today is officially our rest day we're taking a bit of a break from cycling Across America and
as promised here's a video about my bike this is a bonus video and we're really tired so bear with
me we're in uh just in a a car park it's a nice car park though there's like palm trees and stuff
so this is my Scott addict gravel this is a size small carbon frame set gravel specific
but without gravel tires on because we're not riding any gravel the reason I'm riding this
frame is because it has a slightly more relaxed geometry compared to the foil which I have at
home and it has a few more mounting options as well which I'll cover in a second wheels are
parkour Alters gravel specific Wheels super wide internal diameter with road tires on 28
millimeter Hutchinson Fusion fives group set is a SRAM Eagle mix this is a mullet style group set so
one by on the front got a massive mountain bike cassette cassette is a 10 to 52 exactly the same
as what's on Justin's bike we've done that on purpose and a 46 tooth front chainring it's all
etap so it works wirelessly we have spare batteries with us handlebars and seat posts
are both Synchro so the sister company to Scott the seat post is Aero fits this Frame
the handlebars are one piece bar and stem 40 centimeter bars with a little bit of flare so
I think they're 42 on the drops saddle is a cell Italia boost SLR this is the carbon
railed version and I think that's it for the actual bike now there's loads of stuff strapped
to it Justin I need your help because I can't remember where any of the stuff is
I'm here your hand bike you're just carrying your wheelchair on the back people would have
seen that in previous episodes which means I'm carrying most of the rest of the stuff I still
have some spare tires some spare in the tubes and a jacket and a Camelback and a water bottle
code of Gatorade which will forever Taste of Gatorade the water bottle still tastes like it's
very fast so we needed to carry as much stuff on my bike as possible which means tail fin rear rack
the tail fin rack is basically two carbon struts that attach to the thru axle of the bike and
then to the seat post this makes it really really stable and it doesn't move around very much at all
on the top we have the tail fin Aero pack which is a singular bag I think it's about 20 liters of
capacity and then I've gone for both panniers on the sides as well each of those is an additional
20 liters of capacity all three of those bags have a maximum weight limit of 10 kilograms what's
inside that one the one chip challenge inside of the pannier on the right hand side of my bike we
have a one chip challenge which is a super spicy one tortilla chip not that useful for riding also
I have all my editing equipment so I've got this camera some cables a bag like it takes up a lot of
space I believe the Germans call it cable salad top bag up here we have a puffer down jacket my
normal pair of shoes which I'm currently wearing and then a bag of normal clothes not very many
but a few t-shirts uh a spare pair of pants and some socks we're really troubling light only Hugo
Commander with bipshots I did not know this did you know that but I don't wear bib shorts no or
pants so it doesn't matter if you wear pants as well as big shorts then they end up chafing in
the other bag we've got all of Justin's stuff so it's all contained and when we finish at the end
of a ride I can just go there's your stuff and at the bottom of the pannier we filled it with tires
and inner tubes specific to Justin's bike because he has a smaller wheel size to me special mention
to the Garmin varia we have two of these These are lights made by Garmin we have a on the back
of the wheelchair as well this is the newest version which records video this is the older
version I put this on because the clip fitted better on my tail fin the really great thing
about these lights is that they link to your head unit on the front of the bike and they'll tell you
using radar that a car is coming up behind you so when we're on the big Moon Road it will literally
tell you when a truck's coming up how fast the truck's going and you can see it approaching you
so we know if it's safe to move out if there's something obstructing the cycle Lane and it's
just a brilliant piece of tech to have this is a very good opportunity to mention that this video
is sponsored by Garmin and if you stick around to the end we're going to be giving away a very
cool piece of tech other really important stuff that we have on here is a Star Spangled Banner
which keeps us safe this was a smart move you may have also noticed that we have an orange ski strap
here holding on a piece of gaffer tape because it won't fit in any of the other bags why do we have
gaffer tape Justin for alligators Francis oh no that's in case my carbon bike implodes no sorry
explodes if it implodes then I'm in trouble and I can't fix it if it explodes I can fix it with
I hope I got that the right way around the good told me before I came out but I can't really
remember moving up to the middle of the bike we have first a silker pump tatico yeah the tatico
so I had two of these I had a gravel one and the non-gravel one I taken the non-gravel one you can
