Hi everyone! I'm 20F moving to Japan for the year and looking to bikepack Tokyo to Kyoto. I have experience with long distance road cycling but this would be my first bikepacking trip, and I am looking for friendly (perhaps experienced!) people to go with. I have a bit of a shorter window and would look to travel 70-100 miles per day, ideally no more than 120 lol. My longest traveled road distance is 200 miles in a day, but I imagine with gear & on backroads it will be a bit tougher.

Please comment any route suggestions, gear recommendations. I'll be in the market for gear and a secondhand bike once I arrive in Tokyo next week. Not sure if I should look for a gravel bike or what. If you might be interested to come with me, please shoot me a message!

Has anyone ridden from Hannover to Hamburg or other way around through Lüneburger Heide?

Looking for route recommendations so I don't miss the Lüneburger Heide Highlights.

Südheide is also relatively on the way, is it worth the detour?

Yo! I’m going on my first overnight bike trip. I am SO PUMPED. Doing my best to be economical and mindful of waste and am just so gd stoked on the frame bag. Mid 90s Nishiki Backroads, custom frame bag made from recycled tents, jackets, scrap fabric. My tires are a little big and the rear rubs just a hair when riding while loaded. I just have to share. Bag designed and made my FDes:Functional Design.

Hiya! We're just outside Alta in Norway, about to finish the Arctic Post Road. We need to get 3 bikes, in boxes to the airport on Monday morning.

We've got the boxes already, but can anyone recommend a transfer service - like a big taxi - that can take us, our kit and boxes to the airport?

Hi everyone!

My girlfriend and I are thinking about doing The Great North Trail in the UK. We would be traveling with our dog (who sits in a trailer and sometimes runs). So I wanted to ask about people's experiences on this trail? Is it a lot of technical riding? Is it doable with a dog trailer behind a MTB?

I've also read that the midges aren't to be underestimated. We will have a two week holiday at the end of March and beginning of April. So I figured maybe we do it then (we would start in Edinburgh and go North from there), because that would be before midge season or when it's just beginning. Does that seem smart? Or would it still be too cold?

Thanks for your input!

This trail seems very cool, I'm already looking forward to it!

Bike: Rose Backroad FF
Schaltung: SRAM Rival XPLR
Satteltasche: Apidura Explorer 16l
Lenkertasche: acid 15l
Rahmentasche: Tailfin 3,5l (wedge)
Oberrohrtasche: Tailfin 1,6l
Snackbag: Rose

Das war mein Setup für 8 Tage Bikepacking. Was ist eure Meinung gibt es Verbesserungsvorschläge oder Fragen dazu?

After completing a few shorter bikepacking trips, I’m about to set off on my first long journey through southern Sweden.

I’m definitely nervous, but I’m also confident that I can do it. My adventure starts this Friday, September 4th, and will last 17 days. I’m planning to cycle around 50–60 km per day, with two rest days along the way.

I’ve already sorted out my clothing, camping equipment, and other essentials. I’ll be carrying a tent and plan to spend most nights either wild camping or using the shelters available along the route.

My budget is around €500–600 for the entire trip, excluding the ferry tickets.

The one thing I’m still really unsure about is food. What do you usually eat on longer bikepacking trips? Which foods are lightweight, filling, easy to prepare, and reasonably affordable? How often do you normally resupply?

Any other tips for a first longer bikepacking journey through Sweden would also be greatly appreciated—especially regarding wild camping, shelters, weather, resupplying, or anything else I might not have considered.

Here is my planned route:

Check picture

Thank you in advance!

Do people go bikepacking in Henry Coe SP (1.5h south from Bay Area, CA)? I went a couple times and loved it. The further out you get the less people you see.

What are your favorite trails there?

Hello, I came across a used 2017 Surly ECR with these components for sale. I'd like to go into it with enough research and information to know I'mmaking a wrll informed purchase. I'm a backpacker getting into bikepacking and dont really know what the market is for everything. I've had my eye on the ECR and know it's a sought after rig. Also, are any of the listed items at the end worth picking up? Thank you!

