Bikepacking mistakes you’ve made

[UnderTheRadars]

What lessons have you learnt the hard way that you can pass on to others?

I’ve been thinking about posting this thread for a while but rollingdoughnuts faff thread pushed me to post it (apologies if similar has been posted before)

Me?

Don’t put your lights and batteries in a metal tin (then place said tin at the bottom of your frame bag) to protect them, the rattling will drive you nuts.

Test out/sleep on your new mat before going for an overnighter

Always take smidge + a midge net no matter what time of year or location

Take every opportunity to top up your water

[Lazarus]

Do remember your tent pegs and stop storing them seperate from your tent - it wont end well
TLS - everyone took too much when they started surely
Take a waterproof phone [ you will hav aphone with you anywy propably so no weight penalty here]as a back up GPS - i use an experia that was £50 new
Ther eis n point trying to make your tubes tubeless on the trail just fit a tube and leave the sealant at home- the bugger held until the weight was on the gash /repair and it was ging PFFT on every roll -obvs I tried to fix this again and again and again rather than just accept the slash was too large to be fixed- nearly fixed does not suggest can be fixed! Save time ,fir a tube and get on with the ride

A poor nights sleep is worse than anything that can go wrong during the day so I will take weight hits here to wake up dry and warm ,

Water rationining is interesting - no point carrying excess weight BUT running out of water is a very bad idea - Unless you know the route well there is no correct answer however no water is always worse than too much water,

3 hours sleep and 16 hours riding is not for me

[jay91]

Forgetting tent pegs on the winter bivvy it was pissing down . Good job mart had a few to lend me

[RIP]

Seems to be a theme starting here . Don't economise on pegs either - my 9g ones are WAY over 50% more effective than my 6g ones...

[Asposium]

most obvious one was buying a gravel bike

a front sus hard tail was a much better purchase

[ton]

a heavy tent is far far better than a lightweight bivi bag, when you are built like a barn door.

[Dean]

Considering bikepacking as a hobby is inversely correlated to bank balance.

[jameso]

Racing?

Or at least, racing through places that you realise you may never see again and deserve your time and attention/wandering far more than any ideas of how fast you can go from A to B. Racing across wilderness is one thing, racing through somewhere of huge cultural and historic importance (or difference) is something else.

But less navel-gazingly, going for 75% of something to save weight and pack size rather than something that adds 25% in bulk but 100% to me physically*. Themarest 3/4 traded up for full-size. Lighter tyres traded in for bigger tougher ones. 120g mostly-WP jacket vs the ~300g Gore Active jacket. Tiny tarp for bigger tarp (yes I'm remembering all these items while I search for a sub 200g tarp tent!)

*doesn't apply to superlight summer roadpacking or SSS24O trips where less is more.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Riding past a perfectly good overnight spot because you've convinced yourself there'll be "something better soon"

[Lazarus]

we have all done that one

[Ray Young]

Thinking you can get a good time on an itt route before you've learned to hydrate and feed yourself properly. That was a big learning curve!

[RIP]

Riding past a perfectly good overnight spot because you've convinced yourself there'll be "something better soon"

Conversely, stopping at a perfectly good overnight spot, then getting up in the morning and immediately riding past an infinitely better one. All done that one too

[pistonbroke]

Continually packing my fears.

[fatbikephil]

Riding past a perfectly good overnight spot because you've convinced yourself there'll be "something better soon"

Conversely, stopping at a perfectly good overnight spot, then getting up in the morning and immediately riding past an infinitely better one. All done that one too

I have done this so many times.....
Carrying 8 OS 1:50k maps to cover your route (make a good insulating layer and night though). Realising your sleeping bag isn't warm enough at 2am in the middle of nowhere. Forgetting any form of eating utensil. Running out of loo roll mid.... (you get the picture)

ITT one - riding past and away from the entire field in the first 20k and then blowing up spectacularly......

[Fargoist]

