Is this 'bikepacking'?

[PaulB2]

I use my bikepacking luggage when I go credit card touring - it's a wonder how many changes of clothes can fit in the same space as your sleeping and cooking gear.

[psling]

CyclingUK seem to have a lot of content on the topic and discussion: https://www.cyclinguk.org/article/cycle ... difference

if it gets more folks out on their bikes then it's all good

Of course, Cycling UK were formerly CTC, the Cyclists Touring Club, and if I remember rightly there was a bit of disquiet amongst more traditional members when the Club both embraced MTBs and then changed their name. It's perhaps a little ironic that bikepacking possibly reflects a shift back to their roots

Finding a café or hostelry with the Winged Wheel badge displayed was always welcome

[fatbikephil]

We've got BaM Rules/rules and a gover... well, Phil anyway . (Has he got a body or is he just a virtual chimera on the forum I wonder? )

I'm still a real person for now Reg. Hopefully when I eventually get replaced with an 'AI' I will be one of those that you read about, you know, the ones that take over the worlds computers and kick off WW3 to rid the planet of all those nasty people.

However I will use this thread as an opportunity to promote the inestimable benefits of BAM. People at work think I'm barmy for riding a shortish distance on a wet January night, just so I can sleep under a bit of nylon in the woods. But too me it's the best way of stepping neatly away from the real world of jobs and grief. It could be argued it's not bikepacking as you are just going out and back somewhere.... But its fun, get's you out, enables stress free kit faff ahead of a longer ride and builds confidence.

Mind you the weather has been truly horrible this week so far and the thought of riding all day in horizontal dreich at 4 degrees, followed by a bivvy is not hugely appealing. Hotel anyone?

[thenorthwind]

Of course, Cycling UK were formerly CTC, the Cyclists Touring Club, and if I remember rightly there was a bit of disquiet amongst more traditional members when the Club both embraced MTBs and then changed their name. It's perhaps a little ironic that bikepacking possibly reflects a shift back to their roots

The irony that they now seem to need to avoid referring to "touring" by that name was not lost on me.

[jameso]

"Roamer, wanderer, nomad, vagabond, call me what you will.. "

"Judge not lest ye be judged yourself.."

Metallica have all the answers

[Bearlegged]

But to me it's the best way of stepping neatly away from the real world of jobs and grief.

[belugabob]

B&B touring is no less valid as bikepacking, because some folks do it in.more extreme way than jogging is no less valid because some bloke just ran the length of Africa.

"you're still lapping the folks sat on their sofas"

[Lazarus]

Bike packing is clearly bike and camping.
Removing one ( camping or bike ) means it cannot be bike packing ( how far you go is irrelevant)

Nothing wrong with touring but its not bikepacking anymore than a sportive is or an enduro race is.

[Boab]

Bike packing is clearly bike and camping.
Removing one ( camping or bike ) means it cannot be bike packing ( how far you go is irrelevant)

Not sure that argument stacks up though. If bike packing is named after back packing, then your argument would suggest that to go back packing you must also camp. Plenty of people go back packing and only stay in hostels and hotels, so it's the action of carrying your stuff that gives it its name. Thus it follows that as long as your actually carrying all your stuff on your bike, you're bike packing, regardless of where you're staying.

[Dave Barter]

What is clear to me is that bikepacking is similar to wave theory. Its state depends on the observer. Theres an article in there somewhere

[RIP]

bikepacking is similar to wave theory. Its state depends on the observer

Best not to observe it because the whole thing would collapse into a specific state and then we'd understand exactly what it is . I'd rather not know. In fact there would be a definite point, which rather spoils the whole enterprise in my view .

I'm happy to talk about cats sealed in boxes though if that helps .

[Lazarus]

Not sure that argument stacks up

You make a very good point and its well argued but i am not budging, walkers need to be more precise is my take on your argument

Still think we have a word for the different types of moving on a bike and staying away.and touring does not equal bikepacking ( your explanatiom of the origins is accurate and mine was wrong)

[RIP]

In all of these variations bikes are involved and packing (and presumably unpacking) is involved.

