A Bikepacking primer

Bikepacking isn’t the slightest bit a novel or recent idea. Late nineteenth century black and white photographs of cyclists with bedrolls and framebags heading out into the countryside or on months long trips over international borders show that the bicycle has always been for freedom and exploration. If anything is new in the current enthusiasm for bikepacking, it’s firstly that specific and optimized gear is now widely available for it, and secondly and more importantly, there is a critical mass of the aesthetic sensibility to make it within the imaginative grasp of all of us.

Japan Journal 02

We’ll visit some sites from tour and guidebooks, mostly we’ll be breath slowing across landscapes to find less insistent beauty, the beauty in the ordinary things in their ordinary state.

Autumn Maine Tour

Rolling waves and roads coastline, we’ll see the ocean overflowing any sensible sensory scale and will get blown sideways across the yellow line on Cadillac Mountain.

Gear for Bikepacking Kyrgyzstan

I don’t care about the equipment, I just want it to be perfect.

Gear for Bikepacking Norway

For a month long bikepacking trip in Sweden and Norway in June/July I rode my main expedition wheel, a modified 2010 Surly Pugsley.

Folding Bike Touring

In Greece I toured on my Bike Friday Pocket Rocket Pro.

Antigua Bike Co-op

Antigua, Guatemala—Brian, who hails from Iowa and has lived here for a few years, runs an impressive little shop right near the parque central.

Including New York City on an East Coast Bicycle Tour

Photo by M. Coady No place else fills me with the same sense of vital creative focused energy, the tolerance and realization of difference, the excitement in the density of humanity, soaring history and iconography, […]

Theory of Dressing

A quick note to a friend going on her first cycle tour describing the theory behind minimal-ish kit: Obviously, your shorts, short sleeve top, socks, (x2) +shoes riding combo are your base outfits during the […]

Bikepacking resupply shopping list

Roll off the trail into a small town to resupply for, suppose, two full days and a half until the next one. So, three lunches, three breakfasts, two dinners, and trail snacks. Shopping List Instant […]

Colombia Trip Planning I

Two in two suitcases, one by design the other not but can, a welcome evolutionary spandrel. Mountain bikes for a revised plan, one that involves airlines, buses for some big spans between altitudes, deserts, jungles, coffee plantations hillsides. Tracks, trails, […]