PACKING THE BIKE

A great idea from Hotte to document how and what I usually pack for a bike packing trip. The trip was a full adventure trip. Meaning we don’t know where we will sleep. On a camping site or just some hut or safe place in the wood? Similar to our road trip we had a long route, 2 days and just wanted to see how far we get.

When packing I usually think in the different stages of the trip in order to remember what I need to take. Envisioning the journey and considering my strategy to serve my needs along the way.

touring the first day
evening and dinner
sleeping

Touring on the first day

I pack what I need access to during the trip in the frame bag. So it’s my most essential cards and some cash in a small purse. Since I usually make a video of our bigger tours I bring along my GoPro. In the frame bag I put all kinds of mounts for it. This allows easy access for some different angles. Then an additional battery and the cables to charge all the electronic equipment. Well and then you need a way to deal with possible mechanicals. So bring the most crucial stuff, like a pump, some extra tubes, etc. On this long and dirty tour I chose to even take some lube along with me. And for food I only brought some snacks. We were planning to shop along the way.

This might be interesting if you are looking into buying a frame bag. Consider if they fit and consider if you can still access the water bottle. I took an adapter I had also used on the Stevens for these trips and added it to the Ridley. My thanks to Matthias who gave it to me. It basically allows you to lower the position of your bottle. This makes it much easier or even possible at all to access your water bottle. Using a frame bag might not be possible without.

Evening and Dinner

Now comes the second part of the day. Your tour is over and you will want to fetch some food and get a good night sleep before the next day. The first and most important piece is the small rucksack to carry the food from the last super market to your sleeping destination. Decathlon offers a totally perfect product for this: The Forclaz compact backpack. 10l capacity and absolutely minimalistic space requirements as seen next to the red purse in the pictures above. You can easily squeeze this anywhere.

Thinking about the evening: I want to get out of the bike clothing of the day, refresh myself and then enjoy dinner before I go to sleep. So I usually bring a set of clothes for the evening, the necessary toiletry and for the case that we are sleeping in the wild a water bag. You can carry water from the nearest spring or even use it as a shower. Just hang it in a tree or something.

Then as seen in the middle picture is my cooking equipment plus the coffee for the morning. I chose a little larger version. It fits a 800g can of ravioli in one go. No need to cook twice.

Sleeping

I packed the warmer sleeping bag this time since temperatures were likely to drop to around 9 degrees Celsius that night. The handlebar bag is a really good place for it. Short check if I can still use all positions on the bar as well as shifting.

Then comes the tent and air mattress plus a pillow. I always take everything out of their bags before I pack into the bike packs. They just add weight. From the picture I left the warm socks at home but I did bring the towel. I sometimes bring a small lock. This won’t do much but maybe more for the peace of mind when we stay on a camping ground. At least you can’t take the bike without noise.