This week’s Debrief features bike price drops, a new illustrated UV shirt by Chris McNally, the Rapha + Snowpeak Collection, a Cedaero Fork Lift Pack, three events to follow live, and much more. Find it all here…

The weekly Debrief highlights small but important bits of news, products, and things that caught our attention on the website, in the conversation, and elsewhere around the community. These include upcoming events and interesting items our readers shared in the comments. Check out this week’s findings below.

Bits & Bobs

New products that are worth highlighting but didn’t make the Dispatch…

Rapha + Snowpeak Collection

$16-$365 at Rapha

Rapha Snow Peak 2023

The new limited edition bikepacking collection from Rapha and Snow Peak features several eye-catching pieces of men’s apparel and a couple of accessories, including a down jacket, lightweight pants and shorts, a couple of shirts, a vacuum bottle, and, of course, a spork. It’s a good-looking range of goods, though the prices are as high, as we’ve come to expect from these limited Rapha collaborations.

Reverse Components Can Holder

Made in UK / $17 at Reverse

Reverse Components’ 3D-printed Can Holder weighs just 22 grams and is designed specifically to attach a standard 12oz (.33 liter) can to your bike using a pair of cage mounts. It has an interesting mechanism on the underside of the holder that clips the can in and out, “even after the toughest descents.” In addition to attaching a can, there are two additional guides for cable ties to secure cable housing.

Chris McNally x Ornot UV Trail Shirts

Made in California / $78 at Ornot

Chris McNally x Ornot UV Trail shirts

Our friend Chris McNally teamed up with San Franciso’s Ornot to create two unique UV Trail Shirt designs. “Sketchy” features a decade’s worth of sketches from around the city, and “Poison Poppies” pays homage to a couple of California’s iconic plants. The shirts are sewn in California and have a quick-drying, UPF 30 fabric; bike-specific fit; and are made from a mix of Bluesign-approved recycled polyester and lycra.

Inside Line Equipment REV_MCB X50 “Glitch” Fabric

Made in USA / $40-$240 at Inside Line Equipment

Inside Line Equipment, ILE, REV_MCB X50

Inside Line Equipment from Berkeley, California, got their hands on some ultra-rare REV_MCB fabric salvaged from Dimension-Polyant. The X-Pac fabric is the result of a production glitch where the 500D Cordura fabric layer was flipped upside down during lamination, but the X-Ply polyester yarn and shiny film backing were properly placed, so the reverse of the MultiCam Black fabric faces out. It’s subtle and toned-down and has the same weather resistance as standard X50 X-Pac. While it lasts, REV_MCB is available in their Default 25L, Default 18L, Apex 11L, Minimal Tote, Load Cell – Cable, Seat Bag, and 66L XXL tote styles.

Kogel Purple Pulleys

Made in USA / $299 at Kogel

Kogel Purple Pulleys

It’s hard to pass up a special edition purple component. According to their email, this was Kogel’s most requested color, so they’re doing a limited run of their derailleur pulleys. “They’re here for a good time, not a long time.”

North St. Bags Vancouver Daypack

Made in USA / $135 at North St. Bags

north st Vancouver daypack

Designed, cut, and sewn in-house at North St. Bags headquarters in Portland, Oregon, the new Vancouver Daypack is a lightweight backpack for your everyday carry needs. It features a large zippered compartment, built-in laptop sleeve, valuables pocket and clip, mesh shoulder straps, and a recycled EcoPak sailcloth construction. It is currently offered in black, coyote, or kelp green and North St. Bags requires up to a week for production.

Velocio’s 2023 UNITY Jersey Supports Mental Health

$189 at Velocio

2023 Velocio Unity Jersey

Velocio recently announced their special edition 2023 UNITY jersey, and 100% of this year’s profits will go toward raising awareness and support for mental health initiatives. Specifically, all profits will be donated NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Health based in the United States and the WHO European Framework for Action on Mental Health based in Europe. Sales are open through June 1st.

