What’s Really The Difference Between Bikepacking & Cycle Touring?


Over the last few years we have seen the rise of a new sub-discipline of bicycle travel.

It’s called ‘bikepacking’, and it’s become such a hit that almost every mainstream bike manufacturer now produces at least one ‘adventure bike’ or ‘bikepacking rig’, or includes the word in their marketing spiel for bikes that might fit the bill.

Specialised bikepacking luggage, too, has proliferated, from a few cottage industries turning out bespoke, hand-stitched frame bags to pannier giant Ortlieb launching a line.

Someone I know who helps run a bikepacking website told me they get over one million hits per month. (For comparison, this blog has been getting a steady 50,000 monthly pageviews for the last several years, or about 5% of that.)

So today, unlike in days gone by, I think it’s a fair bet that when a newcomer happens upon the idea of going on a bike trip, one of the first things they find is a dichotomy between ‘cycle touring’ and ‘bikepacking’.

In this piece I want to explore the difference, as I see it, between these two different versions of the same basic idea. Because while the difference seems to be portrayed mainly in terms of equipment, I don’t think it actually has anything to do with bikes or luggage at all. And I want to help those newcomers who get sucked into all that stuff about bikes and gear to understand what’s actually going on beneath it all.

(At 2,942 words, you might want to get a cup of tea for this.)


Some context.

I’m a mountain biker first and foremost. Back in 2006, when I was 22, me and my mates bought 1‑berth ultralight tents from Lidl, threw them in army-surplus backpacks and set off on full-suspension mountain bikes to ride across the Scottish Highlands.

After a couple of days we strapped our luggage to the bike frames to lighten the load. So we were mountain biking with stuff strapped to our bikes. But we weren’t bikepacking. That hadn’t been invented yet.

(It’s funny how similar this photo from 12 years ago looks to what bikepackers are doing today. Check out the Gaffa Tape seat-pack.)

I was inspired. And a year later I set out to cycle round the world. By now I had come across ‘cycle touring’. People had, I discovered, been going cycle touring for years. Decades. That’s why it sounds slightly old-fashioned. ‘Touring’. So Victorian.

At this point it is customary to mention Thomas Stevens’ bicycle odyssey across America and Eurasia of 1896. But preceding that by some 18 years was the founding in 1878 of the Bicycle Touring Club of Great Britain (now Cycling UK).

My point is that ‘cycle touring’ – the phrase, and the activity it described – has been established for at the very least 140 years.

And how long has ‘bikepacking’ been around?

To take a crude measurement I looked at Google Trends. This tool uses the entire history of Google’s indexing of the contents of the internet to calculate the relative interest in any given phrase over time.

It gives the term ‘bikepacking’ a rating of zero as recently as April 2010.

From that starting point, the data shows an exponential upward curve, from 15% in June 2013, to 49% in 2016, all the way up to the benchmark of 100% it has today (March 2020).

In other words, bikepacking has never been more popular than it is right now, yet less than a decade ago, basically nobody knew what it was.

It gets more interesting when you overlay the popularity ratings for ‘cycle touring’. Taking again April 2010 as the starting point, when bikepacking could be argued to have begun its rise to popularity, the same dataset shows cycle touring’s popularity as a linear line, maintaining more or less steady popularity throughout the decade or so. Bikepacking seems to have surpassed cycle touring some time in the middle of 2015.

(If anything, cycle touring has seen an ever-so-slight decline. I think I know why that is, and I’ll come back to it later on.)

The data would seem to support anecdotal evidence.

Today, my social media feeds are awash with images of happy, tired, mud-splattered faces astride lightly-loaded off-road bikes with big, knobbly tyres, with yearning mountain vistas or forest singletrack in the (slightly out of focus) distance.

They drown out the images I used to see a lot more of – tanned, weathered people astride heavily loaded touring bikes in places entirely unrecognisable – or more often, images that were not of the riders at all but of the people they’d been hanging out with and the curiosities they’d encountered on the roadside.

There is something telling in this, too, which feeds directly into what I think the difference between cycle touring and bikepacking really is. But more groundwork still needs to be done.

Superficially, the difference is obvious. Bikepacking looks different. The bikes look different. The stuff people strap to them look different. The places they ride them often look different.

Bikepacking looks like a different kind of experience.

“Simply put,” says Bikepacking.com’s introductory paragraph under the heading ‘What is Bikepacking?’, “bikepacking is the synthesis of mountain biking and minimalist camping; it evokes the freedom of multi-day backcountry hiking, with the range and thrill of riding a mountain bike.”

Cycle touring is a bit more abstract.

“Cycle touring is whatever you want it to be,” I wrote in the first chapter of my beginners’ guidebook. (I can quote myself, can’t I? Is that OK these days? Just the literary equivalent of posting a selfie, right?) “And you can call it whatever you like – cycle touring, adventure cycling, bikepacking, even simply travelling by bicycle; these are all nuanced terms for the act of getting on a bike and going on a journey with it.”

There’s a formula for how the regular form of cycle touring looks, too. Again, a photo or two makes the difference obvious. On the surface, I mean.

(OK, extreme example. But you know what I mean).

But the popularity graphs – the changing social media trends – even the nuances of the language used in the descriptions above – all of these are pointers, in my opinion, to a deeper motivation for what is essentially the splitting of the adventure cycling community into two distinct camps.

One camp really just wants to go travelling.

The other camp really just wants go biking.

To me, this is what defines the split.

And of course, there is a middle ground between the two, and loads of overlap, and exceptions that prove the rule, because we’re talking about generalisations here, and life’s not really that simple. And I’m not suggesting that the emergence of two camps suggests any rivalry or conflict, and certainly not any mutual exclusivity. The people who inhabit this scene generally aren’t like that.

But this is the internet, and so before anyone starts to formulate an emotionally charged disagreement to post in the comments, let me explain the reasons why I think this is generally true.

The running theme I have seen over more than a decade of being involved in all this stuff is that people who choose the bicycle as a means of seeing the world tend to do so because of the many advantages it confers upon the traveller. It is a tool, and a very good one at that. It is a mode of transport. And the world these people imagine travelling through tends to be that of people and the roads that connect them and the cultures that spring forth when they meet, settle and grow into that thing we call human civilisation.

Cycle touring is about enabling one to practice the art of travel, to live life on the road.

It consequently tends to attract those who see travel itself as the end, to which getting on a bike is the means.

That’s also, in my view, why their social media feeds are not of themselves or their bikes but of what they saw and who they met along the way.

Bikepacking, too, absolutely involves a big element of travel, adventure, exploration, or whatever you wish to call it.

But bikepacking is primarily a way of going on a longer bike ride.

Bikepacking is for bikers – bikers who want to get away from busy roads and the man-made world and ride their bikes in nature, or something approximating it. They always have wanted this. Now they can ride further, for longer and with less fuss. The community’s prime obsessions are bikes, gear to attach to bikes, and riding bikes.

And there is a point to all this obsessiveness. It is to tailor and to optimise the ‘rig’ to deliver the best possible ride under conditions often far more challenging than those encountered on a regular cycle tour. Off-road biking requires skill, and just as in other specialist discipline requiring skill, the tools involved must be designed and honed to allow those skills to be maximised.