When people first started travelling on bikes and stopping overnight, if they had called it 'bikepacking' - because it involved bikes and [un]packing as above - and the term 'cycle touring' had never been invented, I wonder if would we now be arguing about the more recent phenomenon of 'cycle touring' which we are indulging in?

[RIP]

Not sure that argument stacks up

camping...... precise.......

Ah well, but is "camping" a precise term? In our frame of reference I don't think it is. Have a look at Bivvy a Month to see the myriad ways we do "Bearbones Bikepacking". If (elitism alert) we're not doing "bikepacking" then who is and what are we doing?

One definition I saw was "Camping is a form of outdoor recreation or outdoor education involving overnight stays with a basic temporary shelter such as a tent. Camping can also include a recreational vehicle, sheltered cabins, a permanent tent, a shelter such as a bivy or tarp, or no shelter at all". I'd also say that most Normals think that camping involves cooking some food outside and eating it. Many people even think it has to include setting fire to something to be called camping .

If bikepacking must involve a bike and must involve camping (whatever that is) then we should call it bikecamping. The "camping" part of the term means you must have packed at least something to camp with (*), so there's no need to specify the "packing" part. Camping implies packing, but packing doesn't imply camping.

(*) although I once kipped under a tree on the way home from a late pub session. I had not packed anything at all specifically for a night out, I just conked out. Was I bikecamping I wonder? I wasn't bikepacking because I hadn't packed anything beforehand.

[RIP]

I have to say this thread reminds me very strongly of Doolittle's conversation with Bomb #20 in "Dark Star" (*) .

(*) the best scifi film ever made obviously .

[Lazarus]

Whatever camping means it does not mean paying to stay in a hotel.
I fully accept you stretch the BAM rules to a point they make no sense

Touring is still not bikepacking its touring.and staying in hotels is not camping

Edit BAM rules prohibit paid accomodation

Pps i doubt any of really care, its all just a trip on a bike with some rest stops.

[RIP]

they make no sense

But they do to Reg so where does that leave us eh?

Pps i doubt any of really care, its all just a trip on a bike with some rest stops

Hang on, don't kill the thread just yet, just when it's getting (even more) Bearbonesy! Sounds like you're attempting to extricate yourself there too .

[jameso]

Nothing wrong with touring but its not bikepacking anymore than a sportive is or an enduro race is.

"For most, ultra distance bikepacking races are camping sportives" - discuss

[FLV]

isn't backpacking simply well marketed cycle touring?



I admit to being a little provocative with that statement...

[Bearlegged]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5viMkvMOsO/

I beleave that the more we define what ultra or bikepacking is, what the events or races are, or should be, the more we destroy it.

[Lazarus]

Yes i beleave that so i am off to do a pan european bikepacking ultra on my motorbike staying at 4 star hotels.
The less we define it the broader it becomes rendering the term meaningless;anything could be bikepacking

[psling]

I believe they have a bike packing area at St Pancras Station for the Eurostar. Apparently it's where you can pack your bike.

[Alpinum]

https://www.instagram.com/p/C5viMkvMOsO/

I beleave that the more we define what ultra or bikepacking is, what the events or races are, or should be, the more we destroy it.

What are we destroying?

[Sajama]

My take on bike travel/camping /bivi /hotel etc.
75% off road you are a bikepacker.
75% road you are a cyclotourist .
As for the ultra events, could lead to the routes getting far too popular and ruined .
Went down the Great Divide before it was elevated to a bucket list ride. Even then thought it was not that exciting ( sometimes you were 50 miles from the divide ( thanks to the Sierra Club).

[MuddyPete]

We're not destroying, maaan... we're creating...uncool and unmonetisable names for "having a kip outdoors between bike rides" (that will instantly become cool because of their nebulousity ).

But I like JamesO's "camping sportives": it's rooted in chummy reality, rather than divisive exclusively .

At the more relaxed end of the spectrum, may I propose "Velo-Snoozing", or perhaps "Bimble Bagging" for those of us whom inhabit a more Tolkeinesque reality than most .