welcome to today's episode today's an easy day of riding just 1 500 meters of elevation
and a couple of mountains to go over so we're going to be taking a look at chris's bicycle and
his setup and how he's not carrying any stuff at all spoilers i'm carrying all of his stuff
so this is the bike i've been riding since we left nine ten days ago uh it's a cevalo
caledonia five not named anything to do is scotland it's actually named after the road
that cebello's office used to be or in or on in in california and it was a bike that was designed
for rough roads around there and so the road was called caledonia road they named it off that road
this is the bike the cervelo designed specifically for ruby flanders like the
cobble classics in mind so slightly longer wheelbase slightly lower bottom bracket
the idea is it's supposed to be a more stable endurance focus bike they do two versions
they do the five version which is like the top end or the caledonia which is a more
uh price conscious version of it so mine is built up with a mix of ultegra di2 11 speed
uh with a durace uh power meter on there i'm running a semi compact chain ring on the front and
an 11 34 set on the back so i've got loads of room with the gears there basically it's easy to sort
of spin up any of the climbs with a loaded bike definitely more gears than me definitely have more
gears than you and also that's the kind of range i quite like i like having the bigger cassette
and then the semi-compact because i just think it works really nicely you don't need to have a you
know anything else it kind of seems to cover all the ranges fine off road fine on road wheels are
from parkours i'm actually riding the outer wheels which is parkour's gravel rim which is a much
wider rim i've got 28 mil tyres on there but on the outer rim they blow up probably to a 30 or
32 much bigger front wheel also has a dynamo hub on it which is not connected but is very easy to
connect i'm not connected because we don't i don't feel the need a bit on this kind of
ride to be honest with you but the i've got the ability to see that quite easily saddle
is a pro stealth off-road saddle now very specifically riding the off-road one because
it's deeper padding it's a bit more comfortable in my opinion uh the the stealth saddles the saddle
i get on really well with but it's the same sort of thing there's so many saddles out there it's
you know shorter saddle pressure relief channel in the middle you know what i find funny about
the saddle the off-road saddle yeah is that it's got a pressure relief channel but they've like
filled it in so you don't get sprayed in the ass i ride quite a long stem and quite narrow
handlebars the reason being is i've got long limbs and a short torso so for me it's more comfortable
that is how i've had my bikes fitted to me luckily it looks kind of pro and cool
i do have spaces underneath it but i have that on every bike but what cevillo have
done is they've kind of like done this integrated spacer top cap thing which looks really neat and
tidy keeps it i guess kind of looking a bit aero and it actually doesn't really look like you have
spaces on it which is quite nice all the cabling is run internally the handlebars themselves have a
channel in them so the the cables aren't actually internal of the bars they just sit in the channel
so it's actually quite easy to service and change stuff around the cables do then run internally
through the stem and down into the steerer where the steerer tube on this bike is a d
shape and that's how the cables run through it i'm running a 130 stem and a 38 handlebar
i find the handlebars super comfortable the garmin that i'm using is a 1030 plus which is the big one
big battery life big screen to be honest that's why i like it
you can charge it up with the external battery which is super useful which you can do
i think most of the garments now have a little magnetic yeah when they've got that stuff on
the back connector thing on them uh the mount a lot of people ask about the mount the mount
with the light on the bottom is cevillo's own mounting system which uses a gopro mount
it works great super tidy on the rear i'm then using tailfin aero pack my one has seen many many
rides races it's well used it's done badlands atlas mountain race riding across australia
this trip uh some other big like bike packing track trips i've done as well
i like it because it's just it doesn't sway super convenient everything stays sturdy and in
one place the thing with a lot of i guess saddle bags is because of how they're mounted through the
seat post and then on the on the saddle rails they tend to sway but because you've got the the rack
which goes through your through axle it's super stable doesn't move around the side bag that's
on it is something that i'm testing the tail fin i can't say much more than that at the moment um
but it's very good your tail fin doesn't have the fitting on the side that lets you put panniers at
all no so my tail fin is the i guess the lightest version they do which doesn't have the fittings on
