Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Our Reader’s Rig of the week comes from Angus Young in the UK, who shares a look at his intriguing Mason Macro hardtail 29er in advance of his individual time trial (ITT) of the Arizona Trail 800, which starts on Sunday. Get to know a little about Angus, his unreleased bike, and his mindset going into the ITT here…
Angus Young is an ultra-endurance athlete and secondary school chemistry teacher living in Dorset, England. He’s logged some impressive results over the last few years, including second at GBDURO (2019), second at FRTHR (2019), and a first-place finish at the Pan Celtic Race (2021). In 2022, Angus set new fastest known times (FKTs) on the Dales Divide and European Divide Trail. Most recently, he took first place at the 2023 Highland Trail 550 in Scotland.
For Angus’ first “race” in North America, he’s heading to Arizona to tackle the 800-mile Arizona Trail route, traversing the state from Mexico to Utah over incredibly diverse and unforgiving terrain. We noticed he was riding the unreleased Mason Macro and caught up with him to learn more about his bike and his thoughts before the big day. Find details from Angus below, and scroll down for a tracking map you can use to follow along live on Sunday.
Words by Angus Young
For me, the Arizona Trail has always had a certain draw, certainly more so than the other two of the “Big Three.” Perhaps it’s the desert landscape or the mystery of the Grand Canyon portage. Either way, it’s been on my list for a while, so I thought that this Easter would be a good time for me to do my first “race” across the pond. I’ll be setting off from Border Monument 103 on Easter Sunday and heading from there, so do follow along on Trackleaders!
It will be my first time using the unreleased Mason Macro, an aluminum hardtail with slightly tighter geometry than the RAW. It looks so nice in the anodized bronze finish.
Mason Macro Build Kit
- Frame: Mason Macro
- Fork: RockShox Sid 110mm
- Wheels: Hunt beyond carbon dynamo
- Tires: Vittoria Syerra with Vittoria inserts and sealant
- Groupset: SRAM GX Eagle AXS
- Seatpost: Crank Brothers Highline 180mm with Wolf Tooth Valais
- Handlebar: Enve M6
- Grips: Ergon grips and Spirigrips “bar inners”
- Saddle: Fizik Terra Argo
- Bags: Restrap Race range with custom half-frame bag
- Lights: Exposure Revo dynamo, BoostR rear, Diablo headlamp
- GPS: Garmin Edge 830 solar and InReach Mini 2 for tracking
What’s in the bags is all pretty standard. I’ve packed pretty conservatively as there is a decent amount of snow in the forecast, and I don’t want to be caught out! For the Grand Canyon portage (and all hike-a-bike sections), I’ll be using the Restrap Hike A Bike harness, which takes just 15 seconds to deploy.
We are blessed that there are so many fantastic resources for planning and prep. To prepare, I’ve used a mixture of the BIKEPACKING.com route page, previous Trackleaders data, the Farout app for water, the AZTR Facebook group, and a whole load of blog posts. This has given me a bit of a flavour of the trail, but despite all this, I’m still pretty unsure as to how it’s going to pan out.
The big source of uncertainty for me is the weather and ground conditions. There has been some pretty wild weather in the high country over the past couple of weeks, with more to come. This could mean anything from being grateful that I’ve packed some extra warm kit to the last third of the route being impassable due to a combination of death mud and snowpack.
One thing is for sure: it’s going to be wild!
Live Tracking
Further Reading
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