Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Our Reader’s Rig of the week comes from Guido Gazzaniga, who shares the custom all-roader he had built by Italian framebuilder Dario Colombo of Bice Bicycles. Check it out here…
Words and photos by Guido Gazzaniga
Hi, my name is Guido. Yes, just like the ethnic slur for any working class Italian-American from the infamous TV series Jersey Shore. I come from Milan and I’ve been addicted to cycling since 2009. I started like many, commuting to work. Then a friend of mine introduced me to the alleycat world and without even realizing exactly how, five years later I left my job and started working as a tour guide for an American active travel company. If you have a cycling addiction like I do it’s definitely the best job one can have: up until this year when all my work evaporated due to the pandemic. It’s been a pain on the one hand, but on the other it has allowed me to have a free summer, something I haven’t had the chance to enjoy in the past six years.
My first bikepacking trip was the Via Francigena (the pilgrim’s path that leads to Rome from Northern Italy) in 2013. Since then I haven’t been able to travel by bike as much as I’ve wanted. So this summer, instead of continuously looking for a new job, I took my bike and started riding around Italy, including the Wolf’s Lair. It was pretty cool, at least until I looked at my bank account.
I’ve known Dario of Bice Bicycle since the golden age of the northern Italian ciclocross single speed series. We met around seven years ago. What I like about him is that he can be as precise as an engineer and as creative as a drunken painter all at once. So when the time came for a new bike I went straight to him. He also happens to live pretty close.
The idea for this frame was to have a gravel/all-round/all-road bike (it’s really hard to keep track of all the categories the bike industry comes up with these days) that’s light enough to be used on tarmac, short enough to enjoy some cyclocross courses, wide enough to accomodate 45mm tires, and drilled enough to have the possibility to install plenty of racks and panniers if needed. The frame is made with a mix of Columbus tubes and sliding dropouts, which are useful when it comes to accommodate wider tires. Despite how the geometry might be more on the CX side, the bike is super comfortable also on longer rides and when fully loaded.
Oh, and the guy on the cockpit is named Snorty. My girlfriend and I found him at a gas station in Tahoe in 2018 and since then he has been traveling with us everywhere we go!
- Frame Bice Bicycles Custom
- Fork Ritchey WCS Carbon Adventure Gravel
- Rims DT Swiss 1400 Spline
- Hubs DT Swiss 240
- Tires WTB Riddler 700 x 45mm
- Handlebars Ritchey WCS Butano
- Headset Columbus
- Crankset Rotor 3D
- Pedals Shimano XTR 9000
- Cassette Recon 11/36 Ti
- Derailleur Shimano GRX 11-Speed
- Brakes Shimano GRX
- Shifter(s) Shimano GRX
- Saddle Specialized Romin Evo
- Seatpost Ritchey WCS
- Stem Ritchey WCS
- Front bags Revelate Designs Harness from 2013 with 10l waterproof bag
- Frame bags Arch Ind
- Rear bags Revelate Designs, also from 2013
- Accessory bags Revelate Design Mag Tank
Send Us Your Bikepacking Rig
Use the form below to submit your bikepacking rig. We’ll choose one per week to feature in a Reader’s Rig Dispatch and on Instagram. To enter, email us your best photo of the bike (preferably at a 90° angle), your Instagram username (optional), and a short description of you and your rig. If your bike is selected, we’ll need a total of five photos and a little bit more info.
Readers Rig
Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.
