Friday Debrief: Grappler Hack, Ultralight Camp Vest, BXB Flap Pockets, 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…

Cane Creek Liège Bar Tape

$24.99 at Cane Creek

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Named after two of road cycling’s “Monument” races, Cane Creek’s Liège and Flanders handlebar tapes offer a solid feel at an affordable price. With useful features like Smart Gel backing strips that don’t leave adhesive residue on your handlebars as well as rubberized, high-stretch finishing tape, it looks to be a good bar tape offering from the North Carolina component company.

Bags By Bird Front Flap Pocket Add-On

Made in Arizona, USA / $18 USD at Bags By Bird

Jay Ritchey of Bags By Bird recently gave customers the ability to add an external pocket to his Piccolo and Goldback bags. For 18 bucks, you can add a bit of storage to an already great saddle bag. Per Jay, “It’s made from strong ultrastretch mesh, so folks can feel free to overstuff since it expands to eat up their snacks. Its velcro closure is quick to shut when riding—nothing to fiddle with, just give it a pat and let the velcro seal itself.”

Pinarello Grevil F

€3,500+ at Pinarello

Launched today, the new Pinarello Grevil F is… certainly something. With a carbon frameset sporting some unexpected twists and turns, it was designed for fast-paced, long-distance rides and features 50mm tire clearance, a downtube storage compartment, and several aero-optimized touches. There are an assortment of carbon, color, and build options that range from €3,500 on up to an eye-watering €11,000. Model availability depends on region.

Search and State UV-1 Ultralight Camp Vest

Made in New York City / $155 at Search and State

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New for 2025, the Search and State UV-1 Ultralight Camp Vest is the brand’s lightest and smallest-packing vest yet. It’s designed as a go-to layer for unpredictable conditions, offering wind and water resistance that compresses down to nearly fit in the palm of your hand. Built from a durable synthetic blend, it fits true to size with an athletic cut and comes in camo.

Framework Designs Renew

Made in China / Coming Soon at Framework Designs

After seven years of making small batches of bags in-house, Framework Designs in Australia, owned and operated by Tia Evans, is transitioning to a new business structure. Frameworks Renew is a new lineup of products that will be ethically made overseas to take some of the pressure off of Tia. This will also allow Tia to continue offering Melbourne-made products, including the Sight Seeker and Haul All. These products will fall under the “Bespoke” lineup.

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Renew products are made from water resistant materials RPET (recycled plastic bottles) exterior, Recycled Polyester Lining, Recycled Aquaguard YKK Zip and Recycled Nylon Webbing. They’ll be produced in an ethically accredited factory in Guangzhou, China. Unfortunately, the current tariff situation means the Renew collection won’t be available to US customers when they arrive, but they might be eventually. You can learn more about Tia and Framework Designs from our shop visit here.

SimWorks by Honjo Smooth 60 26″ Fenders

Made in Tokyo / $120 at SimWorks

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SimWorks just added an all-new Smooth 60 fender option for 26″ wheels. According to the brand, “The design draws inspiration from popular Smooth fender profiles to work with Honjo Kokken of Tokyo to create this elegant mudguard, that will be right at home on your Mamachari-inspired townie, or retromod ATB bike.”

Co-op Team Listings

Bike Camp Co-op

In case you missed it, several team members added nearly 100 new listings to the Bike Camp Co-op this week, with a lot of great deals and hard-to-find bags and gear in the mix. Plus, we recently added the ability to view all listings from individual sellers; you can find those linked just below the member’s name on any listing detail. Have a peek at Neil’s, Virginia’s, and Logan’s dedicated seller pages to see everything they’ve listed, all in one place. You can now easily filter “available” items using the checkbox at the top of each listings page, too!

Aeroe Cradle Hack

Grappler Group

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We stumbled on this hack by George Leakos on Facebook and thought it was worth sharing. George isn’t a fan of traditional handlebar cradles or bulky front-end setups. Instead, he prefers to position his load lower, mounted at the fork crown. To achieve the best of both worlds, he adapted an Aeroe Spider cradle using a few pieces of DIY hardware, creating a custom solution that keeps the load stable and well-balanced. He mentioned that the setup works particularly well with his 13-liter Sea to Summit River bag and, according to George, is rock solid on the trail.

Teravail Launches Casual Wear

$40 USD+ at Teravail

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Teravail recently launched a line of casual wear items that includes a hat and T-shirt. If you’re a fan of their rubber, here’s a chance to grab some swag to show it off.

In Conversation

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

Do Fastest Known Times and Records Make Sense?

We recently dispatched a podcast from Bikes Or Death that featured the 2025 men’s Tour Divide single speed winner, Andrew Onermaa, speaking to his ride. In it, he gets deep on the experience and all the challenges he faced. However, a large part of the conversation focuses on the record he narrowly missed out on: the men’s single speed FKT. Falling short to Chris Plesko’s 2016 time of 15 days, 8 hours, and 1 minute by just a few hours, Andrew spoke to the differences in the route, how much it has changed, and how the nature of fastest known times are individual and specific to the conditions of that particular year. It wasn’t a sour grapes moment, just an acknowledgement that both rides were hard, and that the recent iterations of the race include a lot of very challenging terrain that hasn’t always been part of the route.

