Packing for the Alpine Loop - Salsa Deadwood

[Christophe Noel]

In a few minutes I roll out the door to take the Salsa Deadwood to Silverton to do a lap around the Alpine Loop. The plan is to also include a ride up the road towards Uncompagre Peak, spend some time in American Basin, and not knock down too many miles in three days of riding. Lots of picture taking.

I thought I'd share my packing list as I know this is always a popular topic. For this trip the considerations are:

- Mountain storms. I'm preparing for late PM showers and assume there might be some that linger into the night.
- Altitude. I'll hit 12,000 feet three times.
- Comfort. I'm not trying to break any records. This is a mountain toodle.


Bike: Salsa Deadwood

Bags: Bedrock Bags Coconino Seat Bag, Frame Bag, and Andrew's new drop bar bag. I'm a huge fan of BedRock.
Backpack: Osprey Hornet 24.

Tent: Terra Nova Laser Comp 1. This is my comfort kit. Two pounds total with loads of room and superb storm proofness. I will sleep well.

Pad: Sea to Summit Ultra-Light. My favorite pad ever.
Sleeping Bag: Sea to Summit Spark sPIII. This is a new bag for me and I really love it. Usually comfy down into the 30s.

Storm Gear: GoreTex jacket and pants from Gore Apparel. That's all I ever use. Ever.

Mid Layer / Sleep layer: Patagonia sent me preproduction samples of their new Merino Air top and bottom. Great stuff. A tad bulky.

Stove: Snow Peak LiteMax.

Cookpot: MSR Titan Titanium Tea Kettle. Had it for years. My go-to.
Cup: MSR Titan Titanium Cup. Again, a go-to.

Water Treatment: Steripen Adventure Opti.

Lighting: This is really only for camp use and emergency. The main light is a Black Diamond Storm. My backup....a very cool one is a Coast HP3R.

Tools and spares: Tube, patches, extra valve core, small bottle of sealant, thread/needle, multitool, chain links, brake pads, tire lever, tire boots, zip ties, duct tape, super glue, chain lube, small rag and a pump.

Food: Dehydrated meals from Good to Go. I will also eat Justin's Almond Butter packs, Kind Bars, Epic Bars (meat), Sweetwood Bully Bars (meat), Fig Bars, and only a few sweet chews. I try to avoid sugars these days and only burn them at upper altitudes where they process faster than protein calories. Fluids are augmented with Camelbak electrolyte tabs.

There are other items on board. I have my Fuji XT-1 camera with 18-55 lens. Sony sent me a new 4K Action Cam to test and I will bring along my Sirui Carbon tripod for good shots. It's a full boat.

This is about as much as I carry on any trip. I'd wager the weight of everything, including bags but not including water, is pushing 26 pounds. I packed more food than I probably need, but I'm a skinny twit.

The only other items of interest are a Garmin Epix watch for track keeping, and a Delorme inReach to keep my wife up to speed with my location just in case.

Off we go!

Oh, and one last thing. All of this gets to the trail head on our latest test car, a Subaru Crosstrek 2.0i using a KUAT Trio rack. That's a lot of product to test and evaluate on one trip, but it will be a good one!

 

[toddz69]

Safe travels! Looking forward to the report and photos.

Todd Z.

 

[JPsLC]

Thanks for sharing details of your packing list. I look forward to hearing about the Deadwood!

 

[Ryanmb21]

awesome!

 

[jayspies]

Super sweet. Looking forward to the photos and write-up...

 

[Christophe Noel]

Well, the trip went off without a hitch. I had dramatic weather that wasn't too bad. I had one night of wicked skeeters, one of heavy rain, and one with high winds. Just the way I like it. Variety.

The thing I like about bikepacking, and most backcountry trips, is that the gear selection is never constant. People always ask what I take on my trips and it changes with each outing. Sometimes I nail it, sometimes I don't. For this trip....I didn't. However, I took more than I needed which is far better than the alternative.

