[EN] Making Adventure Your New Normal

Team Endurance Nation

In this age of social distancing and minimal events, art of Bikepacking is a revival. More about new adventures as you get stronger on the bike.

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In this age of social distancing and minimal events, the art of Bikepacking is experiencing a revival. Art because it’s less about time and distance and more about creating new adventures and memories.

Secretly, as your Evil Coach, I get to trick you into spending more time on your bike doing work. Watts are watts or watts. Whether you push them on a recumbent, put them on a gravel bike, or push them on your TT bike it's still building strength and endurance.

This week we take a detour (see what I did there?) off the typical training path to explore a different side of life on two wheels. If you have been Bikepacking before or are planning to, fire up a thread in our Forums so we can share the knowledge!

Be epic,

~ Coach Patrick


** Bikepacking 101 via Outside Online

scott dinhofer

as @Coach Patrick knows, I am trying to organize a bikes & Beerz bike camp in Mid-September to be held in Northern VT, bikepack 40-50 miles per day while visiting 2-5 breweries and taprooms per day!

what you need -

Bike can be a road bike that accommodates larger tires (32+ recommended) or a XC focused MTB, ideally a 29er HardTail, but others can work. Ideally you can carry 3 bottles or a camelback.

you will also need a few gear items, Front bag, saddle bag, frame bag, sleep kit, cook kit.

Weight is the game! keep it down overall.

I have watched a bunch of videos to see what works and will post them at the bottom of this post.

For my sleep kit, I have a lightweight down sleeping bag and a bivvy sack from Outdoor Research. I also scored a super lite 2 man tent on a facebook hiking group, so I can make a choice before a trip which to bring. I am also outfitting myself to be able to go speedpacking (think backpacking meets trailrunning) so I might use the tent for biking & the bivvy for packing. I also have a lightweight mattress pad (scored it on www.theclymb.com) to round it out, goal here is to get something around 18oz or less.

Cook kit - you need a superlite cooking kit/ stove. I got this and a coffee press (need to learn the skills and up my Java Game!) also, many stoves are actually a burner that fits on top of fuel bottles, which you must by locally, they don't ship. So you want to get a super efficient stove so you carry less fuel. Google "best cook kits for bikepacking"

and also got the Coffee press to go with it (I have to learn how to use this and up my java game!)

Clothing - you want minimal changes of clothes and need to have a good quality rain gear setup.

Bivvy - Outdoor Research Helium Bivvy I had gotten this for 25% off. if you are already a customer of OR, keep watching for sales, you should be able to get this for around $135.

sleeping bag recommended in a video below is only $90, it's a good product & ridiculously cheap. I just recently got a used Western Mountaineering Hilite for around $240 used (it's a $500+ bag) for comparison, I actually have both as I wanted a 2nd kit for my daughter to pack with.

Videos - Go down the rabbit's hole and explore, please share your findings on this thread.

here's a series of some short videos starting with this one (where I got the sleeping bag reccomendation)

GCN has some great videos they also did

equipment and setup

How to pack your bags for bikepacking

how to set up camp

Cooking Basics

How to ride a loaded Bike

Patrick Large

@scott dinhofer thanks for all this info. My son and I are bikepacking from the western northern tip of mainland Holland to Antwerp Belgium.

This is all super new to me, so excited to ride and share the adventure with him!! I will look at your links to get some ideas. Thanks again!