This emphasis on bikes and gear has made bikepacking the lucrative niche for the bicycle industry that cycle touring never was. Trek doesn’t noisily launch a 2,500-dollar “bikepacker’s dream” unless the executives think it’s going to sell. And check out the top posts on Instagram for #bikepacking. At the time of writing, the subject of each of the nine featured photos was a either a bike or someone riding one. Manicured. Artistic. Posed. Paid-for.

Touring bikes, on the other hand, tend to stay the same year after year after year; always there, rarely noticed, usually buried under some other ill-fitting category, and probably not making much money.

There is nothing particularly wrong with any of this. Mass consumption funds research & development which in turn makes products more tuned to the priorities of their buyers. And this matches the bikepacking ideal just perfectly. The holy grail is a bikepacking bike with so little baggage that it has basically reverted back to being a mountain bike.

The industry will eventually help deliver something approaching this ideal if people keep pumping money into the machine. This will, in turn, benefit enormously the members of the bikepacking community who spend more time riding bikes than talking about it on the internet.

Cycle tourists, on the other hand, start out in the knowledge they’ll just have to lug a big bunch of stuff around with them, probably in a set of Ortliebs. It’s just as inevitable a compromise of travel as a suitcase or a backpack. And while some may occasionally curse the weight on the way up a big mountain pass, I’ll bet the only people who actually switch to bikepacking for this reason are those who, all along, really just wanted to ride their bike.

Please don’t get the impression I’m pro-cycle touring and anti-bikepacking or taking any kind of partisan stance.

I love bikepacking. Not because I’m also jumping the bandwagon, but because, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, I was a mountain biker long before I was a traveller. I spent years hucking bikes off-road through woods and muddy fields in England before I did anything more interesting on a bike. But, as noted above, bikepacking as we now know it didn’t exist back then.

In the meantime I went cycle touring, fell in love with the act of travel and consequently missed the bikepacking boat while I was riding around in far-off lands and making films about my love life.

And today I am discovering the joys of bikepacking retroactively (though I can’t afford the posh gear). It’s not a replacement for cycle touring. It just ticks a different set of boxes which were there waiting to be ticked. I wish it had been invented earlier!

I’m hardly alone on this. 

Look hard enough and you’ll find plentiful examples from back in the day of mountain bikers trying to wrestle cycle touring to fit their priorities.

In fact, one of my inspirations to take cycle touring to places like Mongolia was Cass Gilbert, whose evocative photos of trailer-laden mountain bikes in the Himalaya I remember distinctly from the first edition of the Adventure Cycle-Touring Handbook, which I read back in 2006. He went on to become one of bikepacking’s progenitors, doing the same thing before it was even a word, all in pursuit of being able to go mountain biking for longer. (Do they even make the Bob Yak any more?)

Logan Watts, whose travel blog Pedalling Nowhere later became Bikepacking.com, also played an instrumental part in developing bikepacking into a ‘thing’. He too was a mountain biker forced into the cycle touring mould until he started tinkering with options that better suited his preferences. Now he runs what is probably bikepacking’s most successful community website and has written a full-length manifesto on the topic.

And I will never forget reading about Janne Corax’s mountain bike crossing of the Changtang plateau in northwest Tibet, which remains the single most extreme-sounding wilderness bicycle journey about which I have ever read. That was 15 years ago and I can’t find the article any more. (I wonder how such an expedition would look today?)

These and many other bikepacking pioneers are doubtless somewhat baffled at the explosion of bikepacking’s popularity. They probably can’t help questioning whether or not it’s a good thing, and probably come back to the conclusion that it is – a sentiment I share, because it ultimately means more humans falling in love with Earth again at a time when we’re collectively screwing it up.

I think I can offer some thoughts, too, on why bikepacking’s sudden popularity.

Sure, there is today an element of corporate hijacking. (Trek, for god’s sake.) But the wagon was already rolling, and I think at least some of it – at least in the UK – can be attributed to the rise of the microadventure in combination with that of cycling in general. Bikepacking neatly merges both.

These two trends express the yearning of an overworked, overstressed society (with plenty of cash) not to think, say or post on Facebook but to do something to disconnect from so-called ‘reality’ and rediscover what had always been there: a world we can see, hear, taste and smell, and a body that can sweat and strain in order to change its environment from one of dull, nagging discomfort to one which at least satisfies our romantic vision of being at one with nature, however misguided, and if not on the daily commute then at least on a big escape at the weekend.

The focus on gear makes bikepacking a hobby that can be practiced online during lunch breaks and through tinkering in the garage after work. This can be fun.

And the extremely active community – not just discussing gear ad infinitum but proactively developing and sharing new routes – imparts the sense of tribal belonging that so often underscores people’s life choices.

In short, bikepacking ticks a lot of boxes past which traditional cycle touring has tended to swerve around.

Cycle touring will always be there.

There will always be people who want to travel the world, and who figure (correctly) that the bike would be the best way of doing so.

Some will be seduced by bikepacking’s shiny trinkets and end up wishing they had more space for home comforts and noticing none of the advantages they never needed in the first place.

But others will figure that there’s no need to change the tried and tested formula and set off to explore the world on a bog standard touring bike with panniers and a tent strapped to the rear rack, rarely thinking again about their bike or gear because their journey was never about that anyway.

And bikepacking is unlikely to be just a passing trend.

Beyond the commercialisation and the rabble of noisy opinion that comes with anything new and popular, the ability to ride a bike off-road deep into the wilderness with ever fewer compromises holds a deep attraction for a great many people – including me.

But does this fully explain the bikepacking boom?

Not quite. A final suggestion, then. I think the bikepacking obsession with whittling the experience ever closer back towards ‘pure’ biking is also what pushes people who are already cyclists over to bikepacking – people who would never have considered cycle touring because of the many ways in which they feel it would compromise the act of cycling itself.

In other words, I would wager that many of those swelling the bikepacking ranks are, weirdly, cyclists. Bikepacking is a natural step forward from what they already do into something slightly more adventure-tinged. It is now less of a leap for someone with a cyclist’s priorities to choose bikepacking over cycle touring – which might explain why cycle touring’s relative popularity is dropping slightly.

It’ll be interesting to see where it all leads. Perhaps one day every bike will be sold with a tinny bell, a crap saddle, cheap reflectors and an emergency overnight seat-pack. Just in case.

Personally?

Heck, if I’m moving, I’m learning, and if I’m learning, I can make myself useful in the world. The rest is secondary. Cycle touring? Love it. Bikepacking? Love it too. I’m lucky enough to spend much of my time trying out new ways of exploring, and certainly not defined by any one discipline. (Check out that ill-advised packrafting expedition or that snazzy Land Rover I borrowed.)

So what’s really the difference between bikepacking and cycle touring?

I think people ask this question to understand where they fit into this rapidly diversifying collection of adventure cycling subcultures.

But I think a better question is – do you really just want to go travelling, or do you really just want to go biking?

Comments (skip to respond)

75 responses to “What’s Really The Difference Between Bikepacking & Cycle Touring?”

