This week’s Debrief features a gorgeous Larkin ATB, a British Racing Green collection from Brooks, JJJJustin’s 2026 Tour Divide video, your Cut List items, Apriko cargo forks, fresh bike-themed artwork, WTB wheels, four events to follow live, and more. Find it all here…
The weekly Debrief highlights small but important bits of news, products, and things that caught our attention on the website, in the conversation, and elsewhere around the community. These include upcoming events and interesting items our readers shared in the comments. Check out this week’s findings below.
Bits & Bobs
New products that are worth highlighting but didn’t make the Dispatch…
WTB CGR i28 Wheels
$1,800 at WTB
WTB’s new i28 CGR gravel wheelset is designed for speed, with an internal width ideal for modern gravel tires. With deep carbon and WTB’s advanced Frequency 7X hubs, WTB CGR i28 wheels are built to deliver speed while staying strong on rough terrain. These rims have a 28mm IW, come in XDR, HG, and MicroSpline hub options, and weigh just 1,373 grams.
New Albion Zoa Mountain Jacket Colors
Made in China / £240 at Albion Men’s Women’s
The Albion Zoa Mountain Jacket is a lightweight, packable insulated jacket for outdoor adventures, made with Pertex Quantum NetPlus fabric. It’s filled with PrimaLoft Gold Active Insulation, which maintains its warmth even when wet, and has loft retention to withstand repeated packing and unpacking. Albion just added two new color options in men’s and women’s sizing: Peat and Storm Grey.
Brooks British Racing Green Collection
Made in England/Italy / $100+ at Brooks England
The new British Racing Green Collection from Brooks England features three popular products made with leather dyed a lustrous, dark green shade. From Brooks: “Few colors are so closely intertwined with a particular strand of the British cultural fabric. The dark, lustrous green associated with car racing at the start of the 20th century endures as a signifier of panache. The drivers of that era were always identifiable by the confident way they carried themselves, regardless of their position on the podium.”
The Paperclip Issue Two Pre-Order
Made in USA / $30 at The Paperclip
After a successful first issue, Abdulrahman Alkhamees is back with the second issue of The Paperclip. The printed publication includes “a mix of stories, photography, and the kind of work that connects people who care about culture, movement, and honest storytelling,” as Abe puts it. Pre-orders are open for a limited time, so don’t wait up.
Apriko Elephant Cargo Fork
Made in Taiwan / $615 at Apriko
German brand Apriko Bikes published an instructional video for their Elephant Cargo Fork, which we posted about a couple of years ago. It looks like they have a batch of updated forks on the way, with the next preorder in February.
REANIMATOR Wilderness First Responder Bike Tour
$100 at REANIMATOR
REANIMATOR’s next adventure is a multi-day bikepacking trip where participants will encounter many opportunities to solve problems, overcome challenges, and apply medical skills along the way. Participants should expect to ride a combined 120 miles across diverse terrain, including frontage roads, gravel, and forest service roads. At the end, everyone will have earned a Wilderness First Responder certification.
In Conversation
Exchanges and ideas that caught our attention in the site’s conversation section…
What’s on Your Cut List?
There’s some great discussion happening in the comments over on our second installment of The Cut List, which Lucas published yesterday. It follows the debut edition Logan shared last month and features a dozen things he once considered essential but now sees as dead weight. This has us wondering, what’s one item on your Cut List? We’d love to hear from you in the Conversation below!
Around the Community
News from around the bikepacking world…
JJJJustin’s 2026 Tour Divide Video
Last year’s third-place singlespeeder Justin McKinley has released his latest Divide video. A long, focused look at his journey down the country, it’s a relaxing watch that offers great insight into what it’s like to ride one of the country’s longest and most beautiful routes.
A Pedal Further Themed D.Larkin
Blue Lug posted an understated build this week featuring some classic BIKEPACKING.com stickers. It’s a custom Darren Larkin bike with a peach paint job that looks fantastic with complementary silver bits—ideal for bikepacking or just cruising around.
New Illustrations from Winston Braun
Artist Winston Braun recently published a nice series of illustrations that caught our attention. You can find them all here.
Across Andes: Volcano Edition Film 2025
The latest video from the Across Andes race series documents the 2025 edition in southern Chile: 800 kilometers, 12,000 meters of elevation gain and eight volcanoes, crossing gravel roads, forests, lakes and some of the most remote landscapes of the Araucanía region. Watch the hour-long video above.
Events Starting Soon
What to watch this weekend and bikepacking events starting soon…
2026 Arizona Trail Race
The Arizona Trail Race started yesterday with two distance options: the Arizona Trail 300, a 300-mile event, and the Arizona Trail 800, the complete traverse from Mexico to Utah. Both routes are run concurrently, and at the same time and place. You can follow along on the live map and keep up with our extended coverage on the Tracker here.
2026 Arkansas High Country Race
The Arkansas High Country Race starts tomorrow morning, with over 70 riders participating. The event is split between the full 1,020-mile route and the shorter 240-mile Northwest Loop. The race departs from Bentonville, located at the northwest corner of the routes. You can follow along on the live map and keep up with our extended coverage on the Tracker here.
Karnu Rally
The Karnu Rally is an unsupported bikepacking event in South Australia. There are 730- and 1,180-kilometer route options, both offering as much terrain variety as you can imagine. Lush mountain singletrack, big desert sky, and so many huts riders might not even need any sleep kit. This year’s event starts tomorrow at 7 a.m. local time. Follow along here.
Driftless Dagger
The 2026 edition of the Driftless Dagger rolls out on October 3rd at 7 a.m. from Chestnut Mountain Resort. This year, the organizers are joining forces with Lead Ore Gravel to create the Driftless Gravel Festival—a shared start line offering distances from 50 miles to 550 miles, all departing together into one of the Midwest’s most rugged and misunderstood landscapes. Follow along live here.
Wish We Were Here
Shedding a little light on a route one of us is dreaming about riding at the moment…
Lucas Winzenburg: Minnesota
I’m visiting my longtime home of Minneapolis this weekend, and being here in the crisp fall air has me eager to get out on the bike for a couple of days. Many new routes have popped up in the decade since I left, and I have to imagine Scott Haraldson’s Minnesota River Ramble would be prime right about now.
Weekly Social
Some things we found around the ‘gram and elsewhere. This week, Nathan Salle’s road to CRAFTED and some fresh patch ideas from Jody Barton…
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