I’ve had my Tripster AT for 7 or 8 years now, and it's safe to say it’s had a tough paper round. As a gravel bike, it’s enjoyed a rufty-tufty life and far too often taken down stuff that exceeds its design brief, often even willingly, and has the multiple scars to show for it. Always a Trigger’s Broom of a bike with things being replaced and upgraded as and when necessary, everything has unfortunately grown tired at exactly the same time; the drivetrain has gone baggy, the brakes don’t respond to any amount of bleeding, and it’s all just about hanging on in there. It’s like a loved but ageing cat that you know is just about to get very expensive at the vets.
I could easily get a new frame, swap all the non-terminal hardware over and replace all the knackered bits with new. Gravel bikes have evolved so much in the time since I got this bike, and the revised version of this bike, the Tripster AT Plus, is a great example with tweaked geometry, improved tyre clearance and suchlike that it would be a practical choice. But I like my old bike and have an irrational emotional connection to it because we have done Stuff. Not just stuff, but Stuff. Pyrenees, Slovakia, Tuscany, most everywhere in the UK, Slovenia, Croatia, Spain, Finland and countless trips out the front door and straight up the hill, sometimes for just a couple of hours, sometimes for days. Sunshine, rain, dust, mud, lots of laughter, many many many many miles, a few tears, and getting me home on more than one occasion by me just holding on and pedalling. As a result of all this, it’s covered with an acne of chips, scabs and scrapes and each one shares a story – there are flakes of paint left behind somewhere in the world to mark my passing as it’s been lent on walls, scraped along immovable things, chucked on the ground, and had too many rocks ricochet off the downtube.
