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I've been watching his videos for a while when I was looking to build a bikepacking bike a few years back. For me, he's very good at what he does, but what he d

I've been watching his videos for a while when I was looking to build a bikepacking bike a few years back. For me, he's very good at what he does, but what he does is just a bit too extreme for what I want. I get how internal gears are great and reliable and probably a great choice if You need a bike that will carry 30kg of baggage for 20k+ kilometers and won't break. However, I don't plan on doing either of those things. I'm fairly happy to do my basic yearly maintenance myself (chain / cassette change), if in return I get a system that will cost me way less and has an upgrade tree that's an order of magnitude larger than that of belt drives. For me, part of the fun in bike building / maintenance is the fact that Your tastes / needs change. And to a good degree, if You stay in the mainstream components, bikes these days are pretty flexible / adaptable to that. In my case, I'd probably struggle with handlebars (I'm a fan of drops, which would probably limit my choice of shifters) and frame geometry (as I age, I'm starting to develop a pretty well honed taste for what size / fit do I want to have in a bike frame).

oblio 3y ago
Amusingly, his channel is probably interesting to a different audience than just bikepackers. Hard core no fuss commuters that don't ever want to touch or tinker with bike parts. The things that make a bike work well for 20k km in harsh conditions in Kazakhstan and India also make a bike work well with a child seat in the city during the summer and winter and out grocery shopping, etc.
- MezzoDelCammin 3y ago
  sure, that was my idea for a while as well. My problem is that I live in a big city. And bike theft is a real problem. I would have loved to build me something around a Rohloff gearbox with a belt compatible frame, but that thing would set me back at least 2k EUR / USD. By comparison, my current commuter setup is a combo of two single speed bikes (one light, one with racks for more cargo / shopping capacity), either of which I got used for 50 and 100Eur respectively. And my current bikepacking bike is a 1200EUR steel Kona with some extra components slapped on top. Basically, I've got 3 bikes for 3 diferent uses for a price of that gearbox one.
  - oblio 3y ago
    Yeah, that makes sense. Bike theft really needs to be addressed for bike usage to spike. We need proper, secure, bike parking everywhere. Companies should be incentivized to offer it as a benefit, same thing for malls and other venues.

oblio 3y ago

Amusingly, his channel is probably interesting to a different audience than just bikepackers. Hard core no fuss commuters that don't ever want to touch or tinker with bike parts. The things that make a bike work well for 20k km in harsh conditions in Kazakhstan and India also make a bike work well with a child seat in the city during the summer and winter and out grocery shopping, etc.

MezzoDelCammin 3y ago
sure, that was my idea for a while as well. My problem is that I live in a big city. And bike theft is a real problem. I would have loved to build me something around a Rohloff gearbox with a belt compatible frame, but that thing would set me back at least 2k EUR / USD. By comparison, my current commuter setup is a combo of two single speed bikes (one light, one with racks for more cargo / shopping capacity), either of which I got used for 50 and 100Eur respectively. And my current bikepacking bike is a 1200EUR steel Kona with some extra components slapped on top. Basically, I've got 3 bikes for 3 diferent uses for a price of that gearbox one.
- oblio 3y ago
  Yeah, that makes sense. Bike theft really needs to be addressed for bike usage to spike. We need proper, secure, bike parking everywhere. Companies should be incentivized to offer it as a benefit, same thing for malls and other venues.