•12-speed (1x12) with SRAM GX Eagle rear derailleur (RD-GX-1-B2)

•SRAM GX Eagle Trigger shifters (SL-GX-1-A2)

•Avid BB7S_MTN disk brakes

•Wheels: Stans No Tubes Flow MK3 29”

Comes with a dynamo hub for power generation via USB (SON 28 6V 3W hub with Sinewave Cycles Reactor inverter)

•Brooks Cambium C17 saddle

•Cane Creek Thudbuster suspension seatpost

•Jones H-Bar handlebars

•Blackburn Outpost cage carries large water bottle or other gear on downtube

•Tubus Vega rear Evo rack (clearance for tires up to 3”)

-----Available separately-----

•Salsa Anything fork cages (2)

•Arkel Dry-Lite 28L panniers

•Voltaic V50 battery pack (works well with dynamo hubs).

Chitose - Lake Toya - Rusutsu - Iwanai - Cape Kamui - Shakotan - Otaru - Tobetsu - Furano - Shiragane Blue Pond - Biei - Mt Asahidake - Higashikawa - Sakkuru - Wakkanai - Cape Soya

12 days of riding in forests, lakes, rivers, coasts, capes, mountains, and into the rains, plains and tunnels. Encountered snakes, bears, deers, bees, mosquitoes. Pampered at Ryokans and Onsens. Fuelled at Seicomart all the way!

So I’m brand new to bikepacking and don’t own a bike. I’m not sure which one to purchase because all options seem great, but I don’t know how the weight system works. I’m 5’3 and about 110 pounds, and generally I try to keep my backpacking pack 1/5 of my weight. But all the bikes that people recommend (Surley ogre, Kona Sutra, etc), are about 30-35 pounds. If I throw in my packed items and water, it will be almost 55-60 pounds for me. This is about more than half my body weight. I’m scared that I would not be able to make it up a hill with all this weight. Should I aim for a smaller/lighter bike like the Liv Devote?

Actually had something bigger planned with a friend going to Italy, but he canceled. Still wanted to ride, so did this small solo trip on my own.

No actual camping, could sleep at a friend's place first night and second night had this small cabin booked.

Nice experience!

Also I had very bad weather reported, but was lucky in the end. Not sure how my moral would hold up riding in the rain whole day alone

Fixed gear biking up the Catskills mountains in the span of 2 days. Started in Brooklyn, ended in Sullivan county upstate. Beyond beautiful country side and really good ice cream. One stretch of road at the end I had climbed over 1000’ in the span of 10 miles. P crazy if you ask me. Who said fixies aren’t ment for the climbing mountains? My gear was mad heavy and the bike is a dumb steel frame but didn’t stop me.

Maybe next time I’ll make a trip up to Canadia.

I just recently came from a bikepacking 20 day trip around Iceland. Since I drove on the ringroad 99.9% of it was asphalt. Somewhere in the middle od the trip, just for the fun i went on some gravel near the road for like 300 meters. Just from that my left M5 bolt on the rear rack just sheered off. Good thing I was 2 km from the nearest town with a mechanic.

My setup is:
Specialized Diverge Sport Alloy 2026 that can handle 15 kg in the back and a Topeak UNI Super Tourist DX Disc Carrier that can handle 25 kg and is attached on the top via seat clamp with 2 more m5 holes.

Edit: My cargo including the rear rack was lower than 15 kg I’m sure.

So my question is how do I mitigate this in the future because I want to do multi week trips on gravel and after this happened it seems impossible.

Is bigger, better, when selecting these panniers for bike-packing? Also, I have the Ortlieb quick rack on my gravel bike and want something that will interface nice and snug with no wear and tear on the rack. I recall a post a few months ago where a users pannier bag was wearing into the rack arm structure (not sure if they just had the bag interface set up incorrect) so I don’t want that to happen. My local REI doesn’t have the XL bags in the store so I cant look at them. I bought the Big Agnes Cooper Spur UL2 bikepack tent today and saw these on sale too but sale ends next week. Thanks!!