get some serious pressure out of this thing I've been popping out my tires every couple of days
with it it's just so well made like everything from silca bags in the middle of the bike are
both prototype not available for purchase yet from tail fin so we've got a full frame bag triangle
shaped this fastens on with four straps to the frame super secure it's got a few different Zips
in it and I filled this bag pretty much fully with tires and inner tubes for my bike other things in
here are minican of gt85 for cleaning purposes in the bottom bit you know I can't actually remember
what I put in here tire sealant that's another thing I forgot to mention tires are tubeless
might as well have a shot at them ceiling before putting an inner tube in and then more inner tubes
in that bottom bit the top bag stuff that I wanted to access quickly so we have front light also made
by Garmin very super super super super bright I haven't actually found a way to fit this neatly
to the front of my bike so what I've got is a uh action camera clamp so I can fit it on
the handlebars in a rush if we do get caught out riding in the dark we have some stirker salts I've
been getting through these especially with the hot days recently uh on the east coast probably won't
be as much reason to need them later on in the trip because it's going to get cooler in the next
few days hopefully cycling cap into the 360 on a selfie stick so I can like put it in the sky and
pretend it's a drone and also in there some fluffy gloves have definitely not been needed yet power
pedals we've got Garmin rallies these are the off-road version so I can use my off-road shoes
they measure your power I haven't been looking on my power but it is actually quite nice to look at
afterwards when we do hit some bigger climbs it'll probably be a brilliant thing to use for pacing as
well because you can see exactly how hard you're pushing and not go too hard because if you go too
hard you run out food you're in trouble so far we've been doing pretty much all of this ride on
feel like we are recording heart rate with our watches this is a Garmin Phoenix 7. you have a
Garmin Phoenix six so they give you heart rate HRV a bunch of other stats but on the whole we
didn't really know what to expect we haven't done a ride like this together in this setup for this
long uh so for the first few days we really have just been playing it by ear to see what happens
and I think it's going really well onto the front of the bike I have two food pouches they look like
the things that climbers use to put Chalk in and they're just fixed to the back of your handlebars
in one I have food and in the other I use it for drinks because I haven't got space for a bottle
cage I've been using a Camelbak for water and then usually putting a Gatorade or a Coca-Cola
or something like that in one of the other pouches so you can get a quick drink or if Justin needs
a drink and he's run out of camelback then I can just give him that quickly those are super
super quick to access so it's just things that you need immediately go in there then I have a bar bag
which is just Velcro on the front inside there is other stuff that I would need in a rush so
tools puncher repair kit patch kit Leatherman Tool multi-tool and then a tiny little JBL clip jlb J
EPL it's a speaker it's really loud it lasts a few hours and it means we can play music out
loud instead of using headphones and we can enjoy ourselves both listen to the same song then on
the front forks the last of the bags I have two tail fin three liter so this is the bigger size
v-mount packs the v-mount packs that tail fin make they're the same fittings that they have on these
prototype bags they're basically a rubber strap that can fix anywhere on your bike I've mounted
these to my forks I just have clothes a little bit of cycling kit and a few normal clothes in
both of them so they're not very heavy but they do they're that high capacity items finally to
finish things off K Edge mount on the synchross handlebars with a Garmin 1040 solar which is the
newest and highest capacity battery Garmin head unit that they do this is the new one which uses
solar power to charge while you're riding here is a brilliant feature from the home screen
connect IQ commute which is the app we've been using to plan all of our routes it actually has an
app you can run on the head unit and then you have all of the rides we've planned ready to select
without using your phone really nice because when you roll up to start your ride you can just grab
this press yes we are in the future so to end this video a massive thanks to Garmin for making this
trip a hell of a lot easier if you want to win one of these a Garmin 1040 solar I can post you
one all you got to do to be in with a chance of winning is going to be commenting underneath this
video and tell me why you'd like to win one one winner will be chosen in the next couple of weeks
and then when I get home from this trip so bear in mind that will be end of January I will post it
out thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed this bonus episode of cycling across the USA stay tuned
tomorrow when we'll be back on the road again you feeling rested no but yeah a little bit [Music]