Gila national forest

I am planning on riding across Canada next year, probably along the Great Northern Bikepacking Route. I will need an all-terrain style bike as I will encounter a bit of everything!

The main requirement is tyre clearance - I want something that can take up to 29" x 2.6". There may be sections where I switch to a faster, more narrow tyre, however there will be some more mountainous sections that need bigger tyres.

I'm open to both drop-bars, regular bars and alt-bars - I find them all comfortable. I'm also open to either a rigid fork a short-travel fork.

My main issue is that I do not currently own such a bike. I have a lovely gravel touring bike that can take up to 50mm tyres and a full-sus enduro bike with a 160mm fork.

So I will need to buy a new bike. I live in the UK so I am thinking that it might make sense to order a bike to pick up when I arrive. I can work with a local bike fitter to get the sizing right before I order. I'm looking for suggestions for places to order bikes from, preferably in Vancouver or Victoria as it would be a pain to pick it up from anywhere else.

Dear Bikepacking community,

I am all packed to start a 7-week bikepacking adventure in Thailand and the Philippines! So far, I only fixed arriving in Chiang Mai on December 6 (starting with the Lanna Kingdom and Tiger Head Mountain routes), and leaving from Manilla on January 30. Therefore, I am seeking advice (and hopefully routes/gpx) from this community.

I will likely fly to the Philippines from Bangkok end of December. Would you recommend flying to Davao and cycling north to end up in Manilla? Which airlines are the most bike friendly?

Would you recommend cycling in the South of Thailand as well? If yes, any recommended routes?

I would love to take some surf breaks along the way, likely on Siargao. Can you recommend any routes that pass by good surfing spots? Or an interesting itinerary direction the island?

I've found the Cebu divide route. Would you recommend it? If yes, any suggested connecting itineraries or routes?

It will be my first time in Asia so general bikepacking advice for the region is also welcome. For example, is wild camping generally excepted?

Many thanks in advance for your help and suggestions!

Thomas

Hiii I need some advice or ideas. I am biking Berlin-Antalya. I am at the moment in Zadar, Croatia and heading towards Istanbul. I have no plan for my route yet. Starting tomorrow. Only that I want to pass Mostar. And afterwards continuie a little down the coast or cross over land right away.

Anyone have any recommendations?

Hiii Anyone with experience In wild camping in these countries. Is there anything I have to be aware off or look out for? Any tips?

Hi everyone,

A lot of bikepackers seem to have different approaches when it comes to the weight they carry during their travels. Some adopt a minimalist philosophy, while others prefer to bring everything they might need, even if it means a few extra grams.

I’m curious to hear your take on this! What’s your relationship with weight and bikepacking? Is it something you pay a lot of attention to? Why or why not? And how do you manage the balance between packing light and being prepared?

Looking forward to reading your thoughts!

A friend of mine mentioned 7Roads, specifically for their pogies, about 3 weeks ago. Their website was up then, but has been down for at least a week. I know they are out of Ukraine and there's an ongoing war there. I hope they are okay. Maybe their hosting provider got shut down. I'd like to order some if they are still available.

Hey everyone,

We know that bikepacking is a deeply personal and unique experience for every rider. From the gear you pack to the clothes you wear, everything is shaped by your experience and adventures. While there are lots of great options out there, we’re curious if there’s room to improve—especially when it comes to clothing and accessories designed with bikepackers in mind.

This isn’t about reinventing the wheel or creating something just for the sake of it. We’re exploring whether there’s a real opportunity to better meet the needs of bikepackers, whether that’s through more versatile designs, improved materials, or just gear that reflects the adventurous spirit of the community.

We’d love your honest thoughts! We’ve put together a survey to hear from riders like you and appreciate you taking the time to fill out this survey! This survey is purely research to learn from your experiences and gather insights. Whether you think this idea is overdue or completely unnecessary, we want to hear it!

Thank you for helping shape this discussion. Feel free to share the link with fellow riders—it’s all about making sure every voice is heard. We'll update all survey participants on what we find as part of the process, this should be a fun learning process for everyone!

Bikepacking Clothing Survey

https://preview.redd.it/esp9rtff954e1.jpg?width=2430&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=62599c4c70988db928b2ce8c0900d74a928fbeb4

What type of bicycle are y’all taking these awesome adventures on?

Great all year riding here, so long as you don’t mind the potential for being wet all day. This is a cool dry weekend, though!

Ola, I'm two months into my tour of Europe. (It ends when i run out of money :) I'm hoping to last at least a year.) I've just ridden in to Portugal following the Camino Portuguese. It joins the Eurovelo1 for two days until Porto. I'm not sure which to follow afterwards.

The wildcamping rules in Portugal have changed so much in the past years, they remain a riddle to me. I would really like to wild camp 6 days a week to keep my costs down.