  1. Sebastien Planchon avatar
    Sebastien Planchon

    Hi there, I’m looking at Cycling from Cherbourg to Saumur in the Loire in May and currently own a carbon road bike with limited size tires possible and lack of storage/not pannier friendly. Then my other bike is a cube attention 29er mtb hardtail with big knobbly tires and mounting for panniers/rack etc but obviously a lot slower than the other one. I’m happy to book hotels/budget accommodation to save carrying lots of gear but are either of these bikes suitable for the route 4 and velo Francette in your experienced opinions? Oh yes, I have about 5 days to reach the Loire fyi. Just about to book the ferry now…
    Many thanks
    Seb

    1. Peter West avatar
      Peter West

      Hi Seb,
      I have ridden EV4 from Cherbourg four times. The route down the middle of the peninsula is mostly small tarmac roads, and finely gritted voie vertes (disused railway lines) and river towpaths. The alternative EV4 route down the east coast to Carentan is very rough or sandy in places and you would struggle even on an unloaded road bike, but you could take the coast road instead. I don’t know the whole route you would take as I headed for St. Malo and your route diverges at Mortain. The EV4 is really well signposted all the way from Cherbourg to Mont St. Michel.
      I have ridden to St. Malo in three full days and two half days, camping with two rear panniers, a small backpack and no cooking gear. It isn’t clear if you would camp if you could carry your gear, but that is an option. On longer tours I use the classic 4 panniers and a bar bag.
      Faced with your choice, I would fit some less knobbly tyres to your MTB, say 35mm wide that you can pump up quite hard. Something like Schwalbe Land Cruiser which isn’t too expensive if you aren’t going to keep them on the bike. Then fit a rack and 2 panniers. I use Ortlieb Back Roller City which are no frills and good value. Mudguards would help a lot as the gritty surfaces get pretty messy when it rains (even with mudguards!).

      1. Thanks, Peter, for chipping in with your experience here. Seb, hope this helps!

    2. Hi Seb, this comment came up on Facebook from Lynette at Freewheeling France:

      “I’d choose the road bike over the MTB – these are not hard-core routes and an MTB will just slow you down, especially on the road sections. I rode La Velo Francette on my road bike – aluminium frame and carbon fork.
      It has slightly wider tyres than standard thin racing tyres and I was fine (also carried panniers). There are some bumpier sections through the Marais Poitevin and some dirt paths along various sections of river (Loire and elsewhere) but if you take your time, you should be fine on a road bike and it will be much more enjoyable than on the MTB. Would take plenty of spares though and put as robust tyres as you can afford on.
      I can send you a link with some stage-by-stage reports and pics of some of the sections if interested.”

      Her site is at https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/ if you’re interested.

  2. This is a very interesting analysis, but I think it lacks historical depth. It assumes the existence of mountain bikes and the sort of off-road cycling they enabled, alongside road/touring bikes and the sort of travel they enable. But mountain bikes came into being only in the 1980s. I, on the other hand, started riding a bike in the 1950s, as a 5‑year-old. That is, I grew up in an age when bikes were seen as toys for kids, not as a form of transportation (except maybe to school or to your friend’s place), or even serious recreation. Most kids quit riding them by the time they started secondary school. 

    But I loved riding bikes, modifying bikes, and building bikes from random parts, and I kept on riding. I bought a three-speed bike when I was 13 because I wanted to cycle faster and further. The 10-speed craze didn’t hit until I was 15 or 16, when everybody bought a new-fangled, Euro-style racing bike because it was the cool thing to do, though few people used them for racing or for touring. It was rather just a fad and the beginning of “cycle gear” madness. I built myself a 10-speed very early on, not because it was cool, but because I recognized it as a great leap forward in my love affair with cycling. And I soon started “touring,” going on day trips and overnight trips and, eventually, even longer rides, mostly because I could cycle further and faster and more comfortably on my 10-speed. 

    But it wasn’t a love of traveling that made me cycle: it was the pure joy of cycling that made me travel. When mountain bikes came along (as I was entering my thirties), I couldn’t understand them; I found no pleasure in careening down a steep and bumpy mountain path on a piece of machinery that was too heavy and cumbersome to go anywhere on it. I do now have a (vintage) mountain bike and do enjoy a bit of tricky trail riding, but I much prefer getting on one of my road bikes to run an errand in the city, or on my touring bike to ride for four or five or ten days with friends, often along roads we’ve traveled often before.

    It is the pure love of bikes and of cycling that drives me–even as I enter my seventies–not a desire to see new places or meet new people. (For that, my wife and I use our campervan, with our bikes strapped on the back, of course.) Even when touring, I’m not a tourist, but a cyclist, and the photos I take always include the bikes. I bet there are lots of people out there a lot like me.

    1. Thanks, Rick, for this useful and detailed perspective. You’re right that I should have mentioned the “invention” of the mountain bike somewhere in this piece. Regarding bikepacking as it was before that time, the Rough Stuff Archive is always a nice reminder that people were using regular road bikes to do the same thing long before knobbly tyres and riser bars came along. It was bikepackers like this that I had in mind while writing this piece, not the type of bikes they were riding. On a personal level, part of my inspiration to travel by bicycle comes from my grandfather, a semi-professional roadie and cycling club president from Lincolnshire whose honeymoon with my grandmother consisted of a tandem tour of England and sleeping under hedges! Anyway, I hope that gives my thoughts a little more historic perspective 🙂

  3. Tiziano avatar

    Ciao ‚non sono un ciclista, ma un escursionista ‚utilizzo la bici solo in ambito urbano e da qualche anno ho iniziato a fare dei viaggi in bicicletta.
    Mi sono imbattuto per caso nel tuo blog ed ho cominciato ad appassionarmi agli articoli che leggevo.
    Non sarei riuscito da solo ad esprimere il pensiero riguardo alla differenza tra il cicloturismo e il bikepacking ‚anche se era una cosa che sentivo dentro di me ‚ti ringrazio per la tua visione onesta che hai messo su carta in modo che ho potuto condividere.
    Sei stato illuminante alla fine con la frase “do you really just want to go travelling, or do you really just want to go biking?” ‚che condensa come un immagine il ragionamento dell’articolo.

    Vorrei che piu persone arrivassero a questa conoscenza.

  4. Hi Tom! I absolutely love your blog and your posts! I’m new to the cycling community, I purchased a road bike at the beginning of the pandemic, then I discovered bike-packing and immediately sold the road bike for a hardtail and never looked back! I come from a backpacking background, I love nature, mountains and adventure. I also love traveling. What attracts me most to bike-packing are the diverse routes, for instance traveling the interior of Iceland. By foot, this would take way too long! And this isn’t possible on a classic touring bike set up, or at least much more difficult. I like the idea of being able to travel through rugged terrain, open road and visit villages and cities all in one journey. And I do appreciate, as you stated, that all of this is done on a bicycle, which I have grown to love as a means of transport and exercise. I feel like it combines all of my interests in one package. I was a bit of a gear head with backpacking, so there’s that aspect also. 1 week to 8 or even 12 week adventures sound like the perfect time tables for me at this point, 1–3 week being the sweet spot. Maybe one day the longer adventure will call to me. 

