I think I need to just stop for a moment and say how fantastic, and right for the job, my Salsa Fargo was. Starting at the front, the ride position was great - very upright. With the Carradice bar bag on and bottles, it was a little floppy while stationary, but once riding the steering was super stable - as I realised while scratching my nose at 30mph round a French switchback. The fork-mounted bottle cages work well (though I could see that you could stuff your bottle into the wheel by accident if you're not paying attention.
The Epic Designs bags worked well and I'll detail them in a later blog, but I was able to carry everything I needed and the bags kept everything in place and were reasonably weather resistant (and dry bags helped with the rest). The gears and brakes performed faultlessly and the Conti Top Contact tyres were impressively smooth and grippy, even on the odd broken road.
More of this later.
