I've been threatening to go bike packing/touring for a pretty long time now and a couple years ago I kind of almost actually did it when I rode to wallace and stayed in a hotel and then rode back the next day. I even bought a lighter weight, more packable tent, had a frame bag and seat pack and handlebar roll for my my mountain bike, have planned out many routes, have fitness and the time and money to do it, but guess what, no trips at all last year. Just the one ever.
Last spring I came up with the idea of a new bike that might help me go do that more often. The racey orbea gravel bike didn't really handle a ton of stuff strapped to it that well, so what if I had more of a touring bike? Still with drop bars and road-ish geo and fit, but big tires. Like "offroad touring." Wait is that still just a gravel bike?
Part of what gave me this idea was that I had recently put some 50mm gravel tires on a customer's Kona Sutra because he kept getting flats on his tubed 40s. Kona used to make a bike called the sutra limited, which was exactly that- the steel touring sutra with 1x11 and 50mm gravel tires, so why not bring it back? with hookers, and blackjack! There is a current sutra ltd, but it's a little different, with a suspension corrected fork, wider bb, taller stack, and 31.6 seatpost meant to improve dropper compatibility. It's getting closer to a drop bar mountain bike and while it has plenty of tire clearance and carrying capacity it is not compatible with more road oriented cranks or chainring sizes. Is there really any difference? I dunno maybe. Probably it would work fine. But anyway that old sutra fit 2.2" tires and in my mind I could build one with 1x12 and mtb tires and then go touring/bikepacking on it. Lots of mounts, a rear rack, panniers, fork packs etc, but a road fit and riding feel as opposed to just using a mountain bike.
Kona, however, didn't want to make this project easy. They only sell the sutra as a complete bike and even bugging the rep for the entire summer wasn't enough to get me just a frame possibly out of the warranty department. So I guess I buy a complete bike and then build it the way I want and hopefully get some money back selling the stock parts. but then they were out of stock. So finally, after Dan mentioned a winter desert tour, I committed to ordering a sutra and actually got one before the trip.
Step one- strip down to frame
Step two- rebuild
Step three- add a rack and bags
step four- go ride it in the desert for a week
Details, I guess:
I started with a sutra, then built it the way I wanted. Strapped a bunch of stuff on there, and went on a trip. The drivetrain is a rival/gx axs combo that lets me use a full mountain bike cassette with road shifters and cranks and a medium sized chainring.
I already had the wheels, which I built back when I still had the kona major jake. They are nox skyline carbon rims on dt 240 hubs. Something like 1400g. For tires I wanted to use 2.2 dubnitals, but they didn't quite fit and i downsized to 2.0 race kings. Kind of annoyed about that.
In addition to the wheels, I already had the cranks, handlebars, seatpost, saddle, pedals, rack, frame bag, and seat bag and so really I just needed the rest of the drivetrain to have a whole bike (plus the little things like a headset, bottom bracket, bar tape etc). And a carbon fork to replace the stock steel part.
For bags, I went with ortlieb gravel panniers and ortlieb fork packs. I punched new holes in my bontrager half frame bag to bolt it to the bottle mounts on the bottom of the top tube. I had the saddle bag already, and then wanted that bolt on apidura top tube bag that is very light weight and uses a cool magnet closure. The downtube has a little apidura cargo cage bag stuck to a wolf tooth cargo cage, and then for the handlebar bag I chose a swift capstone, mainly because it was a bag that I could order through a distributor and it fit between my pretty narrow hood position.
Additionally, I 3d printed a couple of things, like a front light mount that bolts to the fork crown, a set of holder things for my tent poles as they are too long to fit in the panniers, and a spacer and support for the handlebar bag to let me hold onto the tops of the handlebars and keep it from just swinging around.
I think I'll list the specs and end this post here, and then make another one about the trip and I suppose talk about all the packing and bag details and stuff too.
Frame: Kona Sutra, size 56
Fork: Seido MGV
Wheels: DT Swiss 240 to Nox skyline, 23mm internal width, hookless, 28h. dt comp spokes
Tires: 29x2.0 Continental Race King
Shift levers: Sram Rival E1 AXS
Derailleur: Sram GX AXS
Cassette: Sram GX 10-52
Cranks: Sram red
Chainring: Wolf Tooth 42t direct mount
Chain: Sram XX1 gold with wax|
Rotors: Sram paceline 160mm
BB: sram dub bsa
Headset: cane creek 40
Handlebars: Easton EC90AX 42cm
Tape: Zipp service course CX
Stem: Bontrager pro 120mm x -17d
Seatpost: Bontrager RSL
Saddle: Shimano pro stealth
Pedals: Shimano XT T-8000 single sided
Rack: Bontrager lightweight
Weight: 22lbs, which seems ok seeing how the frame alone was 6, plus the tires and cassette are fairly heavy.
In addition to the touring thing, I think this will work pretty good as an all around gravel and commuting bike and keep some wear off the Orbea, which I have already ridden nearly 10k miles in two years.
Some more pictures