    Thanks again for your brilliant illumination of cycling culture and sharing your experience and insights in such beautiful language for all of us!

  5. Mathias Markussen avatar
    Mathias Markussen

    Thank you for this post and all the other lovely posts on your website!
    I’m just getting started on bike-adventures and find it ever tempting to invest in new equipment I dont even know if will fit my style.

    1. Thanks for the kind words! There’s always going to be some experimentation involved as a newcomer as you figure out what works best for you. Take plenty of test rides, talk to other riders, and try and notice when you’re being marketed to 🙂

  6. When I first commented on this four years ago (!), I imagined that I’d be mostly bikepacking down steep, rocky singletrack. It’s turned out that any trip in the UK over multiple days tends to be on all of: tarmac, gravel, earth and small rocks. Often the tarmac is up to half the ride.

    So I’m moving towards a style of riding that’s half-bikepacking, half-touring, in terms of attitude as well as kit. I have two bikes and pick one depending on which half is bigger.

    The trend for mini-panniers in bikepacking makes me think that a lot of riders might be doing the same. And you could say that the fullest freedom (provided you accept the limitations of any given type of bike) is in going on or off tarmac as you choose.

  7. Rich Brown avatar

    Bart, why does one have to be best? I’ve enjoyed fully laden, 4 pannier trips and ultralight minimalist. They can both be good in different ways, as can anything in between. Diversity is a good thing.

    1. I think Bart is just expressing his personal preferences in a way that perhaps sounds a bit like hard fact! But we all know there are many ways to skin a cat. I personally have toured with everything from four panniers and a trailer to nothing but a bar bag and a change of clothes. Each time my decision was based on the trip at hand and the kind of experience I wanted to have. I love the almost limitless options available to the modern cycle tourer and encourage all my readers to first consider the trip they have in mind, then design their gear around it. Which is what I think you’re basically saying too ?

  8. I’d rather be comfortable and have a few comforts of home (book, notebook for trip journaling, Bluetooth speaker when in range of cellular coverage, a couple of beers, Cannabis, and my cameras {film TLR and Cannon G11}). Hence, I’m running a front and rear rack with smaller panniers/top box set-up in back, Anything racks on the forks, full-time pack, dirty bag that fits in hole in Molokai bars and sleeping bag strapped on top up front. The silly, elitist minimalist school strips the fun/comfort of doing big trips down to a massochist and machismo laden ego trip. It’s about the trip, destinations along the way, and cool folk you’ll hopefully meet at the end of the day not, how many miles you covered carrying a leaf, water cup, and a banana…

  9. “do you really just want to go travelling, or do you really just want to go biking?”

    Er… why not have both ? ?
    “fromage ET dessert” as we say in France.

  10. Back when I first read this in 2018 i’d just spent the prior 18 months fitting in as much long distance touring as I could, and the proposed distinction seemed to really some up the difference between myself and the “bikepackers” I knew.

    Stumbling across it again now, and having spent the last 2 and a bit years working full-time, the bit of the article that really rings true with me now is bikepacking’s role in facilitating the micro-adventure.

    The long tours I was lucky enough to do and the short bikepacking missions that I fit around work now are both ultimately attempts to bring adventure into my life. Given lots of time, the most effective way to do that is to go a long way, being able to take your time as well as an interest in the culture and people you encounter on the way. With less time, I have to stay closer to home, and so being able to go lighter and faster, and perhaps further from the (literal) beaten track serves some of the same purpose.

    To add to this, the UK as densely populated as it is, in much of the country getting off the roads is the only way to really get a sense of one’s place in nature. This contrasts with many of the locations people choose to tour, where you can travel over mountain ranges and across remote plateaus without leaving the (admittedly sometimes unpaved) road.

    1. Thank you for the thoughts here, Rich. I think you put it very well – off-road bikepacking allows you to get into the middle of nowhere and back much more quickly, given both a densely-populated place and calendar. No wonder it’s become so popular in the UK!

  11. sqeeezy avatar
    sqeeezy

    What’s in a name, maybe just identitarianism 😉 I hope the guy who referred to middle-aged and retired survives to that age, age isn’t a disease, and if he referred to gays or people of colour in that way it would be considered homophobia or racism. I’ve hiked but not trekked, I’ve travelled but hey I’m just a tourist, no better than any other tourist. I cycled from Oregon to Ixtlan del Rio but I wasn’t blogging about my “adventure”, just pedalling along. Style is a distraction, be free of preconceptions and shun groupthink, there’s nowhere to go but everywhere, so do it and have fun. Peace.

  12. Offwego avatar

    I think a lot is in the name — bikepacking makes sense if you know the word backpacking. Foot Touring just isn’t popular enough to support awareness of cycle touring.…

  13. Have done cycle touring, long distance hiking, bikepacking, wild camping, wild swimming, canoeing, packrafting, on my own and in groups. It’s all about the adventure I think and the kit is secondary (although I’m a kit geek at heart) — it should be dictated by what you’re trying to do.

    If you’ve got access to BBC iPlayer then watch Roaming in the Wild — that’s what I think it’s all about.

    Love the site by the way Tom — I try everything with as little kit as possible first time round — whatever I can beg, borrow or steal or buy on eBay — try to avoid being the one with all the gear and no idea.

  14. Hi Tom Great article. I am new to this whole thing and partly enthused by Ryan Van Duzer on utube. — late to the article and bike packing. I am a trail runner/roadie/ MTBer who loves riding wants adventure but has a family of four and a weekday job. I have just ordered my first tent ready for the end of lockdown though will pack the bike ride round the block and then camp in the garden til then. I harbour ambitions for the long trip one day but for me the attraction is Bikepacking can be one or two nights in the country on a MTB that I can do at a weekend with minimal packing or planning — time is the big driver to enable adventure

  15. Forest Ang avatar
    Forest Ang

    I used a folding bike, a 16″ Brompton with the necessary panniers. I hopped on trains, coaches or planes to different countries and rode like bikepacking. Is this bikepacking or is there a term called foldiepacking?

  16. Here is a link to Janne Corax bike trip in Tibet.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nErQSPHTVC8

  17. Jean-Pierre Garneau avatar
    Jean-Pierre Garneau

    I just love the way you think about it. I’m clearly on the cyclo-touring side, and have been for the last 30 years. Biking, as a way of travelling, rather than travelling, a sport activity. On a bike, you see the country, you feel the country, you smell it, and you meet people in a way that no other way of travel can offer (I include hiking). But, if I were 40 years younger, maybe I would think differently. ?

  18. for me bikepacking is about one thing—exploring!…so I got an ebike to replace my normal bike to go further and to places I could not go on normal bike.

    1. I love how e‑bikes are making it possible for more people to ride further.

  19. chouwalker avatar
    chouwalker

    Tom, thanks for a thought provoking article. My thoughts have been provoked for sure! Opinions are like arse holes, everybody has one. Here’s mine:

    While there may be correlations between people interested in the art of travel and cycle touring, and also between people wanting a longer bike ride and bikepacking, I don’t believe that the motivation of the rider is what defines these disciplines. For example, if I get on a Trek 520 touring bike with 4 panniers for a 6‑day trip on paved roads in order to get a longer bike ride (I have done this), I am not bikepacking, I’m cycle touring. Likewise, if I get on a Surly ECR 29″ plus bike with frame bag, seat pack and handlebar roll for a 3‑day off-road trip in order to travel and explore a national park (I also done this), this is not traditional cycle touring, it’s bikepacking.

