Great Escape - Bike Packing Advice
At a recent race I was chatting with a couple of mates who were wondering why I hadn’t been around the endurance racing scene as much as in previous years. I responded that I’d been spending my weekends going ‘bikepacking’. The response was swift, ‘why bother?’ they asked ‘if I want to ride I ride, if I want to hike I hike, why would anyone combine the two?’I just laughed, how little they know! We’ve all seen cycle tourists; bikes heavily laden with panniers, often ridden by bearded fellows riding along at 20km/h determined to follow the highway to the next town. This is not bikepacking.
Bikepacking is off-road touring. It’s getting out into the wilderness, just you and your bike, and in the process riding in some unbelievable places. Can I let you in on a secret? Sometimes the best riding isn’t at a race. Have you ridden the Mt Fatigue fire trail? 15km of amazing downhill fun. What about the descent on Mt Horrible road? How about … okay I could go on.
A typical bikepacking trip involves mostly off-road riding and at least one overnight stop, and hey, we’re mountain bikers right? So some awesome singletrack should definitely be on the menu with sketchy descents and some leg destroying climbs.
Okay, it sounds like fun but what should you take and just as importantly, how do you carry it?
Packing List
Packing for an overnight trip is mostly common sense. You need somewhere to sleep and something to sleep in. You need enough food and water to keep you going between paces to resupply and you need some stuff to keep your bike working for the trip. Easy!
Assuming that you’re camping then a basic sleeping kit would be:
• Sleeping bag
• Something to sleep on
• Shelter (most likely some sort of tent)
Food wise you’ll be carrying a couple of day’s worth. If you want a hot dinner then you’ll also need something to cook it in. I generally take some sort of dehydrated meal which you can get at most camping shops. Okay, to be honest I take two meals and a dessert!
For a night away you probably want something like:
• Small gas cooker
• Matches
• A pan or something to boil water in
Water is probably the biggest challenge. In summer you can easily go through four or five litres of water a day. I always carry something to sterilise water just in case it looks a bit suss. Never take water from creeks where there are cattle about—it’s a sure fire way to get sick!
Bike stuff tends to be a bit subjective but remember, there’s no point in taking something if you don’t know how to use it. For instance, I don’t carry spare spokes because even if I had a wheel failure, I wouldn’t know what to do with them!
For me a minimum overnighter spares kit would be:
• Lights – even if you’re not planning to ride at night, let’s face it even the best plans can sometimes go awry!
• GPS/cycle computer
• Two spare tubes
• Puncture repair kit (make sure the glue isn’t dried up)
• Pump (forget CO2 cartridges – save them for your next race!)
• Tyre boot (something to seal a slashed sidewall)
• Multi-tool with allen/torx keys to fit all your bolts
• Pocket knife with pliers (I use a Leatherman)
• Chain lube and a small rag
• Zip ties (they’ll fix just about anything)
Now, final part of the gear equation – you!
You’ll obviously want something to ride in but as you’re going to be out for the night, you probably want something to sleep and relax in as well—even if you think you’ll be okay, your mates will thank you.
A reasonable list would be:
• Non-riding shirt
• Non-riding pants
• Rain jacket
• Riding gear (shorts, jersey gloves etc.)
• At least some warmer gear just in case – for me its arm and knee warmers, even in summer.
So, we’ve got a packing list together; now to get it all onto the bike. The original concept was to get away in the wilderness with great riding, gnarly singletrack, awesome descents and leg shredding climbs. If this is what’s on the menu, then your gear and whatever you use to carry it needs to be:
• Light – Those leg shredding climbs are going to be a lot less fun if you’re loaded up with many kilos of extra gear. Excess weight also puts more stress on your bike and can lead to reliability issues.
• Secure – Nothing wrecks your flow on singletrack more than having to stop every three minutes to re-attach bags or to untangle your tent from the front wheel (don’t laugh... it takes ages!)
• Streamlined – Okay, not in a roadie aero sense but basically you don’t want tons of stuff hanging off all over the place—it gets caught on branches and it’ll stop you in a hurry!
