Gravel Bike - A Successful Touring Set Up
Just got back from a 3.5 week credit card tour in Europe. Belgium, France and Germany and thanks to the research on this forum I was very happy with my load up. The weight was nicely distributed and everything was easy to take off an load up. The bike is a 2023 Kona Rove DL (which I love by the way) with the majority of bags being Rhinowalk brand. I went with a tubeless set up and added a Mountain Bike Shock Spring Absorber Suspension Stem last minute (not shown in picture). I weigh 230 lbs and my gear was about 25 lbs. The only thing that failed on my was the rear seat post water bottle holder / stabilizer. One of the arms snapped on day 5. But luckily the rear bag worked great without it and remained stable. I was able to rip down single track forest trails, cross chunky farmer fields and soak up cobble stone paths and roads with this set up. I will be using the exact same load out for future touring trips.