Is there anyone with any advice on routes keeping the possibility of wildcamping in mind? Or if anyone feels open to host me haha i haven't had a lot of succes on WarmShowers...

Greetz Wolf

XxX

I am heading out to Canada at the beginning of May and plan on cycling across the country over around 5 months.

The aim would be to cycle the whole way across the country from the West to the East with the prevailing wind. I wouldn't be upset if I didn't make it the whole way though, it's more about seeing and experiencing as much as possible rather than trying to go as fast as possible.

The main route I've been looking at is the Great Northern Bikepacking Route - https://www.greatnorthernbikepacking.com/route-info.html - the only downside of this route is that it's quite new so I imagine it could be quite chaotic! I'm also a little concerned that if I started heading West from BC in May then I could run into issues with snow in the rockies.

The other route I was looking at was the TransCanada Ultra route - https://transcanadabikerace.com/en/ - it's a bike touring route rather than bikepacking but it seems more established. I'm not sure of how busy/unpleasant some of the roads might be though.

I'm planning on settling down in Revelstoke for the Winter so one thought I had was to do the Great Northern Bikepacking Route from Calgary to the West Coast first, fly over to BC and then do the Victoria -> Calgary sections. That might be a better way to manage the possibility of snow in the high BC/Alberta elevations?

Looking for a shorter bikepacking trip to do while in Spain and I'm wondering if anyone has any insight on what the Maestrazgo Loop would look like early to mid December. Open to any other shorter trips that could be good at that time of year too.

Paid 100 bucks for this stallion, been trying my hardest to get her prepped for some journeying, but really really broke so trying diy whatnot. i dumpstered a front light at the tip, then i made some bags for my rig out of an old backpack i had. dont have alot of experience yet but im frothin to get out there. Hopefully others feel they are in the same boat, there is alot of GAS for the new this and that but i really didnt get into this to spend all my cash.

Up here in FNQ in australia, some great jungle trips, probably not too much off the gravel but is what it is i guess. Probably just 2-3dayers at this point.

Any tips for a newbie, water storage is my next upgrade. Love thisbsub and the people here are always posting epic stuff.

Cheers

Hi I was just wondering if anyone had biked along the France Spain border before, how was it, how’d you find your route, camping tips I’ll take anything you got!!

I was looking at doing Donostia-San Sebastian to Perpigan

I want to try sewing some cargo bags for my front fork for my next overnighter, but I'm not sure I will like them. Because of that, I am not really ready to drop a *minimum* of ~$70 for a pair of Salsa Anything or Blackburn Outpost cages or even more on something like a Widefoot. I just need a plastic cage strong enough to carry a light pack of clothes for a price around ~$15. It can be an amazon special for all I care, just something to try out fork bags.

So I’m doing 2 months in Japan, 3 weeks in cheap hostels in Tokyo, the rest hopefully camping/stealth camping. Making my way from Tokyo to Kobe on the coast. Apart from food, I’m not planning on spending money on much else, maybe the occasional souvenir nick nack and temple entrance fee? What sort of budget should I be setting aside? I have never been away on the road for this long and don’t potentially want to end up in a situation where I don’t have money for accommodation if need be. How much money have you set aside before for this sort of trip?

It's for members only, but the code "CYCLO35" will work for anyone. They've got some nice gear, but I'm grabbing maps for future rides. It's 35 percent off, so I thought I'd share the wealth.

https://www.adventurecycling.org/cyclosource-store/

Can anybody comment on Jary Waist Bag Desert

and Odyssey Saddle Bag Desert

Anyone got one. Just thinking waist bag for camera maybe. Just cannot find any comments on those products.

Cheers

Hello everyone,

I am currently on the tail end of a bikepacking trip in Northern Thailand. I used the Lanna Kingdom route from bikepacking.com, it has been incredible.

This has been my first real multi day trip, and many lessons learned. Absolutely stunning. I was also totally unprepared for these super steep hills and elevation gain.

One thing I really did not take seriously enough is the need for a granny gear, and wider range gearing in general.

I brought my own Marin Nicasio + on this trip, with the standard 1x9 group set, Microshift advent 9. After the second day, I could find immediately that my lowest gear was just not low enough for the steeper climbs unless I really ground it out, which was exhausting, and unsustainable on steeper climbs. After more research it seems that the gear range of this set is not suitable for a loaded bikepacking trip like this, at least not one with 1000+ meters of elevation gain each day. It’s not been the elevation per-se, it’s been the inability to have that low gear for STEEP climbs.

This bike has a Sun Race 9 speed cassette, 11-46T. The crankset is a 42T.

Based on this information ( and currently running a 9x) what should I do? Is there an easy way to change the cassettes within the Advent system to simply have a wider range 9x set-up? If not; are there affordable 9x, or other group sets which could fit this bike?

There are many elements of this bike I really love, so to be able to make it run with a wider range would be ideal. Really appreciate any and all perspectives/ideas.