Originally Posted by
skookum
I've ridden 2/3 of the route (its a long term project).
We did meet a guy doing it on a disc trucker, it seemed to be working well for him.
I agree with the previous poster, although I personally would recommend at least 2" tires, but it has been done many times on thinner tires. I think the sweet spot might be 3" tires, to get a little suspension from the tires, but I haven't tried it out.
An older hard tail mountain bike that can take panniers would be good. Suspension would be nice in some places but not strictly necessary. In retrospect, my old long wheel base steel Stumpjumper would be ideal.
We used panniers, because we are retrogrouches and because we wanted the greater packing capacity. In 2015 we ran in to some very bad weather and were happy to have the equipment to deal with it. Some of the bike packers seemed to be cutting it pretty close with the minimalist equipment approach.
It is a great route, lots of fun, physically demanding but not technically difficult. Go for it!
I'd love to do this on a fixed up vintage mtb and while I'm sure it's doable, most can only take a 2 inch tire or so. I don't think many of them can take a 2.5 tire and I'd be surprised if any vintage mtb could take a 3 inch tire. I've ridden my vintage specialized stumpy over some pretty tough roads but not day in day out covering a lot of mileage like this.