2026 Tour Divide / GDMBR Build Takes Shape

2026 Tour Divide / GDMBR Build Takes Shape

2026 Tour Divide / GDMBR Build Takes Shape! We've started to build out our 2026 Tour Divide / GDMBR bike. No precise plans yet on whether we'll toe the line at the grand depart, do an ITT, head North or South, and importantly, when we'll head out, but building out the bike and then building out the fitness needs to be done regardless of our planning or lack thereof. Stay tuned here for further details on the planning and on the build.

The baseline for the bike is again the TItanium Salsa Fargo, mostly because it's a bike design we really love to ride and because spoiler alert, we're not going to be challenging for the FKT on this route. A few lbs here or there isn't going to make a substantive difference in my time. We are choosing equipment that can be trusted to go the distance and not be finicky or cause some off-route bike shop excursions.

We're into the self-supported aesthetic and the bike plan is keeping it real by trying to head off unplanned maintenance through design and careful parts selection.

We have broken a Salsa TI frameset in the past, but only after 5+ 10,000 - 12.000 mile years, and the Fargo frameset we have now is relatively fresh, with only a two years on the clock and with fewer fully loaded miles on the odo. So it's old enough to be trusted for not cracking out of the box and new enough to be trusted for some fully loaded miles. 

After our 2024 Tour of Western New Mexico, which had us out on the Fargo with the Carbon Fiber Firestarter Fork, we concluded that we absolutely are willing to trade off the higher weight of a suspension fork for the added comfort. So we'll be rolling with a FOX 32 Float SC Factory Fit4 Damper, Kashima coat, with 100mm of travel, 51mm offset, and the 15x110mm thru axle and topside switch actuator. We just had ours rebuilt, with new seals. I know what it feels like to ride with the fork, so no need to train on it over the winter and into the spring, we'll be keeping it factory-fresh until we do the final teardown a month or so in advance of the departure.

We'll be rocking a carbon fiber 29er dynamo wheelset, with a SON front hub, Berd polylight spokes on the front wheel, and a full kLite Race kit. We're going to modify the system a bit, specifically swapping out the standard  2-output wire loom that comes with the kit for the 3-output wire loom that ships with the kLite A/C Rear Qube. The 3-output loom is a new concept from kLite this year, and it includes two traditional leads, one for the kLite ULTRA front lamp and one for the kLite Micro USB charger, and a third A30 lead that is "always on" that connects to the A/C Rear Qube. If you're thinking about going with the same setup, shoot us a note at jefe@jefe.bike and we can custom configure your kit so that you don't get a second wire loom.

We also plan to use the XL length A/C Qube (60") along with the kLite rear rack mount. Our preliminary setup has a drop bar with our famous ultra thick bar tape with a topside carbon fiber Profile Designs aero bar with kLite's aero bar bridge and kLite's Garmin 22.2 lamp / bicycle computer mount. Both of these are proven Tour Divide tough and present an excellent platform for mounting the lamp and bike computer. We'll do a full writeup on our cockpit when it's finalized, but at the moment, it will include a Garmin 540 GPS, a Garmin InReach Mini2 satellite communicator, a current model iPhone, and a Nitecore 6K submersible battery.

The next big choice for us is the crankset. If you're a frequent reader here, you'll know that I blow through cranksets. There's nothing else like breaking your crankset to end an otherwise peaceful training ride, and of course, out on the Divide, this is one of those unplanned maintenance events that could leave you pushing your bike for miles.

In 2025, I messed around with steel Cyber Cranks, made in Germany. These are really stout and it's hard to imagine them breaking. They're surprisingly light considering how beefy

they are. Unlike a lot of higher-end cranksets, these don't have a bearing slack takeup vernier, you need to get the spacing perfect in order for the pre-load to be right. This is a real hassle if you do your own wrenching. Another downside is that the spindle is 24mm, and I have been using 30mm bearings in my BSA threaded bottom bracket, so the choice also involves a new bearing set. I tried out a new BB from Wolf Tooth and it performed flawlessly. When I disassembled the bike for servicing in September, problems. The Cyber Crank crank extractor bolt (surprisingly, made from Aluminum) flat out broke upon removal. Hand tools, mind you, not an impact tool, but I had installed the cranks to the specified torque. For those of you lucky enough to ever have this happen, you know the rest of the story, and it involves an afternoon of hammers, drifts, and presses. Fortunately, the frameset came out unscathed and I was able to revert to a spare White Industries M30 crankset I had in the shop.

Cyber Cranks has been responsive, they haven't seen this happen before and promised to get me a new set of self-removing hardware for the crankset. It's February now, and I haven't seen them. So Plan B. For 2026, we're going to go with the Enduro Crankset from Garbaruk. It's made from 7075 aluminum, not my first choice for durability based on prior crankset experiences (I prefer the 2024 aluminum alloy used by White Industries), but the design charm on this set is that each crank arm is produced from two individual machined elements that are riveted together. What I like about this setup is that it mitigates the single "catastrophic" failure that I've experienced from several other one piece billet machined cranksets. Two other benefits:  the Garbaruk crankset uses a 30mm spindle, so I can go back to the 30mm BB size, and the other delightful element is that it has an onboard vernier to take up bearing slack. So no more trial and error shim placements like on the Cyber Cranks. 

One other drivetrain change for the season, we're going to try the new CTRL pedals from Wolf Tooth, this time in attention-grabbing purple anodization. Looking forward to testing these out over the first few months of the year to see how they perform. I've been using the Shimano XTR M9120 clipless pedals for the last several seasons, and my current ones need new bearings, so it was time. 