Within that idea comes a thought that has percolated through the community: are FKT’s something of a misnomer? Perhaps less consequential for shorter races and routes, the idea of an FKT for a course that spans 2,700 miles and is constantly subject to major changes due to weather seems somewhat harsh. But, what do you think? Let us know in the Conversation below…

Around the Community

News from around the bikepacking world…

Lachlan Morton’s Longform Substack

Lachlan Morton is back to his atypical ways, this time with a longform Substack. In it, he runs readers through his detailed pack list for Migration Gravel Race, a stage-style event in Maasai Mara, Kenya, including a variety of musings on his travels, films, music, and so much more. It’s a classically eclectic look from the Aussie, so don’t miss out.

Coros Dura App 4.0 Update

Coros Dura users will be pleased to hear that Coros recently released the first major software update of 2025. App 4.0, which is now available in beta for the public, delivers faster navigation, easier device management, new training features, and more. Some specific features that sound promising include the ability to navigate mid-ride, street names displayed on turn-by-turn directions, and new re-routing options when users go off-course. Find a full list of features and updates at Coros.com.

Heart Rate and Cycling With a Famed Cardiologist

Although it’s more of a road-focused subject, the tracking and discussion around heart rate data relates to all forms of cycling. A recent episode of the Life In The Peloton podcast featured a years-long follow-up with famed cardiologist Dr. Andre Le Gerche to talk about how cycling affects the heart. It’s a really interesting episode that speaks to just how much the heart is affected by even the most minor rides and is a good insight for anyone at any level of cycling.

The Rift Iceland Gravel Race Documentary

“Cycling Through Hell and Heaven” documents Christoph Döttelmayer’s experience racing The Rift in Iceland, a 200-kilometer gravel race with nearly 2,000 meters of elevation. Here’s what filmmaker Gábor Nagy had to say about the film: “I worked on this adventure documentary film in the last two years (with shorter and longer breaks). The film is about Christoph Döttelmayer, an enthusiastic amateur cyclist from Austria who loves everything he’s doing and still he needs to find time for training and racing next to his full time job. I followed his journey from training in the cold winter Alps to the finish line at The Rift Gravel Race in Iceland in July.”

Montanus “MORSO” Tripod Mount

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In preparation for a ride on the Oregon Timber Trail, Francesco and Giorgio of Montanus whipped up a clever harness to carry a tripod on their bikes. The Morso, which is Italian for “bit,” like the one horses wear in their bridles, attaches to the top tube using several pieces of velcro, and has two Voile straps to wrap around the tripod and top tube to secure everything in place. See more photos on their Instagram.

Events Starting Soon

What to watch this weekend and bikepacking events starting soon…

2025 Oregon Timber Trail

The Oregon Timber Trail Race and Tour is an unofficial bikepacking event along the spine of Oregon from the California border to the Washington border. There are no entry fees, no prizes, and no support. This year’s event starts tomorrow morning from Lakeview, Oregon at 6 a.m. local time, with riders choosing from a 300-mile or full 700-mile route. There are over 20 riders signed up, and you can follow their progress live here.

Wisla 1200

The Wisla 1200 is a bikepacking race, almost 1,200 kilometers, that follows a scenic and historically relevant route through some of the most beautiful areas of Europe. The race starts in Wisła, Poland, tomorrow morning, and you can follow along live here.

District 16: A Lake District Bike Packing Odyssey

District 16 is a 620-kilometer bikepacking odyssey that explores the beauty of the English Lake District. The route is designed to be tough with over 18,500 meters of ascent, all while showcasing the beauty of the English Lake District. Expect flowing singletrack, hike-a-bike, spectacular scenery, technical trails, long climbs, big mountain exposure, and visits to the 16 main lakes, meres, and waters. This year’s event took off yesterday morning, and you can keep on eye on how things go via their Instagram page.

Wish We Were Here

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

Lucas Winzenburg: Albania

Every so often, my wanderlust inevitably leads me back to dreaming of returning to the Balkans for another bikepacking trip. There’s a clear theme developing, as I’ve already mentioned the Bosnian Highline and Croatia’s Adriatic Crest in previous installments of Wish We Were Here. This time around, I’m envisioning a ride around beautiful Albania, my favorite country in the region, along the 205-mile Raki Roads route. My previous trip to Albania had me fleeing a rapidly approaching winter in favor of the Greek coast further south, and I’ve been regretting the need to rush through the country’s spectacular landscapes ever since.

Weekly Social

Some things we found around the ‘gram and elsewhere. This week, some snaps of George Bailey’s new Ritchey Ultra Team Edition build, courtesy of photographer and writer Wayne Parsons.

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