    In my mind, the primary difference between traditional cycle touring and bikepacking comes down to the type of route or trail. It’s comparable to the difference between road biking and mountain biking. If you’re riding pavement on your multi-day trip, you’re probably cycle touring. If you’re riding dirt trails or mountain single track instead, you’re probably bikepacking. The differences in the demands of these route types drive the differences in equipment.

    1. I agree completely that the differences in bike and equipment choice are driven by the type of route you’re looking to ride, and the industry has more or less cleanly distinguished between bikepacking and cycle touring in this respect. What I’m trying to do with this article is help the newcomer to the whole scene understand how and why these styles of bicycle adventure have diverged, and to look beyond the gear and routes at the motivations for getting out on a bike in the first place…

  20. Trev Hill avatar
    Trev Hill

    Great site thanks Tom. I came into bikepacking via an association with the forces, a love of mountain biking and a lifetime of wild backpacking. Bikepacking has been a natural evolution of all 3, combined with modern advances in lightweight mountain bikes that cope with carrying a load off road. Modern military surplus kit often lends itself to a bit of weight reduction and tailoring and combined with it’s low cost and camouflage, is perfect for wild camping.

  21. I came to cycle touring as a chronic long distance backpacker who has a bike problem. Since my backpacking kit is so lightweight and packs so small it doesn’t really fill up a set of panniers. I could cycle tour across the country for months with just two small panniers. Bikepacking just seems like a natural progression. Now I can strap some bike packs to a gravel bike and ride anywhere for a long time. Its like lightweight cycle touring with the option to leave the paved roads whenever I want. My wife and friends are all nervous I might just disappear.

  22. Hi Tom, thank you for writing this article, it has made things more clear for me.

    I’m looking to replace my Koga Roadspeed, which I use for my daily commute and I also did a week-long tour around Southern Norway with it, which I loved.

    I’m planning on using my new bike for some longer bike tours around Europe (for starters) and being a modern day city dweller I’m more attracted to the remoteness of gravel roads (and they’re much safer too, not to mention healthier for not having to breathe in exhaust fumes while exercising).

    So naturally I started looking for a gravel bike. But then it occurred to me that the gravel roads where I would ride would either be perfectly ridable on a traditional touring bike or so challenging that I might as well use my mountain bike. Why would I need a fancy gravel bike then? And I already bought panniers and a handlebar bag for my Norway trip, so did I really need a bikepacking set-up to go with it?

    Come in your article. Before reading it I hadn’t really thought about what my primary purpose for these rides was. I like speed. When I see a hill, I go in attack mode to go up (and back down) as fast as I can. A cobblestone street? I put my head down and crank it up. I can’t help it, I just love going fast on my bike and I’m willing to sacrifice quite a bit of comfort for that (and I even looked up about the aerodynamic advantage of bikepacking bags over panniers, which someone with a traditional touring bike simply doesn’t care about I now realize). I only pack minimal stuff for camping in the wild anyway and for the occasional comfort I prefer staying in a nice B&B every few days.

    So I think I will get more enjoyment out of a bike that is nippy on climbs and descents with the occasional flowy singletrack and that I can do many road miles on as well, so a gravel bike with bikepacking gear it is (though I will make sure I can mount a rack and mudguards on it for my daily use).

  23. Bikepacking comes about due to lack of rack braze-ons and suspension that make fitting a panier rack fairly impossible. Touring bikes are not very sexy so no one wants one. To do any cycle touring on today’s bikes you need to bikepack. For myself, I have a Van Nicolas cyclocross bike with loads of clearance for big tyres and a full set of braze-ons. Being titanium it’s light enough for racing and for a long time was my only bike and I did everything on it. As long as I have it I don’t see myself getting into bikepacking because touring is so easy. A rack also turns a bike into a great commuter.

  24. I have ridden a bike for over 50 years now, long, short, light, heavy, cold, hot, dry and wet. I got my long distance inspiration from a couple that was riding the Panamericana trail and posting to crazyguyonabike.com. In many ways, it’s better than watching videos on youtube. less narcissism. In my opinion, these two weren’t touring, or bikepacking, they were living. Traveling by bike with a very loose schedule and destination in mind and no firm planned route. A running account with pictures and daily written stories of their travels. SOLD! I’m in… wait, one minute, I’m in my 60s… hummmmm. Screew it! I’m still in, only I don’t want to rough it, or have the ability to use plastic for my every need. Hummmm. So assistance of some type was necessary. Being antisocial (to a degree… I’ll shop at a Walmart, I’m not the Wolfman) I wanted the ability to shun my fellow man for extended periods of time and still be comfortable so I went with an electric motor attached to the best possible long distance expedition tour bike I could find. Not that I will be riding the Himalayas… but I’d rather have more capability than I need than less. It’s a fine balance trying to choose the best all-around bike for any terrain or climate. Just picking the wheel/tire combination stirs passionate debate among riders. 700Cs are too narrow for gravel and anything over 2″ has an unacceptable rolling resistance in my opinion. With 1 h.p. of assist being sent to top-of-the-line gearing it opens the door on riding that even kids can’t do without crying to the camera for youtube. I take everything I need and/or want to play with on a regular basis, lot’s of options. My range has been over 100 miles fully loaded just so I could talk shit, and as low as 5 miles once. Packed up after two day’s in one spot with the intent of 50 or 6 miles and 5 miles down the road found a great place to hang my hammock, watch the world turn for the day and feed my last Macadamia nut to a very brave little chipmunk. — https://imgur.com/a/zXXlyuv

    “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

  25. Thanks for the fabulous blog, I’ve just ordered a lightweight tent so need to get moving on the setting a date malarkey!! Can’t help but feel that a Scottish Winter isn’t the best time to take my cycle touring to the camping phase but hey ho!

    1. No time like the present!

  26. Great post — I’m so glad I found your blog. I’m starting to plan some bike adventures now my kids are getting old enough to either be left at home (with their dad, of course) or to want to come with me. I think I’ll start with some short bike packing trips and will work up to becoming one of those wirey old women who can’t stop cycle touring! I have a set of nearly new (as in very underused) Ortleibs ready to go and am too skint to get obsessed with gear, which is actually very liberating. It’s an interesting observation that the focus on gear allows us to feed our hobby while at work and between adventures, which is why your past about Maria’s adventure with a cheap ol’ bike is a lesson for us all. And an important message to get out anyone who wants to join the adventurers but feels excluded by the competitive kit purchasing side of things.

  27. Roberto avatar

    As I see it, there is people doing things: Travelling, travelling with a bike, bicycle touring, endurance riding, bikepacking etc. on one side. There are some differences of course, but as long as someone is not mounting a rearview mirror on his/her bike I would have a beer and a chat with him/her. I love bikes. I love them because I love riding, and for the same reason I love bicycle touring/bikepacking/commuting/exploring.