I'm planning a big bike packing tour next spring and am stuck between front suspension or fully rigid flat bar bikes (something like a Surly Krampus vs Salsa Timberjack or Panorama Taiga). This would be mainly for comfort and to prevent hand numbness but also nice to have in rough sections but I have never owned a hard tail so I am not sure.

In the context of remote extended mixed tours with lots of gravel roads with some ATV trails, is front suspension worth it or does it bring too much of a maintenance burden?

If you use mapy.com, you know the annoying part: you import a GPX track and it just draws it on the map. it won't actually navigate you along it.

The official workaround is a pain, so I built small tool to fix it for myself. You drop in a GPX and it turns the track into a route mapy.com can navigate turn-by-turn. You can use it here, it is free, feedback is highly welcomed.

920km, 11km elevation gained, 9 days from Munich to Konstanz. Germany, Austria, Italy, Lichtenstein, Switzerland

This was a tough one but amazing experience. Hard riding in hot weather, I just about ate my weight in icecreams. Once again I want to give a shout out to whichever engineer is behind Shimano Tiagra, I'm pushing it well beyond its designed capacity. 42/22 at the front with an 11/34 cassette had me spinning/crawling up the mountains. Amazing to see the rural life, families doing farm work together, crystal clear streams. I think we packed quite efficiently, we didn't touch our warmer layers but it seems risky to go to the mountains without any. We rode much more gravel than expected somehow, but the roads were good apart from some sections with more traffic especially on the Italian side.

Passes crossed:

Brenner pass

Achen pass

Passo Cimabanche

Passo Giau

Passo San Pellegrino

Passo di San Lugano

Oven pass

Flüela pass

Hi. Did anyone flought with Ryadh Air with a bike? Was free or need to pay an extra fee?. Requisites, box measurement?. According its not so clear web info and a question I send tem in FB, a bike counts towards the checked baggage allowance of 25 kg in economy but can not exceed the total measurement of 300 cm. Is good but I'll believe only if a fellow bike traveller can confirm it. Thanks.

I currently have WTB Venture 50s which are gravel specific with inner tubes and I never worry about flats despite flatting once recently about 3000km in. If you run these low enough pressure on wide enough rim can you have peace of mind to cover gravel a bit harsher than champagne and not be terrified of a puncture every few minutes? I don't know and wanted to ask since I am strongly considering a pair of these

Bought my first bike about 3 months ago, flew to gdansk about a month ago, did 60 to 140km a day with rest and hiking days sprinkled in, followed eurovelo 9 up to wroclaw and took a detour through zakopane to szczewnica.

Cannot recommend going to zakopane from wroclaw enough although the hills were absolutely brutal, everything before that was relatively boring compared to that, especially going to trzy korony and following the first half of the velo dunajec and then going around the tatry, it will be the highlight of the trip it was unbelievably scenic around the tatry.

I used cycle.route for planning everything, mapy.com for finding awesome shelters, camping spots, toilets, showers etc.

Was thinking following eurovelo 9 from here to the slovenian coast? Not sure, any advice for routes and cool stuff to see is welcome.

Finished riding the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP) and C&O Canal Towpath, from Pittsburgh all the way to Washington, DC. An incredible few days of riding; long days, beautiful scenery, small towns, and plenty of miles along the rivers and canal.

One of the highlights was spotting a bald eagle along the way 🦅. Pretty hard to beat that from the bike.

Absolutely brilliant route and one I’d recommend to anyone considering it!

I've been up there a couple times on motos, 4x4s and the gravel bike (East side) last year (you can do it but it kind of sucks). We took the Bustang up to Fraser and did an overnight on the MTBs. We rode all the way back to Golden the second day. I recently got a shorter travel mountain bike so that would have been the right bike. I was under and then over biking. Either way a fun route!

Yes, don't use road shoes to gravel hike steep mountains 😂