Journey along with adventure rider Kurt Refsnider as he shares his experience doing the first thru-ride of the new Orogenesis route, dubbed the longest mountain bike trail in the world at nearly 5,000 miles long.
Words and photos by Kurt Refsnider
This past year's big goal for me was the first thru-ride of the new Orogenesis route, dubbed the longest mountain bike trail in the world. After years of development, the nearly 5,000-mile-long route stretching from Canada to the southern tip of Baja was ready for its first test riders. I was particularly excited for the 3,000 of those miles traversing Washington, Oregon, and California with nearly 50% singletrack (almost entirely on trails I've never ridden) -- that was an adventure I just couldn't pass up.
The new XT and XTR Di2 groups were released just a month prior to my planned departure from the U.S.-Canada border. I'm rarely one to trust new equipment that I haven't been able to thoroughly vet ahead of committing backcountry endeavors -- the potential consequences are just too high. But I had been eagerly awaiting these new drivetrains and quickly got my hands on a XT derailleur-shifter upgrade kit and popped it onto my bike the day before flying to the Dolomites for two weeks of singletrack-heavy hut-to-hut bikepacking with fellow Shimano athlete Kait Boyle. If the new drivetrain worked flawlessly in those mountains, it'd be joining me for Orogenesis.
And the drivetrain was indeed flawless through all the rain, mud, and close encounters with Italian boulders, never missing a shift. After returning home, those parts were hastily swapped over to my Orogenesis bike, and together we headed to Washington straightaway, apprehensive about all the uncertainty that lay in the thousands of miles of riding ahead.
Orogenesis was one heck of a grand ol' time - you can read more about the adventure itself on Escape Collective and The Radavist. But after 80ish days of riding and 400,000+ feet of descending on the U.S. section of Orogenesis, how'd the new Di2 drivetrain hold up? How was the battery life? How many chains did I go through? Read on for the post-trip debrief.
For the U.S. part of Orogenesis traversing Washington, Oregon, and California, singletrack comprises nearly half of the route, and much of that trail is relatively raw and technical. There are few "easy" trail miles out there, and many sections include rough backcountry moto sinlgletrack or seldom-traveled non-motorized trails. So my bike of choice was the Pivot Trailcat SL, a full-suspension rig that offers my ideal balance of efficiency, fun, and control. The drivetrain/brake build I went with looked like this:
Most days out on the trail included 7 to 8 hours of moving time, ample hike-a-bike, and so much fantastic singletrack. Washington state was a celebration of steep, loose climbs and long, rocky descents -- nearly 130,000 feet of vert in 700 miles. The terrain, on average, in Oregon and California was a bit milder, but some of the most demanding days of the entire route were in SoCal. I wasn't sure what to expect for battery life in the derailleur, so I carried a couple spare batteries. It turned out that even with the high frequency of shifting while on techy trails, I was getting a full 5 days off a single battery (probably equating to ~35 hours of ride time). With overnight stays in towns weekly to refuel, clean up, and charge batteries, I never even had to tap into the second spare Di2 battery I carried.
After 3,000 dusty and abusive miles, the rear derailleur was still shifting just as well had it had been on day one rolling away from the Canadian border. That gradual decline of shifting precision I had known all too well on a mechanical XT system as the housing gets gradually grittier and the derailleur pivots gradually develop play -- none of that was present in the new M8250 system. I adjusted the shift indexing by one click near the end of the ride after slightly bending the frame's derailleur hanger, but that was it. The pulley cage and battery cover now sure look abused, but the derailleur is nowhere near the end of its life after all it's been through.
How'd all those other parts hold up? I didn't have a single mechanical issue out there and didn't even have to fiddle with any parts along the way. That's the absolute best I could have hoped for! I replaced the chain and brake pads 3 times, cleats twice, the cassette/chainring/derailleur pulleys once mid-way through, swapped out for fresh shoes once, and bled the brakes twice.
I couldn't ask for anything more from parts on a journey like this one - all fun, no fuss.
My Orogenesis ride continued on into Mexico, but I traded out the full-sus rig for a drop-bar mountain bike, XT Di2 shifting for my trusty GRX mechanical, solo travel for the company of my partner Claire, and a whole new adventure began.
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