To meet these goals the three basic options are:
• Backpack – Get it all on your back.
• Ghetto – Strap bags onto your bike somehow.
• Frame Bags – They are specially tailored to fit in and on the bike.
Backpacks
Backpacks are probably the simplest way to carry your gear. You’ll probably need about a 20-litre capacity pack.
Advantages:
• Light – Apart from the weight of the backpack itself you’re not carrying any additional stuff.
• Secure – Generally once you’ve got the backpack on, it’ll stay where it is and you won’t have to worry about losing stuff when it gets rough.
• Streamlined – High marks here as well, backpacks don’t typically get in the way when you ride.
Disadvantages
• The weight is all on your back. By the time you add water and your gear, you’re probably going to be carrying 8kg or more. After a couple of long days in the saddle, this might start to hurt.
Ghetto
The idea here is to use the bike itself to carry your gear and get some of the weight off your back. This generally involves getting a waterproof stuff sack known as a ‘drybag’ to carry most of your soft gear, and then strapping this to your handlebars. On most suspension bikes you can probably get a 20-litre drybag on the bars before you start to interfere with suspension travel.
The main bag can be supplemented by other smaller bags stuffed in all manner of locations; behind your seat and strapped to the seatpost, within the main section of the frame and anywhere else you can get them to fit.
Ghetto setups also work really well if you’ve got some pannier racks on the bike. A rack provides more places to tie things to but it also adds weight.
Advantages:
• This can be a very light setup – there’s almost no additional weight apart from the gear itself.
Disadvantages:
• It can be hard to get your gear secure on the bike.
• The amount of gear that you can carry can be a bit limited.
• Depending on your bike setup, this setup can interfere with how things like suspension work. There’s nothing worse than the sound of your drybag rubbing against your front wheel every time you hit a bump.
Frame Bags
The idea of a frame bag is to use the nooks and crannies of the bicycle frame to carry your gear. Typically this would entail using the space in the main triangle, under the seat and the handlebars.
Advantages
• Like a ghetto setup it can be quite light—the only additional weight (apart from your gear) is the bags themselves.
• Weight distribution – The weight is carried quite centrally; this means that your bike is still going to handle like it should when you finally get to that singletrack you’ve been aiming for!
Disadvantages
• It’s hard to get frame bags ‘off the rack’ for certain sorts of bikes. Most are designed with hardtails in mind but it can get tricky to find bags for the huge variety of dual suspension bikes.
• Carrying space can be limited by the frame design (again – particularly a problem with some dual suspension designs).
• More planning is required as you’ll probably be splitting your gear amongst lots of smaller compartments.
So, with all of this in mind, what’s the best setup and where does all of your gear go? I’ve fiddling around with a number of different setups and typically settle on the following...
A drybag attached to my handlebars where I carry all my light soft stuff including the sleeping bag, spare clothes, socks, towel and so on. Getting things out of bags on the handlebars can be a pain, so it’s best to keep things here that you don’t plan on using during the day.
I also have a few frame bags; there’s a 13-litre one under my seat where I carry heavier things like the tent, small stove, first-aid kit and warm/rain gear. I also have a couple of little bags that sit on top of the stem and behind the handlebars for storing food and things I want to get at during the day.
My last few trips have been on a Cannondale Scalpel 29er. It’s an awesome machine for all-day travelling but a but limited when it comes to carrying water bottles, so I also carry a small hydration pack which has water and most of the things I’ll need to keep me and the bike going for the day.
On a recent 1,000km, five-day trip in New Zealand, the total weight of my gear (including the bags it was packed in) was under 4kg. On the carbon hardtail I was riding at the time I had a combined weight of bike and gear of less than 15kg. Not so long ago that would have been considered a respectable weight for a dual suspension XC bike!
To travel this light you need to be pretty ruthless, opting out of many ‘luxury items’ but the payback comes with the ride experience. If you’re not weighed down by rattly and cumbersome panniers or heavy trailers, you’ll fully enjoy the trail and the awesome places that a mountain bike can take you. A bit of planning and thought is required to optimise your setup but it’s well worth it!
