Adrien Liechti: My Bike after Accursed
The Accursed. A 1,600 km bikepacking race with 32,000 m of elevation gain through the wilds of Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo. This year was the first edition, and Adrien Liechti traded the lead with Alexander Kopp for much of the race. In the end, Alexander eked out the victory, with Adrien finishing second. Among the women, Weronika Szalas won the race and finished 6th overall. Both Adrien and Weronika chose Rene Herse 29″ x 2.2″ Fleecer Ridge Endurance tires for this challenging race. Congratulations to all riders in this challenging race.
The Accursed required riders to travel overland to the start of the race—no flying allowed. Adrien rode much of the way from Switzerland to the start in Albania. At the finish, he went over his bike. Here is what he had to say:
1,600km, 32,000m of elevation in difficult terrain, zero flats: This is my equipment after this inaugural edition of The Accursed. My bike and my equipment did not suffer any major breakage. I was able to repair everything myself, and I never opened my tool bag!
My Bombtrack Cale AL bike had no problems. Shifting is ok. The chain and cassette are dead. The brakes pads are 50% worn (Shimano metal, always). In my opinion, the build of the bike is very important: I prefer to use well-tuned SLX than poorly-mounted XTR. Thanks to Velomario Bern (my local shop) for the work.
My suspension fork ran 5 of the 6 days. That’s very good considering the muddy conditions in the middle of the race. Thank you Sämi from outdoorx.ch! I had no problems with my DT Swiss wheels. As usual, 0 punctures on my Rene Herse Fleecer Ridge Endurance tires.
I had to put a small rope on my tool bag because the peanut butter mud made the Velcro ineffective. After cleaning, it works again.
My Café du Cycliste shoes didn’t like mud, though. They’re much less white now. I think my helmet is dead: I fell during the descent and hit a big rock.
I have been on the road for a month, and I have already travelled with this bike, and also participated in the Italy Divide. And I will continue my journey with the same setup. It works.
