What is "bikepacking"?
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
Vorpals post - Thats what I suspected, same with Gravel Bike - US slightly inappropriate import used to sell more stuff. Whats next?
Al
Al
Reuse, recycle, thus do your bit to save the planet.... Get stuff at auctions, Dump, Charity Shops, Facebook Marketplace, Ebay, Car Boots. Choose an Old House, and a Banger ..... And cycle as often as you can......
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Re: What is "bikepacking"?
I suppose that we could try exporting a cycling-style to the USA for a change, maybe one of our UK specialities like “close-pass biking”, or “grumpy old bloke biking”.
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
Unless they're an audaxer...Nearholmer wrote: ↑29 May 2023, 10:25pm TBH, I have not the faintest idea which is more popular in the UK, and I strongly suspect that nobody else knows for sure either, which was the point I was trying to make.
And, given that “trad” and “bike-packing” overlap to some degree, I’m not sure how you’d ever find out. If a person fly-camps and sleeps in a bin bag they’re pretty surely a bike-packer, but beyond that it’s possibly down to self-identification.
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
And if you look at the specialist sites, you'll see plenty of photos of people using conventional racks and panniers. And transverse saddlebags.Nearholmer wrote: ↑29 May 2023, 6:54pm Although, unlike some here it would seem, I both believe that bikepacking exists distinct from trad touring, and that it has a groundswell of support (I.e. it’s a movement), I have always been deeply sceptical of sticking-out-the-back seat-post bags, which seem to me to defy engineering logic, and am watching with interest as racks and panniers stealthily re-establish themselves as the practical answer.
Already seat-post bags have evolved spines and stabilising legs, and now mini-panniers are being attached to those legs, and super-minimal racks costing ten times as much as not-minimal ones that could be made minimal given ten minutes with a hacksaw are coming onto the market from the US.
Give it another year, and racks and panniers (small ones, not the ones big enough to use as sleeping accommodation) will emerge triumphant in this Darwinian struggle between species of bike luggage.
Which isn't to say that frame-mounted luggage will die out. It still has a lot of uses. For instance, if your trip involves putting a bike on a train or bus, it's easier to do with frame bags – just leave them on the bike and they don't take any extra space. Or on trails where width is limited. Or, for some people, as a way of forcing themselves to take less stuff! Although of course some people use frame bags and panniers as a way of taking more stuff.
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Re: What is "bikepacking"?
I hadn’t thought about mega-Audaxers.
Oh, no!
Another blob to add to the Venn diagram. This is going to really confuse people who like to put things in solid-walled pigeon-holes, with no overlaps.
Oh, no!
Another blob to add to the Venn diagram. This is going to really confuse people who like to put things in solid-walled pigeon-holes, with no overlaps.
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
It's simply because Germans have a better understanding of engineering and loads than us Brits.plancashire wrote: ↑29 May 2023, 10:07pm
Here in Germany I see lots of bikes with panniers and traditional luggage, almost never bikepackers, but then I don't cycle off road, although I do use gravel tracks.
I wonder if bikepacking is more popular in the UK because road cycling is so unpleasant compared with Germany?
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
We just use a lot more pictures than you do....
https://theradavist.com/bike-touring-ve ... kepacking/
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Re: What is "bikepacking"?
I enjoyed reading that. And the pictures!scottg wrote: ↑30 May 2023, 5:13pmWe just use a lot more pictures than you do....
https://theradavist.com/bike-touring-ve ... kepacking/
But to return to the topic – if we accept his premise on touring v packing, then the whole of this thread is irrelevant!
Although the whole ultraracing scene also blurs that distinction.
- Traction_man
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Re: What is "bikepacking"?
the first Cicerone UK bikepacking book is on the horizon
https://www.cicerone.co.uk/bikepacking- ... rict-first
https://www.cicerone.co.uk/bikepacking- ... rict-first
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
That is great, thankyou.scottg wrote: ↑30 May 2023, 5:13pmWe just use a lot more pictures than you do....
https://theradavist.com/bike-touring-ve ... kepacking/
(You see chaps, I TOLD you we should let US riders register here!)
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
The history is interesting, and explains why I hadn't heard the term until relatively recently. Though I think people in the US mostly described it as 'long distance biking' or 'bike camping' when I first started, I could see the logic of calling it bikepacking & heard that term in the US to mean cycle touring. Also folks have infrequently used it on this forum to mean that, going back at least 10 years or so.scottg wrote: ↑30 May 2023, 5:13pmWe just use a lot more pictures than you do....
https://theradavist.com/bike-touring-ve ... kepacking/
IIRC, back in the 80s, the guy in my local bike shop (Midwest) called it 'bicycle touring', and I adopted that as being the term that the cool cats used.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
I do have a Claud era Claud Butler and a couple Ellis Briggs,
so the Board of Governors let me in.
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Re: What is "bikepacking"?
It's simply bike touring, with less crap. Camping may or may not be implied. Hammock for cool factor, but I prefer hotels.
Re: What is "bikepacking"?
Bikepacking in 1978. And it's not even American.
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... CAAJ?hl=en
https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/ ... CAAJ?hl=en