    Oh, and then comes, on the other side, bikepacking.com, slightly-out-of-focus-guacamole, look mum how rad, best bivy bro, bonfire masculinity you can subscribe to, here’s your Members Only digital freedom peepshow.

    Cheers, let’s ride mates. (Please, no rearview mirrors on a bike. Never ever).

    1. I happen to find my Zefal Spy rearview mirror extremely valuable for road touring…

      1. Roberto avatar

        That one about mirrors was meant to be a tongue-in-cheek point

  28. Stephen Balders avatar
    Stephen Balders

    Monty Python established the difference in https://youtu.be/TrofQKwWuFg

  29. Hi Tom ,

    A perfect right-up , balanced , knowledgable and wonderfully prompts my thoughts on my own journey with different set ups for the same purpose — freedom on a bike . My own journey has seen me cross over into lots of different “camps”based on what I a am carrying and the terrain I’m riding 

    As a 15 year in 1981 old I owned a Claud Butler racing bike with mudguard clearance ( a club racer ?) — first trip was from Brum to Norfolk wild camping at farms on route — built a bike in Norfolk from my mates scrap parts to ride the bridle paths — still remember the varied steering response from the loose headset . Then rode each summer around the UK national parks for 4 years with setup s from saddle bag only to full 5 bags with another club racer this time from Dave Lloyd — always compromised with speed wobble !

    Hiatus whilst at college , then in early 90’s was convinced to buy a MTB(no suspension!) — rode the north and South Downs to oblivion — loved it but missed the freedom of bag and bike and prompted by joing rough stuff fellowship took my MTM bike with the only panniers that wouldn’t fall off off road — ortlieb, to Peru , Pyrenees , west highland way — only compromise I remember was getting rear panniers stuck in deep tramlines
    Rough Stuff link
    https://www.cyclinguk.org/sites/default/files/document/migrated/publication/201105026.pdf

    Then in 2003 I was prompted to dust down my Dave Lloyd and started to race it as it was designed — I’d gone back to my roots on the road — and learnt to ride TT’s, fast Crits, early day sportives in the UK , Alps , Pyrenees .

    Fast forward to current day , I still own and ride all the above bikes, and have benefitting from the bikepacking movement — I ride with bike packing gear off road for clearance , tried the new gear on hired fat bikes in the highlands wild camping ( how else could you ride river beds ?!), commmite on a Cx which I race in the winter and am about to pick up a cargo bike to use for my sons new school run .

    I look back and if I’m honest I do identify myself as a cyclist who travels and have yet to try the traveller who cycles option , Who knows , when my son can join maybe that’s my next camp to join ,

    Cheers , Matt

  30. Rich Lytle avatar
    Rich Lytle

    Great article, Tom. My path to travelling by bike began with a desire to experience the world up close. My journey from bike touring to bikepacking began after my initial bike touring trip was marred by having to share the road with automobiles & drivers with seemingly little concern for my safety. That was back in 2011. I still wanted to see the world up close & I still wanted to travel by bike but I needed to get as far away from cars as possible. Upon returning from that initial trip, I got on the internet, found Cass & Logan and haven’t looked back. It’s funny, I’m currently traveling South America and when I come down from the mountains & into the valleys I’ll come across cyclotourists with the traditional pannier setup and I can’t help but wonder what in the heck they could possibly be carrying in all those bags despite the fact that not too long ago I was set up just like them.

    1. Thanks for sharing your perspective, Rich – your sentiments echo my own regarding getting away from traffic.

  31. As an old guy I am amused by your etymological research based on Google statistics. We used to do what we called bikepacking back in the late 1980s, but we probably didn’t think to document our use of the word via our 300 baud modems and dot matrix printers. Might be on a postcard or post-it note somewhere. 

    It was easy enough to outfit early mountain bikes that weren’t all that much different from touring bikes with Blackburn Mountain Racks and bags and head out for trips in the boonies. It also wasn’t much of a stretch to call something that functioned like backpacking but was done on a bike bikepacking. It probably only occurred to a few hundred thousand (million?) people.

    From that perspective of combining the two words it would make sense to functionally define overnight and extended rides to enjoy mostly undeveloped natural areas as bikepacking and think of adventures to experience mostly built environments and culture as bike touring. Of course the two overlap on the fringes. If there were a single piece of equipment to differentiate the two for camping-ready riders, for many contexts it might be a water filter.

    Mountain biking became mostly synonymous with riding single-track trails, and the mountain bike arms race has redefined the mountain bike to something that takes more imagination to outfit with packs (that can be used on single track, of course). Now we have bikepacking gear and a largely product-based definition of a brand new trend. 

    Regardless of pavement, unpaved, or trail, and how you describe your trip, make sure your equipment is adequate and safe for your destination and go.

  32. Dilmurad Avalbaev avatar
    Dilmurad Avalbaev

    I believe time is one of the main factors making bikepacking appealing to many. It is a cycle touring adventure that can be done in a day or two. All you need is a weekend! Unlike Tom and Alee, not everyone is prepared/willing to dedicate weeks and months of their lives to touring. To me it seems like a natural evolution of bike touring which is largely being shaped by our increasingly urbanized life styles. So maybe the cycling industry and marketologists have not actually been leading this trend, maybe they are simply responding to it.

    1. Exactly – that’s pretty much what I meant when I mentioned the concept of the ‘microadventure’ combined with biking…

  33. I wrote this in my editor’s letter for the October 2018 edition of Bicycle Traveler magazine:

    “Just a decade ago, most bicycle travelers preferred a classic four pannier set-up and mainly pedaled known routes. Choices were constrained due to navigational limitations. Yes, back then we had to rely on good old paper maps. Squiggly lines shown as minor roads and paths often turned out to be nothing but the figment of a map maker’s imagination. If you attempted some of the off-road ‘doodles’, you could end up lost for days before having to backtrack to your original starting point. Sure, you could try asking the locals for directions, but if you didn’t speak the language – they would inevitably point you in the direction of a main highway.

    Luckily, with the arrival of low-cost GPS technology, Google Earth, and various offline maps apps via smartphones, you can easily zoom in on every back road and path to see exactly where it leads to. Smartphone technology has revolutionized bicycle travel and opened up the world to cyclists.

    With almost limitless options, bicycle travelers are now developing new routes which cater to their own personal interests. Some choose smooth paved roads between cities renowned for their culture or history. Others prefer remote back roads and precipitous mountain paths.

    This technology-charged development in route planning has led to cyclists tailoring their equipment setups to their preferred style of riding.”

    When I look at your graph, 2010 was when the term ‘bikepacking’ was first mentioned and also the beginning of inexpensive smartphone technology. In that same year, we flew to Bangkok to start a multi-tour and brought along a spanking new smartphone. Before 2010 we had mainly stuck to paved roads because they were the only ones on our paper maps. It was a shock to discover so many backroads in Thailand via our smartphone. Most of the hard-packed dirt roads we’ve ridden around the world since then are just as easy to pedal as paved ones, even with our Ortlieb pannier setup. Sure, you go a bit slower, but not much. It’s more sandy roads, gravel and single-track where you truly want the fat tires combined with light gear.

