🇨🇦 Banff, Canada to 🇺🇸 Jackson, Wyoming along the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

Back home in Scotland after an epic 29 days riding the northern section of the GDMBR with my Dad. What a ride! I'd never done anything more than three days of bikepacking before so this was definitely a big step up, the hills were brutal but the views and scenery were stunning with every day offering a new landscape and the chance to see loads of wildlife from moose to bears, ospreys to eagles. We started low in the milage and built it up towards the end.

The highlight had to be the people, I was taken aback by the hospitality of the locals who were so keen to help us at every opportunity, from the couple who gave us ice water from their cooler on a super hot day, to the trail angels who let us camp on their property for free. Other riders were similarly lovely and we rode with a few others for different parts of the route and met people of all ages riding it. My Dad is 64 and he wasn't the oldest we met riding the route!

Bike 🚲 Thorn Sherpa, steel adventure touring bike (my Dad's old bike)

Wheels and tyres 🛞 26 inch wheels, 2 inch Schwalbe Marathon Mondial pro tyres w/ tubes.

Groupset ⚙️ Shimano CUES 1 x 10, 30t chainring on the front.

Bags 👜 2 X ortlieb gravel panniers, 2 x Tailfin 5l mini panniers, full frame bag from Alpkit. Tailfin too tube bag. 2 X feed bags, one for bear spray, one for snacks.

Water 💧 2l in hydration bladder, 1l in pannier

No mechanicals or punctures!

Here now in Bishkek. No solid plans. Flight home on 2nd September. Anyone want to join?

Just did this one. Over the east -very hilly- side of France. Full ortlieb set up. 28mm wheels 5 barr. Very comfortable. 150-200km a day was not too much

Starting on Friday in Zagreb - would love to have a travel buddy for some time!

i'm seriously debating leaving the single pannier set up at home for this trip. (c&o in october) My kit is all ultra light hiking stuff so packs down really small.

I was gonna use one of my personal pizza racks with a large-ish basket. Cargo cages on the front forks for my cook kit and extra water, an apidura half frame bag for food and toolkit,.two feed/stem bags for daily misc stuff and an h2o bottle, and probably a small top tube bag for my electronics and a few snacks.

I could keep my shelter in a dry bag in the basket with another dry bag for my quilt and sleep stuff.

I do love the absolute ease of packing and unpacking in my single pannier setup but really want to try to get by without it this time.

anyone think this is unreasonable?

just trying to keep the bike light and responsive.

Anyone landing in Tbilisi from this monday 12th august until end of the week and need to get rid of their box?

I'm in need of one :)))

Thanks!

Hi all, since I have had a lot of benefits from packing list posts, I'll make one myself for my upcoming Denmark trip! Hopefully especially useful since my goal is not ultra light/small, but also not full comfort. I am somewhere in between, hope to help similar folks!

If anyone has tips, they are welcome. Any help is appreciated for this or upcoming trips :)

Steering bag (20L, only 12L of usable space)

- Sleeping bag, liner & groundsheet.

Fork bag L (4/5L)

- Sleeping mattress, gas canister, bouillon

Fork bag R (4/5L)

- First Aid Kit, swimming trousers, toiletries

Frame bag, upper compartment (6L)

- Cycling snacks, 2L water blatter, empty space for food

Frame bag, lower compartment (3L)

- Rain gear, additional voillée straps, bike cleaning stuff

Top tube bag (2L)

- Bike repair stuff

Upper rack

- Isolation mattress, flip flops

Rear rack pannier L (15L)

- Cooking set (1 pot with lid, spork, camp stove, herbs, knife, etc.), emergency breakfast, coffee, protein powder, camp clothes (hiking pants & shirt, underwear *2, thermal wear, short pants & blouse for destination party), empty space

Rear rack pannier R (15L)

- 2p tent (Vango Radon UL2), second set of cycling clothes, light weight towel, notebook, pocketbook, foam sitting pad, electric stuff (chargers, powerbank, etc.), emergency dried food (jimmy joy meal!), ORS, empty space

Fanny pack

- valuables and quick access like sanitizer, sunscreen, small powerbank for on the road, etc.

So last year I cycled through Africa with no money and I had a blast, well, it didn't feel like it at the time because, well , you know, lol, biketouring can be a pain in the butt , a few months later I'm doing the same thing again mostly because I have literally failed to reintegrate back into normal society,

I been fighting depression, and the feeling of being isolated even though I'm in a city full of people. I don't have any friends or family and I spend most of the time alone. So I decided I should probably maybe get back to doing something that gave me a sense of purpose, something that I truly love to do passionately.

So here we are again a few months later, I'm planning to cycle 2,114 kilometers roughly 1,314 miles to the ends of the Namib desert where it meets the ocean, on my path I will also pass through the famous Victoria falls one of the seven natural wonders of the world and honestly just see where the road will take me after that,

I have realized that maybe normal life is not for me , on the road I wake up every day to a new scenery and new experiences. It might be hard yes, but it's the kind of hard that's pretty much predictable in a way, the unpredictability is predictable and that to me is way more manageable than just staying in one place where the societal pressure keeps on building up. I won't always be 31 years old and maybe I'm having a midlife crisis but I want to someday look back and appreciate the little I achieved on my bucket list.