Cedaero Fork Lift Pack

Made in USA / $89.95 at Cedaero

2023 Sea Otter Classic, Cedaero

As teased on our Sea Otter coverage, the new Cedaero Fork Lift Pack is designed to work in conjunction with a King Cage Manything Cage, which connects to your favourite fork or rack with triple pack mounts. The Fork Lift Pack slips onto the cage, buckles underneath it, and has a large zippered opening that Cedaero says is quick to access and has enough room for a 48oz Nalgene bottle. The bag has a 3.3L capacity, is made from 1000D Cordura Nylon or 15oz Martexin Waxed Canvas, has a Hypalon attachment sleeve, and is handmade in the USA.

In Conversation

Exchanges and ideas that caught our attention in the site’s conversation section…

Tire Blow Up

Rene Herse Fleecer Ridge Review, Tour Divide Tire

The conversation blew up in our Dispatch about Sofiane Sehili’s Tour Divide tires earlier this week. In short, Rene Herse posted photos and analyzed Sofiane’s Fleecer Ridge tires after nearly 2,700 miles on the Tour Divide. Was it marketing on their part? Of course. But, the fact of the matter is that the Fleecer Ridge is tire designed explicitly for the Tour Divide, so we thought it was interesting to see Rene Herse doing follow-up research to show their audience how the tires performed on said ride. However, many folks were skeptical about this based on the price of these tires. So, that brings us to the question: how much are you willing to spend on a tire for the Tour Divide? And what other tires hold up as well on such a long ride?

Around the Community

News from around the bikepacking world…

Bike Prices Dropping!

Salsa Cutthroat at Wolf Ford

We’ve noticed several bike manufacturers announce major price drops in their lineups, which is a welcome change compared to all of the price hikes we’ve seen in last year. Salsa stood out with savings of up to $600 on the Cutthroat and up to $750 on the Blackthorn. In fact, almost their entire lineup is currently discounted. We’ve also been seeing price drops from Canyon, Specialized, Rocky Mountain, and others, apparently all due to excessive stock after the boom between 2019 and 2022. Have you seen other brands lowering prices? Let us know in the comments below. Speaking of, Logan has that very bike shown in the photo above for sale.

Transboreal Expedition Complete

Transboreal Expedition

Quebec adventurers Simon-Pierre Goneau and Samuel Lalande-Markon just became the first to travel from the southernmost point to the northernmost point of Quebec. The expedition, which began on February 1, 2023, required 15 days of biking and 53 days of skiing, for a total of 91 days including stops in communities. The duo traveled nearly 2,960 kilometers on isolated roads, through taiga, and across coastal ice and tundra. Learn more here.

Events Starting Soon

What to watch this weekend and bikepacking events starting soon…

Carso Trail

carso trail bikepacking

Overlooking the stunning Gulf of Trieste, on the border between Italy and Slovenia, the Carso Trail is an unsupported 350-kilometer bikepacking adventure. The grand depart took off from Doberdò del Lago earlier this morning. You can learn more about the event and follow along live here.

Hellenic Mountain Race

2023 Hellenic Mountain Race

The Hellenic Mountain Race is a fixed-route, unsupported, single-stage cycling race through the mountains of Greece. The clock does not stop and there are no prizes. There are more than 120 riders registered for the inaugural event, which takes off tomorrow from Meteora. You can follow their progress live here.

Seven Serpents

2023 Seven Serpents

Seven Serpents is an unsupported 850-kilometer bikepacking challenge from Ljubljana to Trieste through the Croatian islands following gravel and side roads. There are well over 100 riders registered for the grand depart, which takes off from Ljubljana in Slovenia on May 14th at 7 a.m. local time. Learn more about the event here.

Wish We Were Here

Shedding a little light on a route one of us is dreaming about riding at the moment…

Logan Watts: San Rafael Swell

Stone House Lands Loop, Utah, Eszter Horanyi
Photo by Eszter Horanyi from her Stone House Lands Loop report.

I’ve had a couple reminders over the last week about the landscapes and quality riding around the San Rafael Swell, a geologic dome-shaped uplift in south-central Utah. That got me dreaming about the Stone House Lands Loop and A Swell Night Out, two routes that are officially on my Collective Bucket List.

Weekly Social

Some things we found around the ‘gram and elsewhere. This week, a handful of updated from the 2023 Ride Across Arizona…

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