Category: Equipment
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Black Friday 2023: Cycle Touring & Bikepacking Deals That Give Something Back
As long-term readers of this blog will know, I’m not exactly an advocate for the irreverent spending of money on stuff. I write highly opinionated posts, for example, about why fancy gear is totally unnecessary, how to get touring bikes and equipment for next to nothing, and how to travel forever for free. That sort of thing. But I understand that outdoor enthusiasts occasionally have to splash out on new gear. Some, apparently, even enjoy doing so. I personally tend to wait until my stuff is falling apart at the seams and covered in repair tape – and then wait another year for… Continue reading →
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No Stupid Questions: Do I Need Special Hydraulic Brake Fluid For Winter Touring?
A reader writes: Thank you for bringing up these timely questions on the subject of winter cycle touring in sub-zero conditions! I myself rode to the Scandinavian Arctic back in the winter of 2011. It turns out that winter can be a source of fun and novelty for adventure cyclists, so it’s great to hear from someone planning a ride like this. Let’s start with the question of whether you need special winter fluid for hydraulic disc brakes on a touring bike (or any other type of bicycle, for that matter). Continue reading →
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Oxford Bike Works Expedition: New Upgrades For 2023
Before my recent Australia tour, I took Tom’s Expedition Bike back to its birthplace in the UK for a tune-up and a few experimental upgrades. This post details what’s changed, explores the thinking behind the upgrades, and goes deep into the specifics of why they were made. (Warning: it’s a 5,000-word long read, so maybe put the kettle on.) Continue reading →
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3 Critical Questions To Ask Before You Choose A New Touring Bike
When you’re in the market for a new touring bike, it’s important not to dive too deep until you’re clear about what kind of cycle tour you actually want to go on. Especially with the current trends towards ultralight bikepacking, gravel bikes, touring e‑bikes, etc, manufacturers will work extremely hard to sell you something you never knew you needed. They’ll even give top-of-the-range bikes to social media influencers (yep, they’ve discovered cycle touring and bikepacking too!) to promote products that for most riders are a waste of precious travel funds. If you’re not careful, before you know it you’ll have bought… Continue reading →
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27 Cycle Touring & Bikepacking Apps For Every Imaginable Purpose
While I’m a big advocate of low-tech bike tours, almost every long-distance rider today is bringing along their smartphone for the ride. But what exactly are the best apps for cycle touring and bikepacking? It’s a tricky question. To my knowledge, there is no single app that does everything an cycle tourer or bikepacker wants when exploring the world by bicycle. And that’s probably because the cycle touring or bikepacking lifestyle is a complex, multi-faceted thing, taking in a diverse range of activities that go way beyond route planning and navigation. No one app could possibly serve all of them! This… Continue reading →
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Do I Really Need Ortliebs? A Buyer’s Guide To Panniers For Cycle Touring
One day in 1884, Thomas Stevens left California on a bicycle, carrying a bag of gold and a pistol rolled up in a blanket, and became the first person in recorded history to cycle round the world. Today’s bicycle travellers pack a little more gear than that! That’s because we want to enjoy seeing the world, rather than bribing and bullying our way through our bike tours as Stevens did. To carry all the cycle touring equipment commonly used today – ultralight tents, camping stoves & cookware, clothes, toolkits, and other core kit-list items – most bike tourers attach panniers to their… Continue reading →
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What’s The Best Cycle Touring & Bikepacking Tent? (2026 Update)
Welcome to my annually updated guide to choosing a tent for your cycle tour or bikepacking trip. If this is your first visit, I’m glad you’ve found me! In this detailed, hand-written, 100% AI-free post, an active member of the cycle touring community with 20 years of riding experience (that’s me!) will walk you through: A quick FYI: as with all my writing, the goal here is to help get more people out exploring the world on two wheels, and to do so impartially and non-commercially. I’m not sponsored by anyone – I do this for the love of it, and… Continue reading →
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What’s The Best Camping Cookware For Cycle Touring & Bikepacking?
This is a detailed introduction to choosing cooksets for cycle touring and bikepacking trips. From individual pots, pans, and mugs to full kits, I’ll cover the options for all budgets and requirements. But first, some good news: when it comes to cycle touring cookware, ‘best’ does not necessarily mean ‘most expensive’. Yes, a high quality camping stove is a sensible investment for a long cycle tour or bikepacking trip when reliability is paramount. But that doesn’t mean you have to spend a fortune on cookware – the collection of pots, pans, mugs, and other cooking equipment you use with that… Continue reading →
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What’s The Best Camping Mattress Or Sleeping Pad For Cycle Touring & Bikepacking?
Welcome! It’s time to deep-dive into another thorny topic (no pun intended): how to choose a camping mattress – or, as my North American friends call it, a sleeping pad – to fit the specific needs of cycle tourers and bikepackers. We’ll be looking at the various types of camping mattresses and sleeping pads, which types are best for cycle touring and bikepacking trips, and ‘best’ might differ depending on physiology, personal preferences, the details of your ride, and of course your budget. I’ll combine buying advice from my quite-a-few-years of bike touring experience with up-to-date product selections of the camping… Continue reading →
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12 Crucial Qualities Of A Bicycle Traveller’s Perfect Tent
Interested in why bicycle travellers tend to prefer certain types of tent? Let’s explore in detail a few of the key criteria – I’ve identified twelve, to be precise – that might cause a cycle tourer or bikepacker to choose one tent over another in this overly crowded market. The perfect tent, of course, does not exist, because there is no such thing as perfection! But if it did, it would probably… 1. Weigh as little as possible The less weight you’re carrying, the nimbler and more enjoyable to ride your bike will be while you’re on it, and the… Continue reading →