A video capturing a bikepacking adventure into Namadgi National Park and over the Brindabella ranges (Australia) to explore the back country, soak up some mountain air, and enjoy a pedal with friends. Plus, a look at Hunt Bikes 29+ bikepacking frame.
Always looking for an excuse to get out into the bush, and having recently built up the Hunt Bikes prototypes, a test bikepacking trip was in order. Myself and two mates mapped out a route and set off for a three day ride that turned out to be the wettest, muddiest and toughest ride any of us had ever been on, good prototype testing though.
During our wet and foggy ride through the mountains we passed the historic Oldfield’s Hut and promised to return with some dry socks and time to enjoy a campfire under the stars.
When we heard about the Swift Campout event less than a month later, it seemed like the perfect excuse to head back to the mountains. We put the word out, gathered a crew and the ride was on.
With the intent of having more fun and less pain cave, this time we mapped a shorter route to the hut coming in from Namadgi National Park. Although shorter, the ride still involved climbing over the Brindabella Ranges and consequently, a bit of hike a bike was involved.
Despite a few steep climbs the ride was short enough to make the hut before dark with time to collect plenty of fire wood. The fire was lit, an assortment of dehydrated and sandwich bagged meals were cooked up, then we all sat back to enjoy the stars while passing around a bottle of local red.
The nights sleep was broken by a few visits from the resident possum who decided he couldn’t wait for breakfast to eat Danny’s cereal. After finally getting some sleep we arose to the frost covered landscape, got the fire going, brewed a morning cuppa, and packed up the bikes to enjoy a perfect days ride home.
Hunt Bikes is a new bikepacking focused company founded by myself Daniel Hunt. Home base is Canberra Australia.
The company is a culmination of a lifelong passion for bikes and a love of the outdoors combined with my background in Mechanical Engineering and Sustainability.
Currently in the works is the first Hunt Bikes frame and fork, a 29+ double butted 4130 chromoly ride thats designed for bikepacking and single trail. The frame and forks are now in their final revision and the design is essentially ready for production pending a little more testing.
The first limited batch of frames will be available for pre-sale next week on our website. An earlybird price will be available for anyone willing to wait a little while for the first batch to come in. Also, people ordering a frame early will be helping to “kickstart” Hunt Bikes into becoming a legitimate bikepacking bike company and the first orders will get a numbered frame that corresponds to their order number. The first 10 orders will get an extra bonus just to say thanks!
In addition to the frame & forks, Ive been working closely with an experienced bike bag maker and hope to have a full range of bikepacking bags available on the website by the end of Sept.
The plan is to slowly grow the range of bikepacking gear so stay tuned for more to come.
Follow Hunt Bikes on Instagram.