    So now I think you will be starting to see more of a trend for hybrid setups amongst touring cyclists who want to explore remote areas, places that were earlier nearly impossible to reach without hiring local guides.

    As for bikepacking, I would be curious to know how many people actually do it. As Russ Roca of Path Less Pedaled wrote, “We have interviewed many bike shops and always ask about what the barriers are to bike travel. The answer we’ve heard over and over again is people BUY the gear, but don’t go on trips.”

  34. gr8bkset avatar
    gr8bkset

    I started road biking 35 years ago and mountain biking and backpacking 20 years ago. I identified myself first as a backpacker, then MTBer, and finally a road rider last eventhough, my time spent on these activities were inverse. I started backpacking with about 45 lbs then in time whittled my pack weight on a week trip down to 30lbs as the ultralight movement became popular and my body was miserable with the weight. To me, bikepacking is the combining of the popularity of mountain biking along with the ultralight trend from backpacking, but also can be applied to road travel. As I hit middle age I am starting to realize that a bike is a much more efficient instrument for a multi-day trips than backpacking. A bike is a better transmission of energy for travel than my feet for two reasons: 1. as long as I don’t run out of gear, I can maintain my optimal cadence 2. downhill is free. It covers more ground in an environmentally friendly way, but not so much that I zoom by places that can be of interests such as in a car. I think I’m glad to not have taken up bicycle touring with its heavy weight and specialized equipment. As it is, I’m able to take up bikepacking, with my existing road bike or MTB and about 20 lbs of gear. Bike packing will likely replace my backpacking habits.

  35. Diarmid avatar
    Diarmid

    A very interesting argument. And very useful to be reminded by your old photos from the Highlands that it’s about the pleasures of the ride, whatever kind of ride we prefer, than our bikes or how we attach our stuff to them. 

    I need that reminder right now because as a two-weeks-a-year cycle tourer, I’m getting interested in the idea of bikepacking and I can feel the gear fixation taking me over. Bikepacking bikes! Bikepacking bags! Smaller bags to go inside the bags! Let’s face it, some of this trend (like a lot of trends) is about the pleasure of online shopping, rather than the pleasure of moving through a landscape on wheels. 

    But probably the fashion will pass and, as you say, the gear will be better as a result and many more people will be cycling around (whether with bags or panniers or nothing).

  36. Interestingly bikepacking is seen as something new when it isn’t. And by “bikepacking” I’m referring to how the bicycle is packed for distance travel as distinct from motivation of the traveller as discussed in Tom’s article.

    I don’t know about the rest of the world but in the late nineteenth and earlier twentieth century the bicycle was a significant means of transport in the Australian outback. This is excellently documented in Jim Fitzpatrick “The Bicycle and the Bush”.

    https://www.amazon.com.au/Bicycle-Bush-Machine-Rural-Australia-ebook/dp/B0053D0ZGI

    So I find it interesting to see that framebags, handlebar mounted packs etc were in common usage for practical travel one hundred years ago. 

    Some photos here – 

    https://www.flickr.com/photos/epicyclo/albums/72157626328442627

  37. Thanks for sharing this post. We all mostly find it difficult to distinguish between backpacking and the cycle touring. it is great that you have clearly portrayed it.

  38. Hi Tom,

    Great read. I think your generalisation is a good one. 

    I’ve never mountain biked or bikepacked. I have cycle toured a lot and often found myself on a fully loaded traditional touring setup on tracks that would typically be considered bikepacking territory. I enjoyed them immensely, even with all the muddy pushing. At the time I thought how much more fun they’d be with a more appropriate setup. I also realised that I should have given mountain biking a go a long time ago. 

    I set out to cycle tour as an agreeable mode of travel, a better more independent form of backpacking. I hoped the bike itself would recede into the background. That remained more or less true cycling across Europe, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Middle East and Asia. Crucially the focus was on soaking up exotic foreign lands, people and culture. It wasn’t until I started touring in more familiar anglophone countries (Australia, New Zealand and North America) that my journey became more about the landscape and the riding itself. Now I find myself very drawn to bikepacking for that kind of trip, i.e. getting into remote landscapes far away from sealed roads. I’ll probably try it soon. My one apprehension is being able to carry enough food and water on a bikepacking setup to get as far as I’d like. 

    In a couple of weeks I’m off to ride the Pamir Highway and spend some time in Kyrgyzstan. I’m riding it on my touring setup mainly because it’s all I have right now, but also because I’d be afraid I couldn’t carry enough food for that journey on a bikepacking rig. Or maybe I could but it would force me to do some large minimum distances every day which is a pressure that detracts from the sense of freedom that bike-touring gives me. 

    I imagine I might end up with some sort of hybrid setup to try and get the best of both worlds as I love travelling by bike, but I also love riding rough and remote trails.

    1. Your story resonates pretty closely with my own experience, particularly wanting to explore the landscapes more in places that have become culturally familiar. The main difference for me is that the Caucasus is that culturally familiar place because I’ve spent so much time here!

    2. Lassi avatar

      You might find gonebikefishing.com interesting.

    3. I am so with you on every word you say…
      Especially ending up with a fully loaded touring bike in mountainbike terrain…
      But I see it similar to Tom, the general classification, if you can be bothered to try one, is very much how I see it. Tom is better at putting it into words though…

  39. Lassi avatar

    I have never considered my self as a “cyclist”, but I have always liked to travel by bike. I spent years trying to find a balance between a cyclocrossbike and an actual tourer. Just over a year ago I finally decided to build a 26″ expedition touring bike with traditional four pannier setup. It solved practically ALL the problems I ever had on tour. This is one of the reasons I havent been that interested in bikepacking. 

    In the other hand, if I was a sportive cyclist with a fleet of sporty bikes lined up in my garage, the easiest way to make a short trip would be bikepacking. This is propably why its so popular. The industry finally found the people who use alot of money on bikes anyway.

    Its great that also the people who see cycling mainly as sports are now able to tour. And if someone would have suggested ten years ago I shoud by an old mountainbike with a heavy duty wheelset (an expedition bike), I would not have listened. I now prefer traditional touring because no other way of travelling gets even close to the experience, the people, the places, the “life on the road”. You know.

    1. Yeah, I know 🙂

  40. Thanks for the read, Tom.

    As a passionate advocate for bike travel, I’m so excited about this newfound invigoration for the thing that brings me so much joy. Bikepacking is currently inspiring people to be adventurous, getting people out of their comfort zone, reconnecting people with nature and encouraging people to explore the world in what I think is the best way possible.

    I believe there are two other key reasons why bikepacking has become so popular of late: 

    1. You don’t need to buy a new bike. Let’s face it, owning a dedicated touring bike that’s used for a short bike tour once per year is pretty hard to justify. Touring bikes + bags are also typically >$1000 which is a rather large hurdle to overcome if you’re not even sure you’ll like bike travel. Compare that with using your existing road, cyclocross, commuter or mountain bike and spending under $100 on bags (a full ensemble from Asia costs peanuts) – and I think it’s quite obvious what’s more appealing to newcomers.

