Reader’s Rig: Ty’s Tumbleweed Prospector

Words and photos by Ty Domin (@tydomin)

I’m Ty, and I currently live in Canberra, Australia. My cycling interests evolved from social riding to serious racing on the road, track, XC marathon, and 24-hour circuit before I decided to ride my bike around the world.

Once you have aimlessly rolled around the planet, it’s hard to fathom riding as fast as you can for a short period of time again, relying on a team or coach. Luckily, I found out about the first Race to the Rock in 2016, left my race and touring bikes at home, and attached as much stuff as possible to my mountain bike. There has been a lot of water under the bridge since then, even an eighth place overall riding the Tour Divide singlespeed, but my greatest step forward in bike setup occurred when I touched a sewing machine for the first time in my life during the lockdowns of 2020. Fast forward two years, my partner and I no longer use bags we bought. Each and every individual bag has been sewn in our spare room under the name Yeah Nah Thread Works (YNTW).

It certainly is the time to be alive with respect to the variety of bikes available to fit the niche and desire of every cyclist. Over the years, I have had two custom bikes made to fit my requirements for gear hauling, tyre size, and drivetrain choice. But, these days, if you’re of average dimensions, it’s just a matter of internet searching to source what you want. As such, I was excited when I found that the Tumbleweed Prospector ticked every box of my personal requirements, with the added bonus of accepting fat bike tyres for our planned move to snowy Canada (up to 26 x 4.0″ all with a 180mm Q-factor).

• Frame/Fork Tumbleweed Prospector (boost fork)
• Rims WTB Scraper i45 27.5
• Hubs SON Dynamo (front) / Rohloff (rear)
• Tires Maxxis Rekon 27.5 x 2.8
• Handlebars Alpkit Confucius with Ergon GP5 grips
• Headset White Industries
• Crankset Shimano XT
• Pedals Shimano M540
• Brakes Avid BB7
• Shifter(s) Rohloff
• Saddle Brooks Cambium C17
• Seatpost Ritchey
• Stem 50mm
• Front bags YNTW Bar harness, Bar roll and bolt-on Micro Panniers
• Frame bags YNTW split frame bag
• Rear bags YNTW Micro Panniers (30x30x10cm)
• Front Rack Tumbleweed T-Rack
• Rear Rack Tubus Logo Evo
• Accessory bags YNTW TT bag and stem bags
• Lights KLite front and rear with dual USB charger
• Other accessories Mucky Nutz front mud guard, Vargo BOT

While we generally use traditional bikepacking bags (saddle and fork bags), our next great adventure around the world requires more cargo space, so we have moved back to panniers. Of course, panniers are generally a one-size-fits-all compromise of larger carrying capacity at the cost of rattling and shaking, at least until you can make them to custom fit your bike and specific rack, with buckles and Velcro placed right where they need to be and optimise the bag to work around obstacles like water bottles and feet.

I’m happy to say that the bike is silent and handles superbly even on the rowdiest of singletrack. Made with Challenge Ultra 800, they may also just be the most abrasion-resistant panniers on the planet, especially with custom internal dry bags that allow us to unload them in one go rather than removing them at camp or in town.

You can follow along with Ty on Instagram @tydomin.

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