cult classic hardtail. For 2017, it retains the high-end Reynolds 853 tubeset for which the bike is known, infusing its new frame with an up-to-the-minute geometry, all the latest industry standards, clearances for 27.5+ tires, and a host of bikepacking-friendly braze-ons. Given that the company is based in Colorado… it only seemed fitting to it out on the technically demanding and physically challenging Colorado Trail.

Over the summer, Michael Dammer joined us on the Colorado Trail, miraculously packing two weeks worth of dehydrated food, grown on his family farm in Ecuador, into his homemade leather framebag. Together with a ziplock bag full of quinoa, they helped us complete the route’s 530 mile length and tackle its 70,000 feet of elevation gain. For those seeking a different take on easy-to-cook bikepacking meals, here are three healthy recipes that kept our legs strong and our bellies full.