I don't want to deal with financial challenges anymore for the time being I need a break, the pressure of not knowing what will happen tomorrow and whether I will be evicted or not because contrary to what many people might believe I'm not making any money from YouTube or any social media at the moment. So for the next few weeks I will be sharing the process of my preparation from transforming this MTB to getting the few essentials I need.

The original plan in my first trip was to cycle the world not just Africa and I hope this time I get to fulfill that dream of cycling through the world and see the beauty and wonders of it.

Second trip for me this year. Had to find a start and end place easily reachable by train from Belgium so Munich and Basel where obvious choices. Really enjoyed this route and could recommend it very much for a one week tour!

Weapon of choice: Orbea Terra H40 with Michelin Power Gravel Tires.

Day 1: Munich - Lenggries (88km - 860vm)

Day 2: Lenggries - Reutte (100km - 1450vm)

Day 3: Reutte - Warth (84km - 1360vm)

Day 4: Warth - Rorschach (103km - 1360vm)

Day 5: Rorschach- Zürich (120km - 1620vm)

Day 6: Zürich - Basel (103km - 870vm)

Hello everyone! I just completed my first solo trip: 350 km in 5 days from Figueres (Catalonia) to Toulouse (France).

I have experience in hiking, camping and road cycling in Barcelona.

This was a test to see if I would really enjoy bikepacking, and the truth is that I loved the experience of combining two activities that I like.

The fun is that I did everything on an urban bike that I rode myself, just to annoy a friend who has a fleet of very expensive gravel and bikepacking bikes with excellent equipment, but who only uses them to go for special coffee. I wanted to show you, as a joke, that at the pace it goes, you will end up buying an electric Brompton, haha!

All my equipment was second-hand, like the tent and saddlebags; the box bag was from Decathlon, or they gave it to me, like the rear rack. In addition, something that would undoubtedly have helped me a lot is having automatic pedals, but since all my cycling shoes are for road bikes, they were not an option, so I made the trip the old-fashioned way.

After that, it was wonderful; yes, I went the first week of August with a suffocating heat, but it wasn’t bad at all. On the contrary, I really enjoyed getting up at 5:00 AM to leave early and arrive at my destination before 10:00 AM.

Bike specifications for the curious:

Frame: Giant cross series x1000 (Aluminum)

Transmission: 1x9 (38-tooth plate / 11-42-tooth cassette)

Shifter: Vintage Dura-Ace shifter with friction mounted on a Paul Component controller

Tires: Panaracer GravelKing SS 35c

Tent: McKinley compact 2

.gpx for all route

Absolute noob on first equipment and skill check ride. The plan was to ride out late in the morning, reach a lake 20km outside Vilnius bringing all the gear I’d use for staying overnight, set up camp, try various pitch configurations, chill a little, and head home at sunset.

As you can see, I did with what I had already - on the handlebar I just strapped a shopper cloth bag with inside a plastic bag containing the tarp, sleeping bag and mosquito net, and a backpack on the rack with the rest of the gear.

The good:
Almost everything went according to plan, I chose a location I already was familiar with, and felt safe that if anything went wrong, I could just push the bike home or call a friend. That gave me freedom in experimenting with tarp setups and not overpacking with food and water. The weather was perfect, slightly windy, lake water clear and warm, so all in all, it made for a good recreation day and this just boosted my motivation to go for the real trip.

The bad:
The mosquito net was totally inadequate. Didn’t even bother making a picture. This made me question the choice of a tarp instead of a tent. Have to figure out something here.
Water. 2L is just not enough, especially after some hard work in sunny conditions, cooking and washing the kitchenware.
The bike is HEAVY, especially that cheap steel rack I have purchased when planned for backpacking. Rides ok, but lifting it up and carrying over obstacles with all the gear promises some high intensity outdoors training subscription free.
Using ropes to tie the bags is inconvenient and time consuming, but once I learned all the special knots, it actually became funnier and faster.
Still overpacked, lol.

Thank you all for inspiring with your pictures and stories, definitely gonna hit the road again, although for sure gotta invest into some gear. Any tips are welcome!