In the "Didn't Need" category:

- Two headlamps. Not sure how I managed to pack two lamps, but I didn't need either.
- Down jacket. Temps were mild and I could have left it behind.
- Food, food and food. I took way too much.
- Jersey. I could have gotten away with one shirt.

In the "Forgot to bring" category:
- Extra socks. If just to sleep in.

The full report is coming.

-

 

[Co-opski]

Thanks Flounder! This is the good stuff that keeps me hooked on ExPo.

 

[YotaPilot]

Looking forward to the full report!

 

[monkeyrider]

Looking forward to the full report!

Ditto. Nice pics.

I was at a salsa demo recently and they had just one deadwood. Only four exist at the moment. They said one was out for an extended test out west. Good to see it in the wild. I took a cutthroat for a ride. Damn nice bike.

 

[Ryanmb21]

looking forward to it.

 

[Christophe Noel]

Ditto. Nice pics.

I was at a salsa demo recently and they had just one deadwood. Only four exist at the moment. They said one was out for an extended test out west. Good to see it in the wild. I took a cutthroat for a ride. Damn nice bike.

I spent the day boxing it up to send back to Salsa HQ. Sad to see it go. It's a super fun bike.

 

[Butch1979]

That Deadwood seems pretty slick! I look forward to your thoughts on it.

 

[JPsLC]

Christophe, I'm dying for a trip report!

 

[Christophe Noel]

Û

Christophe, I'm dying for a trip report!

The trip report will be live on the front page on Monday the 31st.

More teasers:

For those of you looking for more specific information on the Deadwood, I'll download some of that here.

At the root of it, the Deadwood is a freak of nature. It really is. Ironically, it is exactly what you would expect from the sum of its parts. The drop bars give better than expected control and have ample leverage to move the big front wheel. Those wheels, while they do offer amazing compliance with their big fat squishiness, are surprisingly swift and don't roll like fatter tires. It really is like riding a Fargo with about 25% more compliance, if that makes any sense.

So here's the advanced evaluation. Odd as it sounds, I would take a Deadwood almost to the same terrain I would a full suspension Spearfish. The differentiator would be the terrain and how technical it gets. Not necessarily how rough, but how technical. Because the Deadwood uses drop bars and has NO suspension, it loves chunky gravel roads with lots of ruts, rocks and choss. Almost the kind of terrain that befits a full susser like a Spearfish. However, the Deadwood is a bit of a handful on techy descents because of the drop bars and the BB7 brakes, a combo that is a little underpowered and tricky when it gets steep, fast and technical.

Under load, the Deadwood is also rock solid stable, comfortable, and far more nimble that you might expect. Again...it's a weird bike in all the good reasons you would hope for. My only quip would be with gearing, but that's coming from a trip with HUGE climbs with more gear than I often take. I was in granny gear....for hours at a time. I would have liked to lose 2 teeth up front so I could spin a tad more, but that's nit-pick territory and only because I was riding on steep climbs at nearly 13,000 feet.

Everything else about the bike is super. The parts spec is perfect. Not a single complaint anywhere with the parts package. Even the tires did great. It's another Salsa you buy off the rack and ride into the dirt without so much as changing the seat.

And I have to say, coming down Engineer Pass in a full blown rainstorm, I was hauling balls. I was flying past Jeeps at 20-25 mph on some pretty rocky trail, and even blew past two guys on decked out adventure motorcycles. I beat one kitted out JK back to Silverton...by 30 minutes. The drivers met me at a bar in town and couldn't believe how fast I was going. I admit, it was bumpy, but so much fun. AND FAST.

What a fun bicycle. As Justin Julian said, it's like a Fargo with a lift kit and bigger tires.

 

[Christophe Noel]

By the way, I have a favor to ask of you fine gents.

In order to justify more bikey goodness on the home page, we need to bump up our bike editorial traffic. Please share the bike pieces as they pop up on the home page with your pals. The more views they get, the more we can feature. And ultimately, the more successful the bike section is, the greater the chance we can fold in our members into the actual adventures.