    2. When I was in my teens I associated bicycle touring with the middle-aged and the retired. I found it really hard to relate to a conservatively-styled bike with a whole bunch of square bags attached. So I started out travelling with a backpack. I eventually overcame this perception when another 18 year old in a hostel convinced me that bicycle touring was awesome. I think bikepacking is the re-brand that bike travel has required to attract the younger crowd. If I had my time again, bikepacking would have been incredibly obvious to me as a teen cyclist and traveller.

    All the best from Bolivia!
    Alee

    1. Hey Alee, thank you for your comment. I appreciate your perspective as I know it’s a very well informed one! I totally agree that ‘cycle touring’ can seem stuffy and old-fashioned and that thinking of bikepacking as a ‘rebrand’ to appeal to the younger generation is spot on. However, I totally disagree with the implication that cycle touring requires a new bike and that that was a barrier to entry, mainly because I’ve been hammering the point that you don’t – ad nauseum – for years! It’s always been possible to go cycle touring (or bikepacking) using whatever gear you have lying around and I don’t think anything substantial has changed in that respect – just as it is possible to spend countless thousands on a specialist touring bike setup or bikepacking rig. Perhaps the point is that cheap bikepacking bags have made that fact more widely known…

      1. Don’t get me wrong, I very much agree with you that you can go for a bicycle tour on any bike! All you have to do is cycle in South America, Eastern Europe, China or India to meet people on epic journeys with old and very basic bikes.

        I don’t think this is a commonly held idea in many western countries, however, and given I spend so much time writing about bike tech, I am partly to blame. But when I meet people who show a keen interest in trying bike travel, this is the first thing I tell them. ?

        1. Thanks for the interesting discussion! Here are some of my experiences:

          I rode a 1980’s mountain bike across the U.S., to the Canadian Arctic, and 6 months in South America; all with panniers. I also rode that same bike for years on mountain trails, commuting, and currently on early morning rides to take the edge off my herding dog!

          A few years ago I got a cyclocross bike and a used bikepacking kit from Craigslist. I loaded that up for a road tour from Montana to Vancouver BC. With this lighter gear I was astonished how far and fast I could travel! I said I’d never go back to fully loaded traditional touring.

          Last fall I did a river trip to Europe with my aging father. When he went home I strapped bikepacking bags and front panniers to a cheap used mountain bike bought at a thrift shop. I rode that bike from Munich to Athens, and then donated the bike to a refugee group.

          At each point I was very happy with my gear and to cost/benefit ratio it afforded. Now I am contemplating a very long adventure tour, and I am glad to have the variety of excellent tools to choose from. I think I will use a hardtail 29er with racks front and rear; small panniers in front and a drybag on the rear. From the bikepacking kit I think I will use a handlebar roll, frame bag, fuel tank and feedbag.

          The cross-fertilization of modes available just opens more doors to get out and explore!

  41. Christopher Culver avatar
    Christopher Culver

    I think your distinction between bikepacking and touring as biking and discovering the world, respectively is an astute one. I have always felt that a lot of vocal bikepackers who have made low-weight and no panniers their utmost priority, have a blind spot when it comes to experiences that other cyclists out there want to have.

    For example, there are some strident bikepackers who scoff at anyone packing books, but I cannot imagine touring in a country without a grammar and dictionary of the local language so that I can communicate with the people I meet everyday. (As much as I would like it to, a mobile phone or Kindle or other ebook reader just won’t do the trick).

    Also, those bikepackers who recommend minimalism fail to understand that a lot of cyclists are aiming to live on the road for months and months. At that span, you don’t want the bike to be your only life. You want to carry along many of the same creature comforts you would enjoy at home, so that you can maintain a semblance of an ordinary life while moving around the world.

    1. I think you’ve nicely highlighted the points of view at each end of the spectrum. Ultimately there’s no right or wrong, just matching your gear choices to the reasons you’re out here in the first place and understanding that others’ priorities may differ.

  42. A Grant avatar

    Couple of thoughts, based on personal experience (so take it for what it’s worth)

    First, I disagree with the idea that bikepacking is primarily a way of going on a longer mountain bike ride. I don’t mountain bike (much to my friend’s chagrin), but I bikepack. Secondly, for me, bikepacking wasn’t a natural step forward from cyclo-touring “into something slightly more adventure-tinged.” 

    Prior to falling into bikepacking, I was a long-distance backpacker. But the closest decent trails could be 4+ hours drive away. And then there was the matter of logistics (getting back to the car, etc.). Bikepacking opened up a new world of ATV trails; forest roads; doubletrack; etc. All of which was relatively nearby and had little appeal to me as a hiker. But for bikepacking, it was perfect.

    So yeah, what is bikepacking? An off-shoot of touring for sure. But with an emphasis on rough dirt roads; wider/plus/fat tires; wilderness camping; and minimal gear (the funny thing is with respect to the latter statement, I carry far more “luxuries” now — a chair! beer! — then I ever did backpacking).

    1. You’re right – bikepacking is not restricted to mountain biking (though the majority of it does seem to fall under that description). Interesting to hear that you came to it from backpacking. Thanks for sharing!

      1. Tom,

        I am in Auatralia and bike packing seems to be predominantly linked to long distance endurance riding, mainly on road and on road bikes (like the photo in your article)

        These cyclists sleep under a leaf and generally buy all their food with no cooking.

        1. Interesting – cultural definitions seem quite differentiated.

        2. Hi , good article. I was just going to say that personally i have been mtb previous 10 years and wildcamping backpacking previous 4yrs. Ive been just getting into long distance trail through walks but being 48 and other reasons my hips have started to go . So its finally sunk in that i can still do the long trails and the camp part which is big enjoyment for me but on a bike, with the bike taking the pack weight , genius idea ! :). Ive seen the whole romantic idea of long distance cycling in news and papers with interest , but met a guy who was bike packing other week in Austria and its peaked my curiousity. Checked around and discovered this whole world of bikepacking and great bike trails in uk , think i have found a new hobby ?

      2. Tom, I am relatively new to Bikepacking. My first extended trip will be this August- Tour Divide. A 7–8 week long ride. Quick question, should I consider taking an ultra light chair like the Helinox ground chair? It only weighs 1.3 lbs. The extra weight may be worth the creature comfort on a 7 week ride. Thoughts?

        1. I would certainly consider it. On my last ride I packed a 2‑berth tent for the same reason. Creature comforts are often overlooked in the name of minimalism, but one carefully selected luxury can really boost morale in the longer term.

        2. Hi, I took my chair on an a 4 month bikepacking trip in Europe, mostly off road. The extra weight is worth it.

  43. I think it’s much more simple than that. It comes down to one word: “panniers” 😉

    1. Hah! Yes, perhaps you’re right. But then what would I have to blog about? 😉

      1. I’m about to go on my first ever trip i think I’m somewhere between the two camps. I have a framed Marquette Carbon with a my hammock in a roll on the bars, a small frame bag, small seat bag and medium rear panniers. Doing the Great Allegheny Pass in a few weeks but hoping to do far more remote wilderness trips in the future.

Something to add?