Friday Debrief: Bar Hopper V2, New Maxxis Tires, Rambler Wax, and More…

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…

Cedaero Bar Hopper V2 Pack

Made in USA / $99+ at Cedaero

After a short time away, Cedaero just updated its Bar Hopper handlebar bag with some nice touches to improve its overall functionality. They expanded their gusseted zipper, allowing for an even wider zipper opening—a downfall of basic burrito-style bar bags. They also added a 1″ webbing daisy chain on the back instead of fixed straps and now include two Voile Nano Straps for attaching it to your bike. The Bar Hopper V2 retails between $99.95 and $119.95, depending upon fabric choice.

Rocky Mountain Element C99

Made in Taiwan / $12,499 at Bikes.com

Rocky Mountain’s new C99 Series, “The Galaxy Collection,” is a fresh group of premium bike builds. The C99 series features the Element, Instinct, and Altitude. The Element C99 features a RockShox Sid Ultimate Flight Attendant fork, SIDLuxe Ultimate Flight Attendant shock, a Reverb AXS Wireless Post, and costs an eye-watering $12,499 USD. Make sure to read Logan’s Element review here.

PEdALED Yama MTB Collection

$88+ at PEdALED

Just released, the new PEdALED Yama MTB Collection is designed for big backcountry adventures, from day rides to multi-day bikepacking trips. The Yama collection includes loose-fitting shorts, pants, jerseys, socks, and bibs in a variety of unisex sizing and color options.

New Topo Designs Mountain Hydro Hip Pack Colors

Made in Vietnam / $79 at Topo Designs

The Topo Designs Mountain Hydro Hip Pack has two stretch pockets for bottles, an adjustable belt, side cinch straps, additional gear straps, two zippered compartments, and several daisy chain sections for lashing on small items. Topo Designs just added five fresh color options to the hip pack lineup, all with a 4.4-liter capacity made from recycled nylon ripstop and a nylon liner.

Praxis Podium Pedals

399 grams/pair / $115+ at Praxis

With blessings from Gamut’s founders, Praxis brought back the beloved Podium, an iconic flat pedal design. Inspired by the original Gamut Podium, the new Praxis Podium has a svelte shape and concave platform. The Praxis version features a CNC-machined 6061-T6 aluminum platform that measures 14mm high by 115mm long by 112mm wide with 12 stainless steel black pins per side with pre-applied Loctite. It has 3mm of concavity in the platform and spins on a forged heat-treated 4140 chromoly spindle.

Five Ten Trailcross XT

$160 at Men’s Women’s

Five Ten has a few (relatively) new colors for their Trailcross XT shoe, a great spring/summer bikepacking flat-pedal shoe that comes in men’s and women’s versions.

New Maxxis Tires

Made in Taiwan / $93+ at Maxxis

Maxxis quietly released a few new tires at Sea Otter last week. A couple of interest are a new 29 x 2.5” size of the Minion DHR II with EXO+ casing and the Aspen ST with a new tread pattern made for fast and hardpack trails. It weighs 610 grams in the lightest spec at 29 x 2.25”.

Rambler Bags New Wax + In-Stock Bags

Made in USA / $13+ at Rambler Bags

Kuba over at Rambler Bags is releasing a new gear wax recipe tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. EST, and because we consider them to be the master of wax, we thought we’d give everyone a heads up. Rambler Bags’ proprietary blends of waterproofing waxes are made in small batches in Pennsylvania using all-natural materials and are available in two distinct blends: a plant-based option suitable for vegans and a beeswax-based option using locally sourced beeswax. While the exact details of the wax recipes are a closely guarded secret, we know the waxes contain no soy wax, no palm wax, and no petrochemicals like paraffin wax either. Each bar has a minimum weight of 3¼ oz. Plus, there are a few of their readymade fall/winter in-stock bags left, which are wax-ready!

Panorama Torngat Ti 29+ Builds

Made in Taiwan / $5,594+ CAD at Panorama Cycles

The Torngat Ti is Panorama’s titanium fat bike with a few tricks up its sleeve. They include two axle spindles for two Q-factors and different tire setups, from 27.5 x 4.5″ fat tires right up to 29 x 2.5-3.0″ mountain bike tires. They just added the 29-inch “summer version” as a complete build option on their website, with builds starting at $5,594 CAD.

In Conversation

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

What did we miss at Sea Otter?

Logan: Well, the 2024 Sea Otter Classic is a wrap. It was significantly bigger than it was the last time I was there in 2019, and with just me covering the event, I was stretched pretty thin. I still managed to cover several dozen new products/brands and shoot 18 bikes (find all that here), but after all was said and done, I realized I missed a few things. That includes odds and ends like the Praxis Podium pedals mentioned above, as well as meeting a few people I wasn’t able to connect with, such as framebuilder B Vivit who’s Sierra Roamer bike I shot. So, what else did I miss? Leave a note in the conversation below!

Around the Community

News from around the bikepacking world…

Chumba Launches Stoke Wheels

Formally launched earlier earlier this month, Stoke Wheels is a new spinoff of Chumba that offers custom handbuilt wheels to complement their custom frames. Building on a decade of expeirence, they say their aim is to build wheels that are equally up to the task of bikepacking, ultra-racing, trail riding, and gravel racing as their Texas-made frames. Learn more about Stoke’s high-end, made-to-last custom wheels at StokeCustomWheels.com.

Paul Talley is Colorado Trail Foundation’s new Executive Director

This week, the Colorado Trail Foundation announced that Paul Talley will be joining their team as the new Executive Director. Paul will be starting in early June and will be replacing outgoing Executive Director Tisha McCombs. Paul comes to CTF after spending six years as the Executive Director of Wilderness Trek, a non-profit based out of Santa Fe, New Mexico, offering guided transformational wilderness adventures. While new to The Colorado Trail Foundation, Paul is certainly not new to The Colorado Trail. Paul bikepacked the CT in 2018 and created a short film sharing his journey, which you can watch above.

Tell Me About Your Bike: Sea Otter 2024

YouTuber Dustin Klein was meandering around the show grounds at this year’s Sea Otter Classic in search of standout bikes, and his latest video highlights a diverse range of rigs, including some we covered in depth in our roundups and several others that are a little beyond our scope but no less interesting. He shares a selection of riders and bikes he encountered in the video above.

Events Starting Soon

What to watch this weekend and bikepacking events starting soon…

Allegheny Mountains Loop

The Allegheny Mountains Loop (AML) follows the 400-mile route mapped by Adventure Cycling Association. The route begins and ends at Virginia Tech’s War Memorial Chapel in Blacksburg, Virginia. The grand depart occurs each April and is a chance to ride the loop as fast as you can. This morning, four brave souls set off to tackle the route and you can follow their progress live here.

Wish We Were Here

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

Tom Norman: Peruvian Andes

I’m sitting in an office cubicle for the 648th hour this year, and it just keeps happening; the click-clacking of keyboards fades into the murmur of tires on dirt roads. I stare blankly, the code on the screen in front of me blurs, and suddenly, I’m there—descending a 5,000-metre mountain pass with a friend I’ve not seen in over a year. Snowy peaks punctuate the horizon all around us. Llamas and alpacas roam free. An abundance of serene wild-camping spots have our heads spinning more than the thin air. We’re all aboard one of the finest Andean rollercoasters known to the bikepacking community. You guessed it, I’m daydreaming about the Peru Great Divide for the billionth time in the past couple months. I can hardly believe that these dreams will start becoming memories in just a few days. Nor can I believe I actually quit what was once a dream job to make it happen, but YOLO and all that, y’know!

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