We're going with Growtac Equal cable-actuated brakes and an SRAM AXS wireless 1x12 shifting system. I know you use hydraulic brakes, but do you love them? I love these Growtacs enough to ditch my hydraulic AXS drop bar levers and a beautiful set of Hope 4-piston calipers and go back to cable actuated AXS drop bar levers. These brakes are the best I've ridden and I've lterally ridden them all. They are easy to adjust and have a feel that is incomparable. I'm not going to make some BS argument for how cable actuated brakes are more robust in the field, in my experience, hydraulic brakes are plenty trustworthy in the backcountry, this choice is about feel. My Growtacs don't drag, they're easy to adjust (once you master the adjustment method - instruction following required), and they have strong and nuanced stopping power. And I've been riding AXS wireless shifting since 2019, so there's nothing that's going to convince me that this isn't the best system out there. Yes, bring a couple of extra batteries with you, charge them on the go, and change out the shifter batteries once you land at the airport where you're going, and you'll have a flawless tour.

The last big choice on bike selection is rack or no-rack. Unless you're brand new to bikepacking, you know that this becomes an almost theological discussion. I've been on both sides of the divide here and will say that for my style of riding, rack is better for me, but I respect the anti-rack choices of others. Please don't tell me that I'm not bikepacking if I use a rack. You can say that I'm pro-choice on this matter.

So with that said, I've tried many racks over the years and if you're familiar with the Fargo, you know that the setup of the Alternator drop outs is a blessing and a curse. They are absolutely awesome from an adjustability perspective and after thousands of miles of harsh treatment, I've never encountered an issue. But they leave little option from the perspective of rack placement. The OEM choice, the Salsa Alternator rack, is good but not great, it's heavy, doesn't have side M5 mounting holes, and uses the only manufacturer recommended rack mounting location, the upper dropout pivot. On the drive side, this means that the bolt is doing double duty as the rack mount and the upper pivot, and on the non-drive side, the rack bolt holds onto the rack and acts as the upper dropout pivot and one of the brake mount connections.

Besides the Alternator rack, I've experimented with the following racks, each of which has their own "baggage" on the Fargo frameset: 

• Tailfin. Love the design and utility of the product, but hate the mounting options. We were forced to use the mount that goes onto the thru axle, and if there's one thing I don't like adding second functions to it's that. I've broken a number of thru axles over the years and the idea of adding a whole bunch of extra weight bearing to the outer surfaces of my thru axle didn't thrill me. In practice, I experienced no issues but hated having to disassemble the rack every time I needed to remove the rear wheel. The only thing that's worse than fixing a flat by the side of the trail is first having to completely unload your rack and then remove your rack before doing so. This is mostly a Fargo fitment issue, others have had great experiences with the Tailfin and I genuinely like the product, just not with this frameset.
• Aeroe Spider Rack. Interesting work around since it mounts to the rear stays rather than to the upper Alternator pivots. I really wanted this setup to work, but I found it overall very heavy and I suspect its use led to the cracking on my prior Titanium Fargo frameset. 
• Soma Fabrications Rakku 2. A traditional rear bike rack, maxi-style. Produced from Aluminum and super affordable, this rack seemingly has it all. I used it in last year's Tour of Western New Mexico with positive results. Fully loaded, it sways a bit, and could use a bit more rigidity, but it's already pretty heavy, so not sure if more fortification would push this rack into a whole different category. Also, the M5 eyelets were threaded, but too weak to hold tightly onto M5 bolts, so I needed to use longer M5s with bolts on the back to hold them fast to the sides of the rack. It mounts to the Fargo in traditional Alternator style, using the upper pivot, and in place of the steel M6 bolts, I used 40mm Titanium bolts with washer spacing.

So this year, I'm going with a slightly modified Old Man Mountain Elkhorn rack. I really like how solid this rack is on the bike, and I think I've finally nailed the mounting setup for the Fargo with this implementation. I also really love the top bag that is custom designed for this rack -- the Atlas Rack Pack, because now I don't need to mount my bag on the back with Volie straps, sort of provides a bit more peace of mind when I'm bombing down those long descents. Here's a bit of the rundown of the modifications:

• Drilled out both sides of the rack mounts to fit hardware that is 10mm in diameter. The cast aluminum mounting holes are slightly smaller than 10mm, probably some SAE size, and drilling it out to 10mm removed a small amount of aluminum, not enough to cause concern. I took care not to drill through the center support that separates the two sides, I did this by inserting a washer before doing the drilling.
• Upgraded my hardware set to 55mm M6 titanium bolts with a 10mm head, and added a collection of Aluminum M6 spacers, also with 10MM diameter, to fill the space between the mounting hole and the outside of the Alternator plate. I sourced the 10mm diameter spacers in 2mm thickness, 10mm thickness, and 15mm thickness and combined the maximum set to fill the space on each side, The result is a fully supported spacing of the rear rack, with no interference between the rack and frameset, and full penetration through the mounting bolt / plate on each side, with no protrusion. Of course, I'll be carrying a pair of extra bolts and a set of spacers with me during the ride, simply because this is a single point of failure.
• Once I fit the rack, I cut the longer supporting beams down so that there was a bit extra material, but so that they didn't look ugly. Measure twice!
• Added an extra M6 retaining bolt to the supporting beams, so that there are two points of connection on the rack itself.

With the addition of two Titanium King Manything Racks and the kLite A/C Qube on the back,  the result is very, very rigid and looks pretty great. I'll take some additional photos once I have the bags sorted out. Stay tuned for regular updates as I get the bike together.