michaelbiker

Weight with all those bags and equiiment should be the least of your concern. Steel or titanium FTW. Plus you don’t need to worry about wrapping everything in tape. Particularly on a raw ti frame. You can just polish the scuffs out.

Riding next to the highest mountain in Thailand. Such a hard but beautiful route.

Yeah Silca stuff isn't easy to get in SA. Merlin stocks quite a lot and their prices are pretty good - including their shipping: https://www.merlincycles.com/silca-tattico-mini-pump-105218.html

I have a Silca Tattico pump. It’s expensive but I will never need another. Beautifully made and makes short work of pumping up tires. It doesn’t use a screw on head and has a built in hose. Apart from the thread on annoyance, lezyne pumps have that bump on the top, if you have a bad day and need to pump a tire multiple times, the pain from that bump in your palm gets pretty bad and stays with you for a few days after. A good, more reasonably priced alternative are the topeak pumps. I think the one I had was the Pocket Rocket.

Lycra tigers. Lol! The market is small, but it's also go to do with land rights (not many places that will build trails like this) and the cost of getting into the sport. This vid of one of the black trails in Tremp, Spain makes my palms sweat.

I can’t really speak to the level of difficulty of trails in Jonkershoek but in general I’ve ridden many different trails in Europe. Blue trails should be treated with caution, probably up there in difficulty with our black trails maybe harder. In Spain, for example, blue is barely rideable on an XC bike. Steep, narrow with some features like drops, gap jumps etc. I remember launching into some blue trails near Tremp and having to get off the bike and walk it down some sections. You can see one of the technical sections in the distance in this pic. Red in Portugal was to be avoided unless you had body armour, an FF helmet and 160mm of travel. In some places in Sintra it wasn’t even worth trying. Black was basically just a bunch of massive step downs and drops through a pine/bluegum forest. It was hard to walk it. I haven’t seen anything like this in SA.

Back on the smooth tar of Northern Thailand. Almost feels like cheating.

Stunning stretch of road along the Nam Pa river between Phonxai and Luang Prabang, Laos

Some fun with an Insta360 on really rough gravel roads.

Yes, thanks for the clarification, I was referencing finding this stuff online.

The rice is nearly ready to be harvested here in Luang Prabang

Bummer.

Time to take matters into your own hands… https://dialedrunner.com/simple-fix-for-your-sticky-garmin-fenix-buttons/