Bill’s Bikepacking Adventure

Bikepacking is one of the hottest trends, along with gravel and adventure bikes. I’m going to be doing a 6 day trip on the Cowboy Trail this fall and I figured that I would build up to it. We all have to start somewhere. With that I would say just run what you brung

There is a lot of specialized and fancy gear for bike packing. I do a lot of long all day rides so I’ve had the chance to biuld up a bit of the equipment I needed. For my first overnight I looked for and found something that was shorter mileage and had ample oppurtuntiy to bail if it went sideways. I chose to mountain bike and equipped my 29er hardtail with a half frame pack, seatpack, 2 bar feedbags, a handlebar bag/roll  and anything cages on the fork legs. I decided that flat pedals and trail shoes would be better than clip in MTB shoes, especially for hiking around the n. My aim was to travel light, the sleep system was a bivy and a tarp. My cooksystem was just a jetboil. I brought along 3 liters of water which was enough, but I also had a steripen if I needed more.

Everything was loaded, balanced and reloaded and off I went! 
Of course, everything went perfect and according to plan……NOT! If everything went right would it be an adventure? The handlebar bag wouldn’t stay tight, the seatpack keeps hitting my butt and my tin cup sounds like a church bell, small annoyances. That said, the weather couldn’t have been better with a night time low in the 50s and a full moon to light the night sky.camp. So there you go! Keep it simple and keep it fun.  Everyone’s system is different, experiment with what works for you.

If you have any other questions about Bill’s adventure swing by the shop!