{"id":19326,"date":"2025-02-19T17:34:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-19T17:34:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/?p=19326"},"modified":"2025-02-20T17:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-02-20T17:27:07","slug":"atlas-mountain-race-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/2025\/02\/19\/atlas-mountain-race-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlas Mountain Race 2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Taking a Salsa Powderkeg tandem to one of the toughest mountain bike races. Part II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Now the dust is beginning to settle, mostly in our lungs, here\u2019s that component run down we promised..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Salsa Powderkeg mtb tandem medium front \/ small rear. S&S couplings for ease of transport. Fits in a single bike bag for flights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

CaneCreek Viscoset headset to aid straight line stability<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shimano square taper bottom brackets running the Middleburn rs7 cranks. A triple spider running 44\/32\/22 Sunrace chainrings and an 11-40 10 speed cassette.
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Rapidfire shifter on the right and thumb shifter on the left for ( almost ) rub free transmission. More reliable rear shifting now we\u2019ve moved from a thumb shifter rear. Brakes are standard Shimano Deore single piston units, sure we boiled them a couple of times heading down off the plateaus but they were fine overall. Maybe four pots, Saints?, next time. We replaced both sets of brake pads once, the rears were dead again by the end, so was the disc – it was the original so not so bad, eh?
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Both running Salsa flat carbon bars with different Ergon grips – GT1 for Rich and GP1 for Shona. Rich ran a Cane Creek eeSilk suspension stem. In the past he\u2019s suffered with numb fingers, no issues with this set up at all. WTB Volt Chromo saddle for Rich and a Specialized Bridge Mimic for Shona. These sit on a Thomson elite seatpost up front and an eeSilk+ for Shona with 35mm of travel. No need for this travel for the pilot as the frame flexes a lot in the middle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

DT Swiss rear 36h hub laced to Halo Gravitas offset rim, SP Dynamo 100 x 15 front 28h (!) on a Halo Vapour 26mm rim, this is an off the peg wheel not hand built like the rear, both did well with minimal tweaking of the nipples. 29 x 2.2\u201d Maxxis Ikon tyres both with Stans no Tubes and Vittoria tyre inserts. Only one intrusion that resulted in a little loss of air and a squirt of sealant but nothing that slowed us down, no punctures as such and ran both at an incredibly low 30psi, for a tandem at least. Especially when tired towards the end we were hitting stuff hard so happy with this set up. The dynamo ran a Sinewave Beacon headlight and one of their rears bolted to the Tailfin arch. We used the Beacon with a power bank attached to keep the light steady on the slow grinding ascents and charged the gps, etc during the daylight hours.
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We ran that Tailfin rear pack bolted directly to the frame, a long top tube pack in the middle why wouldn\u2019t you, a short up front, a Salsa medium Fargo frame bag up front and a custom Wildcat bag in the centre. King Stainless cages for a secure non drop experience, you don\u2019t want to lose your bottle when water can be a precious commodity. Salsa tool keg in another King cage under the down tube. Held in place with a rubber strap more as a place to keep the strap than necessity.
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Salsa Anything Cradle on Rich\u2019s bars for sleeping system for both.
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Think that\u2019s about it, so here\u2019s a list of spares we took and didn\u2019t use;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

two Tubolitos and two butyl tubes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Park tyre boots and a standard puncture kit along with a Tubolito patch kit too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inner gear cable<\/p>\n\n\n\n

another two sets of brake pads, on top of the ones we swapped out<\/p>\n\n\n\n

chain lube, chain links and pieces of chain <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tools;<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sardine multitool, attached next to bottle cage, most used and to hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Topeak Alien multitool<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leatherman Skeletool CX<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Park chain tool ct-5 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Single Pedros tyre lever<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wolf Tooth Pack Pliers with 8 & 10 speed chain links<\/p>\n\n\n\n

little bit of rag.
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What did we take clothing \/ wear \/ nic naks <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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suncream, factor 50<\/p>\n\n\n\n

chamois cream, didn\u2019t use any<\/p>\n\n\n\n

iphone16pro x 2<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garmin 1040 solar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 x back up Exposure Joysticks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2 x 10000 ah Anker power banks<\/p>\n\n\n\n

usb-c cables<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thermarest Hyperion 0 degree sleeping bags, now they need a clean.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sol bivvy bag<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thermarest NeoAir sleeping mat<\/p>\n\n\n\n

little down booties<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Big shout out to Petrichor Projects for some amazingly comfy bib shorts. These spent the last 4 days on me (Shona) as we were only stopping to cat nap and I couldn\u2019t be bothered taking them off. Pee break friendly, super smooth and a stellar pad- 10\/10 would recommend. Rich used some Castelli Endurance shorts and again suffered no issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We each took a base layer and jersey and layered up when necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My MAAD merino jersey smelt like it could have handled another week of constant use- was perfect when warm in the day and dried in the breeze instantly – I thought it looked pretty cool as well \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rich went with a tried and tested PedalEd Odyssey jersey with lots of pockets for him to lose things in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pair of Dexshell socks for after water crossings and keeping toes warm in the mornings and a pair of merino socks for spares. Tried and tested Arc\u2019teryx Shakedry jackets (must be about 8 years old now) layered over a couple of 12 year old Berghaus Mtn haus super lightweight insulated jackets. This combo has seen us now through at least 5 races like this- and until they fall apart will probably do the next one. A couple of buffs for covering the mouth from dust or necks from sunburn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly shoes were some Fizik X2 Terra Ergolce mtb shoes and Northwave X Trail, again both veterans of other races, all day comfort and good for stomping along in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


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Taking a Salsa Powderkeg tandem to one of the toughest mountain bike races. Part II. Now the dust is beginning to settle, mostly in our lungs, here\u2019s that component run down we promised.. Salsa Powderkeg mtb tandem medium front \/ small rear. S&S couplings for ease of transport. Fits in Read More<\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":185,"featured_media":19328,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,13,125],"tags":[126],"class_list":["post-19326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bike-touring","category-bikepacking","category-journal","tag-journal"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/123\/2025\/02\/IMG_2041-scaled.jpeg","author_info":{"display_name":"rich","author_link":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/author\/rich\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/185"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19326"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19341,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19326\/revisions\/19341"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.citrus-lime.com\/keep\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}