Just a couple of years old now, Hunt Bikes is a tiny company in Australia founded by avid off-road adventure cyclist Dan Hunt. Their concept is pretty simple – design and produce high value bikes & accessories to outfit cyclists on trail riding & bikepacking adventures – with a bit of an eco-friendly tinge. So far their catalog is also simple. The make a single modern 29+ rigid steel mountain bike with a good balance of attachment points and a set of bags to strap on that bike. But simple can be good…
29+ Bikepacking/Singletrack frameset
The one double butted 4130 chromoly bike that Hunt has developed so far is as straight forward as you can get for proper off-road bikepacking. Starting with what Hunt calls classic 29er geometry, they stretched out space behind the bottom bracket thanks to a machined chainstay yoke and the choice to go 1x only, and can fit in up to a 29 x 3″ tire (developed around a Surly Knard on a Stan’s Hugo rim.)
Tech details
With that the bike sticks with standard space thru-axles at each end (12 x 142mm & 15 x 100mm), but gets a matching tapered double butted 4130 fork, and a PF30 BB. It gets full length, fully external routing, a 44mm headtube, and a 31.6mm seatpost
As for gear hauling points on the bike Hunt chose not to include proper rack mounts, with the thought that riders would opt for lighter bikepacking bag setups. There are plenty of mounting points, though. On both the top and bottom of the downtube the frame gets 3-bolt anything cage mounts, plus a third pair of bottle bosses on the seattube. Each fork leg also gets a 3-bolt cage mount too, so you can haul as much water as you can imagine.
Altogether the butted frame & fork are said to keep a light feel for long days off-road, yet can stand up to the abuse of days out on tour. And to top it off, Hunt says that their bikes are carbon neutral. The company buys carbon credits for each frameset sold to offset the environmental footprint of their production.
The frameset is available in a three size S-L (15-19″) range and in gloss black for $1261 AUD ($990 USD, plus taxes & fees that are up to the buyer) or brushed chrome for $1337 AUD ($1050 USD, plus taxes & fees).
The EU importer lists both versions for the same 980€ which includes VAT & delivery, sweetening the deal in Europe.
As to the bags that you see in the photos (and that we alluded to as a product), Hunt only makes them to order. They aren’t officially ‘available’ right now, but maybe you can talk them into making you a set when you are ordering a frameset?
Hunt 1000 Australian off-road bikepacking tour
If all that sounds good and you have some time to ride down under, Hunt Bikes is running their 2nd annual Hunt 1000 off-road tour in just a few weeks. Join them to ride the 1000km from Canberra to Melbourne for a week of self-supported riding in the high Australian backcountry. More details over at their website.
