How Did You Get Into Bikepacking?

[Ray Young]

I got into MTB'ing in the early days. My rides got longer and longer and I was amazed at how far you could travel and remain mainly off road. This led to me joining the YHA so I could start to do multi day rides but the YHA experience was not really for me. The next logical step was to buy a tent and start off road touring which I did very happily for many years even though I carried too much gear and broke several racks. My most memorable trip was 8 days, 300 miles from Sheffield to Hexham up The Pennines, god I must have been fit then carrying all that unescesarry weight. After a ten year gap I came back to cycling and did two off road tours the old way. Then one day I came across a picture of a laden bikepack bike and that was it, I was hooked, totally. I searched around the net and found the Bearbones Bikepacking Forum and have never looked back since. So thanks to Stu and Dee for the site and everyone else for all the info and supportive comments, I love bikepacking .

[drain]

I'd spotted a few bikepacking configurations in the run up to doing the Camino Frances variant of the Camino de Santiago in 2011, but decided to stick with panniers. Later that year I started messing around with bikepacking kit and did the WRT in 2012 and loved it despite the biblical deluge (the guy I did it with didn't!). No looking back since then, and now doing my third CdS (the Primitivo variant in May this year) as well as booked onto my third WRT. Love the ability to go further and the strange mix of spontaneity / planning that it needs.

[Nick]

Probably reading the report of the first WRT in 2009, scrounged together a few bits and bobs and went and slept in the sheep shed on top of the Long Mynd. Didn't die (although tried to kill myself with beer and curry in Church Stretton beforehand), signed up for WRT 2010, would have died there if we had slept out as everything was wet through after the Monks Trod, but instead slept in a pub shed.

Have been doing that ever since

[TheBrownDog]

I got into bikepacking to cut the weight of the gear I was carrying on long tours. I used to do a lot of long distance road/gravel touring - Canada, the US, lots of South East Asia, parts of Europe and Australia. Then one weekend about three years back I was in deepest darkest Kent having lugged my touring bike with four panniers, tent etc etc etc across about 120 miles of England's south and I looked about my campsite and realised there had to be a better way for short trips. I must have had 40kg of kit with me for two nights. So I started cutting back on stuff - lightweight stoves, sleeping mats, down bags, finding out about backpacking luggage and rediscovering the Way of the Tarp. Bikepacking has opened up way more of country than I could ever see on a touring bike, and really turned around how I pack for long trips.

[jameso]

Touring the Alps a few summers going back 8-9 yrs, always feeling sorry for the other tourers I met with full panniers and 30lbs+ of gear as I'd done it on the basics, just credit-carding with no agenda and the odd night 'sleeping rough' so I could use my MTB or road bike with a seat pack/rack pack and rucsac. Carrying full rucsacs in Wales and the Alps as a typically overloaded amateur/rubbish climber, loved bivis and taking pics, then actually climbed some stuff once I left most of the non-essentials behind. Then seeing something about the Great Divide race and an Idita bike with a rackless set up, a great a use for a pile of near-redundant and relatively light outdoor gear. Rediscovered what riding meant to me. Still love a trail-centre or a week in Morzine etc now and then but MTB theme-parks and bouncers have less appeal now.

[Cheeky Monkey]

A post by FF on STW prompted hammock interest. Its all been DH since then

[pushbikemike]

Lightweight backpacking from about 15-20 years ago, gave way to mountain biking and the odd pannier laden bike tour. i always wanted to take the offroad route and my cycling companion didnt. Then decided to combine the two. The bike bivi thread on singletrackworld lead to here.

Hammocking has developed along the way too.

[FLV]

For me I’ve been mountain biking for a long time, then I did a little touring, then I did a little touring with just rear racks and a drybag on the bars to make it ride a little better off road.
Soon enough, I was off on a short trip and thought… I definitely don’t want these panniers on. I searched, found a couple of seat pack makers in the US and the order placed.
Following that, a fair while later I found bear bones.
I've been getting more and more minimal since.

[ton]

entered the 1st polaris event in the early 90's then about another 10 of them. proper good fun they were too, in some super area's.
then stopped doing them because they become far too expensive, so I started doing audax rides.....always been able to ride far but steady.
bikepacking/offroad/onroad touring fits me like a glove I suppose.......long and steady.....

[Pyro]

Through Polaris and Adventure Racing, which I got into through a combination of MTB XC and Orienteering, which probably explains my perfectly rational hatred of GPS usage.

The idea of strapping lots of kit to the bike was still new to me, though. I just went with the AR principle of not carrying very much and trying not to stop.

[Solo]

Seems like an ideal thread for my first post!

I'd been riding off road on a bmx in the early 80's, just day trips. Started looking for a bigger bike and was thinking Raleigh Bomber (I'd hired one on holiday once). Then saw an article about MTBs (the Cranes irc) and my local Raleigh shop had a 5speed Maverick in the window. I saved hard and got it (part ex the bmx too).

Steel rims and side pull brakes meant braking was an option not a certainty. Also the centre ridge tyres were 'interesting' to say the least!

I started planning rides and saving to buy stuff during school holidays and the like. So rucksack, compass, etc. Although the 'big tour' never happened.

Then I got sidetracked by xc racing, then later DH. Although I'd avidly read the Roman Dial adventures in MBUK.

Years later, body carrying plenty of injuries, I looked at my riding and saw my fs 26er wasn't always the ideal tool for my rides so looked at 29er ht's as an additional bike.

I ended up getting a Spesh Carve Expert and added bar ends, etc for a mile munching set up.

Didn't get to use it more than a few long days out at the tail end of last summer / early autumn due to a flare up of one of my injuries (hip) but it got me thinking of bigger plans once again. Hopefully with my son, who is now older than I was when I started mtbing.

Then I spotted this forum via some threads on STW and here I am!