Concours de Machines 2021 - bikepacking set up
I knew that this year’s Concours was going to take us into mountain bike terrain, but living in the flat north of France and having a client from here sponsoring the bike, my entry had to be adaptable also to the gravel roads of our region.
I therefore decided to equip the bike with drop rather than flat bars to give more options for riding positions. I also wanted to use the Concours as an opportunity to test out the Pinion gearbox in heavy terrain and for low maintenance I decided to couple the gearbox with the Gates Carbon Belt Drive, a decision I did not regret when the bike fell over on the drive side into a big puddle of mud - rinse off and done. To pair the Pinion C1.12 with a drop bar I went for the Cinq shifters from Tout Terrain, developed in collaboration with TRP.
On the front wheel there is a SON 28 dynamo hub that powers a new charger by Velogical that is hidden in the down tube - thanks to the Pinion bridge there is great access to the down tube to hide all kinds of stuff in it. That also allowed the integration of the USB plug in the top tube, an important detail because the bike had to be folded “Rinko” style to fit French Railway restrictions (a charger in the steerer increases the complexity for that). There is just one cable connector under the down tube and the fork can be removed easily to reduce the bike to minimal pack size.
The pannier racks can be adapted to create a porteur front rack on the gravel version with 650x47b tires and Honjo H80 fenders - see details here.
To spend the night out I used the CYCLON.CC bike tarp tent, a tent that uses the flipped around bike as the supporting structure, which I developed with a friend for the Concours de Machines 2018 and which after heavy testing and development is now commercially available. With the help of CYCLON.CC we developed the set of pannier bags using fidlock fixtures. The pannier bags can be transformed into a backpack that allows you to carry the bike on your back passhunter style.
Last but not least a word on the bilaminated tubes to reinforce certain sections of the bike (wish bone design on the head tube and seat tube for good luck) and the great paint job by M-Level to highlight those details. The little “windows” on the bottom and top of the down tube were done to show the internal lugs to strengthen this part of the tube. With the Pinion Gearbox and a drop bar geometry the down tube got so short there wasn’t anymore butting left. It wasn’t just for aesthetics. On the seat tube the lamination gives more strength to the seat tube / seat stay cluster. The head tube bilam is to keep the design and look consistent.