On my last one night trip things taught me a few lessons. Left the house mid afternoon, in an area I know quite well so no need to have a route marked on the GPS. Weather was great, if warm and still is your thing. Had a bivi location in mind, and got there about 90 mins before dark, perfect. As the weather had been so good, I didn't check the forecast and just took my hooped bivi bag with 3 season sleeping bag, so plenty warm and dry enough to stay alive. Got to the bivi location and laid out my kit, put a pot of water on to boil for some pasta and watched the grey clouds rolling in. Now the planned night location is quite high in the fells, so some concern come over me about rain and a desire to dodge risk of a damp night. Bivi kit packed up back on the bike and pasta just about cooked a la dente, scoffed that down and made the most of the dying light. I'm over the fell and approaching into the nearest town, spot a barn, which is not without risk of being woken by an angry farmer, so give it a miss and head to the lake. Loads of people around, even at nearly midnight and no sign of any roof to sleep under. At this point the clouds had held onto the h20 as long as they could and started to rain, quite heavily! Now it occurs to me i'm going to be looking for somewhere to kip for a little while as nothing arises from my limited local knowledge, so think now is the time to dig my lights out of my bag. Said lights are mixed in with other kit in main compartment of a rucksack and only find 3 out of 4, 2 back and 1 front, which are only good as a combo. So now in a annoyed state after looking several times through the bag I can't find the other front light, and booting myself for being so clumsy and probably losing it at the aborted bivi site. But metalled roads provide steady passage to an unknown destination! I'm in the area of a sizeable forest, which as a chopper and planter of trees i'm quite familiar with but don't know of the location of any accessible or suitable roof. Now i'm getting a bit zonked and start planning for the next day, thinking of a much shorter ride home and know of a suitable spot to kip right next to the planned ferry across the local lake so that it is to be unless anything else is spotted en route. Riding along the road with just about enough light to prevent a misjudged bend I spot a track looking hopeful, so at last minute turn into the unknown, before I can say d'oh i'm heading for the ground with the bike coming with me at an acute angle and hit the asphalt surface hard! It is now that I run through my mind the escalation of minor miss judged decisions and the pain striking through my left leg, that'l be bruised tomorrow I say to myself and stand with the bike waiting for the shock to ease. I flex the leg and can get back carefully onto the bike. A few more undulating road miles and i'm at the bivi site and put on a pot of water for hot chocolate and get into my bag listening to the waves chop against the ferry port. A fairly decent nights sleep and not long made a coffee before I hear the ferry cable creaking telling me the passage home is near. Home and put the dirty bike away with bags left on and get some extra sleep as its still only about 07:30, after which I find the other front light in the hydration pocket in my bag underneath my bladder! Thank you for reading.

[BigdummySteve]

My most spectacular was in February this year, a new member suggested a ‘bimble’ through Dartmoor’s delights. Having never ridden across Dartmoor despite spending much time in Devon it seemed like a golden opportunity. Dave Barter was onboard, day off booked, B&B booked.
The ‘member’ disappeared, Dave had to do something computer related to earn a living. Still I had a route, seemed silly to waste it. Sitting on Brixham harbour eating my fish and chips at 10pm the forecast apocalyptic weather seemed at best reminiscent of Michael Fish in negative, obviously it wasn’t going to be that bad, no one wanted to be the next fish, haunted forever by that prediction that ‘there’s not going to be a hurricane’.
Well the predicted 70Mph winds did arrive, it didn’t end well. I really should have taken the offer of a £15 bunkhouse room. The full details are in the bam thread, I can’t tell you where exactly, my therapist say it will hamper my recovery if i look.

[BigdummySteve]

Oh and never accidentally piss into your boots, it’s not big or clever.

[jameso]

Riding past a perfectly good overnight spot because you've convinced yourself there'll be "something better soon"

Conversely, stopping at a perfectly good overnight spot, then getting up in the morning and immediately riding past an infinitely better one. All done that one too

"Never ride past a good bivi spot". Then if you see a better one the next morning it's ok, you took the first good one you saw and didn't risk miles of nothing. The big Q is your standard for 'good bivi spot' the lower the standard, the greater the potential disappointment in Reg's example

[Charliecres]

Not checking my chainring bolts every once in a while. That’s got me twice.

[Delv4]

Not checking my chainring bolts every once in a while. That’s got me twice.

never ever have I checked mine on any of my bikes, never had an issue, am I just fortunate?

[Ray Young]

Not having the right tool. I had a seat post that used a torx bolt for the saddle adjustment and my disc bolts were also torx of the same size. After changing the seat post I stopped taking the torx key forgetting that it did the disc bolts too. You can guess the rest, . I changed the disc bolts to allen bolts after that one.

[Charliecres]

Not checking my chainring bolts every once in a while. That’s got me twice.

never ever have I checked mine on any of my bikes, never had an issue, am I just fortunate?

IME yes. But maybe I’m unfortunate.

[Delv4]

IME yes. But maybe I’m unfortunate.

Ha maybe, but now you have sewn the seeds of doubt in my head ye bugger

[shutuplegs]

Packing a can of beer next to a rivet in my seat pack, at least I know my seat pack is still waterproof because I only knew about the can integrity issue when I unrolled the bag to a small stream of beer leaking out.
At least I had another can which was better packed!

[Pickers]

Not checking my chainring bolts every once in a while. That’s got me twice.

And me once!

The only other real one was sending the same volunteer into every pub in town to get a table. And we chose the chap wearing two pandas on his head.