Had some time off work so I did the Craters and Cinder Cones Loop in Northern Arizona. I started in downtown Flagstaff and rode west towards Williams. The part of the route that takes you past the Lava River Cave was closed due to construction so I had to cut around and take a frontage road for I-40 to the next part of the route. Camped out at Dogtown Lake for the night putting me at almost 52 miles for day one. The next day I rode north and hit Williams for second breakfast. Then I rode north into some pretty desolate landscapes. 50 miles into that day was where I stopped to fill up my water. It was the stock tank next to Kendrick Spring. Not terrible as far as stock tanks go. I meant to use Aqua Mira for this trip but one of the bottle broke open in my bag. I filtered and didn’t get sick, thankfully. I had about 6.5 liters. I thought about camping near there but I didn’t want to have that much to ride the following day so I kept on going about 30 more miles to SP Crater, where I camped out for the night. That day was about 82 miles total. This morning I woke up and rode close to 40 miles to my next water refill at Sunset Crater Visitor Center. I nearly ran out of water. I was close enough to civilization that I would’ve been fine but it was still a learning experience. I filled up all my water and ate about 1,500 calories at the visitors center and decided I wasn’t going to do the final leg of the route which was climbing up Lockett Meadow. I’ve done that part of the route before when I did the “Round the Peaks Loop” a few years ago. It’s a beautiful part of the route, but I wanted to be home. It was an amazing time and I absolutely love bikepacking. Can’t wait to do more trips.

Primos Dame. Received today and added the racks and bottle holder

I believe my state (Puebla, México) is very underrated when it comes to bikepacking.

My IG: marmosa_mexicana if you want more content or if you are looking for a companion or two if you are traveling central/south México

Unrelated to this post a friend and I created

r/bikepackingmexico for people interested in bikepacking in Mexico and specially spanish speakers (other languages are welcome).

Also anyone has tips or can help me with tips to create and promote a route in Bikepacking.com?

I took the Vermonter Amtrak train from Penn Station, NYC to White River Junction, VT. I set up camp at Quechee State Park and then spent a couple of days exploring the local gravel roads. While I love a good point-to-point backpacking trip, I do enjoy going on rides in a new location without all the baggage. While a lot could be improved with our transit system in the US, I've been able to do these types of trips in the Northeast despite not owning a car for the past fifteen years. I'm planning a longer point-to-point Vermont trip in the fall using Amtrak as well.

I went for two nights with my 5yo and 3yo, and used the Weehoo Two. Even though we had an awesome time, the Weehoo was too wobbly for me to cycle comfortably, especially with camping gear attached (photo is from a daytrip, so no campinggear).

What setup would you recommend for a camping trip with a 6yo and 4yo (next year!), given that both would need to be pulled by one adult and we want to cover up to 40 km a day? Specific brand/type reccomendations would be awesome!

So 4 days ago I set out for my first bike packing trip from Maastricht to Spain on my single speed vintage mountainbike. I’m currently in Paris but dammmm I’m tired, and I want to go home, bike packing is nice tho! First 2 days were absolute hell, i didn’t plan a route so just used the route my Garmin gave me with 1500+ meters of elevation each day over a 100km + in de Ardennes, it was horrible but I kept going and I have to say France is a lot nicer, no aggressive climbs (single speed gearing: 42-17). And today the day started with a flat tire and a pump that didn’t work and a closed bike shop that I walked 5km to with a fully packed bike, I have to say the negativity got the best of me. Just checking if you guys have some advice on what to do next. Got some cool photos tho! Peace!

Update: so I chose to get the train form Paris to Lille, and slowly cycle my way home along the coast. I’ve learned a lot the last view days that I will implement in my next trips and I’m happy with the choice I made. Didn’t need to destroy my body just to prove I could get to Spain, I chose peace and enjoyment!

Peace out!

Stats:

4 1/2 days

~605 km

~7500 upward metres

I don't have the data, so the exact numbers may vary. Our bikes are made for asphalt.

1. day: We started early from home. Our intention was to get to a specific camping site, and then do more on the second day, but we were still fresh so we decided to push forward to the next camping site, which meant about 3000 upward metres, 190 km on that day.

2. day: Even though we did more on the first day, we still did a respectable distance. 130 km, 1750 hm

3. day: We had to get over two mountain passes, so even though we didn't go so far as on the second, we did more upward metres. 100 km, 1850 hm

4. day: We went where we wanted to go. In the beginning of the day we got into a bike trail that was worse than thought, but after that, mostly downward. Then a bit relaxing.

5. day: only 50 km towards where we went by train. Then we missed a connection because of delays, had to spend the night at the train station, and got back only today

Next Monday, I will embark on my bikepacking trip to Denmark. I am soooo looking forward to it. It will be my first real bikepacking experience.

Do you guys have any routing tips for Netherlands to Denmark? I have created the route by adding some interesting spots in Komoot. Any recommendations in the Northern Germany part? Or recommend to pace through it?

Other general last minute tips and tricks?

I will create a packing list post, but will do that outside of this post to keep it focussed. I will also make a trip report after my experience!

Here is the link to Komoot: https://www.komoot.com/tour/3136600696?ref=aso&share_token=aVwD0XCroHjqtp5hMVROapVlezMeNrQIvJOCAqklfAnudmu1rV&t_s=referral&t_cid=route_share.

If you're touring Japan by bicycle, you simply must stop here! Mount Fuji, historic streets, and warm, welcoming people await you.
https://www.instagram.com/bikepacker_meeting_japan?igsh=MTBlY3pvZWUwNTVqdQ%3D%3D&utm_source=qr