Had a great grave ride in Shawnee State Park yesterday. This was my first ride on my 2020 Salsa Cutthroat GRX 600 gravel bike almost fully loaded with the new Lauf fork and Tailfin rear pack system. Here is a short video of the ride along with some notes about the bike and equipment.
Tailfin: The Tailfin really did live up to its reputation for being a solid rear pack system that you will forget is even there. In the past I’ve done touring with the traditional rear rack and panniers and with the seatpost bag. In both cases I always knew they were present–they just have that feeling of being something that is “added on” to the bike. The Tailfin feels like it’s actaully part of the bike. Other than obviously feeling the weight I was carrying, I didn’t notice or think about the Tailfin. It is solid, well designed, and has very good carrying capacity. Well worth the investment. I got the AeroPack Carbon X, Seat Pack with Axel and Fast Release Dropouts. At nearly $500 it’s an investment, but if you can afford it, in my opinion it’s well worth it. My summer 2021 trip will be 5,000+ miles in some very remote areas and this will fill the bill for my rear carrying system. https://www.tailfin.cc/
Lauf Fork: I bought this fork a couple months ago when I discovered I had one of the recalled Cutty carbon forks. I was thinking about it anyway and that just provided the incentive to go ahead and fork out the thousand bucks for the fork–I’m still waiting on a replacement for my recalled fork. When I got the Lauf, I really didn’t like the black fork on my very colorful Cutty. So I went about watching a lot of YouTube videos on custom painting bicycles and ran across videos by this guy: https://www.youtube.com/c/ETOE
He made the process look pretty easy, so I followed his tips and over the next 4 weekends or so I gathered the materials and painted the fork in a fire red with a Game of Thrones theme. Why? Well, I like GOT, so why not? So, after about a month, I finally got the fork finished and installed on the bike.
Last weekend I took the bike out for a first ride–25 miles on pavement. I immediately did not like the feel of the fork. I could not hold a line. The steering seemed stiff…I would veer off in one direction and have to continually correct steering. The best I can describe it is that the front end was not fluid and smooth–it was jerky and stiff. This was also the first ride I had done with the BarYak on the front and my sleeping bag, tent, and poles strapped under it. So, I kept thinking, maybe I don’t have the weight of the bag and tent evenly distributed and that’s causing it to pull to one side–one of the side effects of testing too many new things at once.
I got to the turnaround point of my ride and I took the front bag off, repacked it, and re-strapped it under the BarYak. On the trip back home the steering was still bad, but I think I convinced myself that it was better. I kept thinking, ok this is a new system and I just have to get used to it, but I could not take my hands off the bars–I would have crashed and it wasn’t steady enough to get on the aero bars without it being very unstable. I got home thinking that maybe I just wasted a lot of money on that fork–not to mention the time/effort to paint it. I knew I was going on this gravel ride a week later, so decided to see how it does on gravel–who knows, maybe the Lauf is built for gravel and not pavement. Regardless, I figured there wouldn’t be many people in the market for a GOT themed fork, so I’m stuck with it either way.
So, fast forward to yesterday and this gravel ride. The first few miles of this ride is on pavement–still terrible handling. After about 3-4 miles I turned off on gravel, expecting things to magically change, but no–awful handling. I was all over the road having to continually correct steering–could not hold a line for the life of me. After about 10 miles on gravel today I decided, to heck with it, I’ve got to try something else. So, I stopped, took out my multi-tool and loosened the stem bolts and the cap. Bounced the front wheel on the ground a couple times. Lined up my bars and tightened everything back up. Checked and made sure there was no play anywhere and that everything was tight. Jumped on the bike and took off. IT WAS LIKE GETTING ON A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT BIKE!. Steering was smooth, fluid…it was the way riding a bike should be.
Evidently you can over tighten the steerer tube which will result in terrible handling — who knew?
So, long story short, I now love the Lauf fork. It does a great job at taking the edge off some of the rough stuff. Of course, this is just based on this one ride on gravel…I haven’t done washboards or really rough, off-road, stuff, but I like it and knowing what I know now, I would purchase again. https://www.laufcycling.com/
BarYak: What can I say. I really like the baryak system. I have a 13 liter dry bag strapped to the front of the bike under the baryak containing my sleeping bag, tent, and a few misc camping items. My tent poles are strapped there also. They are very secure and are kept away from the stem and cabling. I did buy the aero arm rests to mount on the top of the baryak, and while they are good, I didn’t use them much. I’ve never been much of an aero-bar person, but thought I would give them a try. If I find I don’t use them much on future rides, I may just take the aero part off and free up space to mount other stuff on the baryak rails…I do still need a place to mount my phone. https://www.baryak.com/
Stock 11-34 Cassette: That’s got to go. The toughest grade on this route was about 10% and while I think I could do this course comfortable with this gear range once I get into better off-road shape, I want/need another climbing gear or two. I’m currently thinking about an 11-40…maybe even an 11-42.