the side it's just a carbon rack that goes around it a lot of people have asked how i carried so
little stuff so basically just to give a breakdown what i have in the bike is a set of kit two pairs
of boxes a pair of shorts two t-shirts uh down jacket rain jacket leg warmers over shoes charging
stuff toiletries electric toothbrush which is my essential that i always take on trips on me
but i think that's about it in there you could make that lighter 100 you could take less
but i've that's as far as i've said that's kind of like i've got a lot of things in there which are
added bonus for me inside the frame bag which is a custom made frame bag from a couple of years ago
i basically got food and like gels and uh powders from sterka and some
like passport a bike lock some tools that kind of stuff it seems to be a fair few people in the
comments kind of shocked at how little stuff that you have in particular i really don't think and
i'd like to get across in these videos how you don't need that much stuff when you're doing a
trip like this in fact even with kit we both have two sets of kit with us this morning we would
wondering why if you have one set of kit you can wash it and dry it every single night and it'll be
completely fine um so just yeah less is more you could do this setup like what i've got that that
is what i would say is a large sort of scale set up for an ultra race to be honest if i was doing
an ultra race i'd probably be using something very similar but a full frame bag just to give a bit
more storage and you can you can strip it right back like an ultra one jersey two pairs of bibs so
you could swap bibs and then you don't really need off bike stuff something that is in that saddle
bag that i haven't mentioned is the shoes i have large feet and i if i put any shoes normal shoes
on any bike packing trip they take up the bag so what i do is i've i bought these they're called
wading shoes or rock pool shoes which are about fiverr on online combine pretty much anywhere
i will insert a clip here and they roll up a little tube about that big so for me it's
perfect it's so i'm not in bike shoes when i'm walking around the other thing to mention is
the little thing that people keep asking which is on my just above the rear stays that is a little
lousette bag which is just strapped to there super lightweight means that if we stop
somewhere and i want to carry some food i could do it quite easily spd sl pedals the road ones
i would normally say on a trip like this to use mounting bike shoes and mounted bike pedals but
the reason why i haven't is i i have a lot of foot issues and i've basically gone down
the route of going with the shoes that work best for me i think it's fair to say that both of us
wish we had off-road shoes on this trip the only reason i'm riding road shoes is because of the
stuff with team ribble after this trip uh because i wanted the lightest shoes possible for that in
usual circumstances off-road shoes means you can walk about and you don't mess up your cleats when
you uh inevitably hit the gravel sections another thing that people have been asking about is how
do you protect the frame of the bike about using bags on it so what i do is uh i buy gorilla tape
they do like a clear single sided tape they do tons of different versions but gorilla tape the
clear tape and what i specifically do because it's really sticky is i'll stick it like on my trousers
to take some of the stick off and then put it on the frame to protect the frame where your straps
go so you can't because it's a clear tape you can't really see it unless you get close to it
but it just means that the the points of contact of your bags specifically that frame bag aren't
going to rub on the frame rub the paint job off when you finish your trip you just take
it all off and it's easy because you've taken the stick off it comes off really easy as well
the reason why gorilla tape is because it's thick i have an aspar 05 which is gravel bike
a lot of people have asked how it compares and the the difference is very much in the geometry
of the bike that the caledonia in california 5 is probably the bike that suits 90 of people uh
it's a more relaxed geometry it's longer wheelbase uh lower bottom bracket so it's much more stable
designed to be comfortable due to the carbon layup and having the drop rear stays and stuff
but the difference really between the two of them is i would say fundamentally is the
tyre clearance and the asparagus is a bit more of an aggressive bike it's a longer top tube
so for me on the gravel bike as opposed to the road bike i ride a shorter stem to balance out
the fact that it's got a longer top tube the reason why i rode this as opposed to the aspero 5
was because it is a bike which is designed for doing multi-day rides really that's one of the
things they designed it for so it seemed perfect to test it for that kind of thing
and been super impressed really impressed i'll keep telling you i really like it
and it's great that's great i ended things quite quickly didn't it well luckily we got
it all done she's got a lot of cars there's 25 in there count them already here we go