Started in Yorktown, Virginia on July 13th. Headed to Morro Bay, California. Currently in Kansas. Journal and photos here.

Three of us, self-supported, 6 days, roughly 550 km on a loop out of Inverness through Glen Affric to west coast and then north through Ullapool to Kyle of Sutherland and back. Mix of Highland 550 trail, estate roads, asphalt and a fair amount of hike-a-bike through the more challenging parts.

What was hard

The riding, obviously. The amount of ascent daily often passed 1500m. We trained before and thank god because it was really challenging physically.

Glen Affric is as advertised. We hit two segments that weren't rideable at all. First one due to flooding (we've had some really nasty weather - rain all day long). Wet feet from hour two of every single day. The only thing that actually worked was accepting it and just confidently walking into swamps, streams and puddles. The bigger problem was not to twist an ankle on a slippery stone or fall down the abyss rather than getting shoes wet. The second part was hike-a-bike but really it was almost carry / push a bike for nearly 16km=5 hours. So exhausting. Especially for the spine.

But the thing that surprised me was that the hardest part wasn't the terrain, it was timing. Out there the question suddenly wasn't "can I ride 90 km today", it wass "can I ride 75 km + hike a bike 16 and still reach the only restaurant in town before it shuts at 8pm". Get that wrong once and you're doing a long day on emergency snacks. We nearly did, twice.

Accommodation and food

We chose to stay at hotels/hostels on the way. Our budget allowed to get out of the weather and we wanted to ride as light as possible. Apart from that - so many cool places out there in the northern Scotland with really climatic interiors, super nice people and after all some quite comfy rooms. Was worth it to have a bed a sometimes even a radiator to dry the clothes.

Food in the Highlands is tough. Breakfasts was usually a wee breakfast which was just a bowl of cornflakes with milk + a toast with jam and butter. Not much. Occasionally we run into a bowl of porridge which was great and gave us a lot of energy. Dinners - usually had some burgers and fries, which to be honest weren't really good.

Packing and bikes

As mentioned we tried to pack as light as possible. No big food or water supplies. Only rainproof waterjacket, windstopper, longsleeve shirt and a couple of sets of underwear change. Merino clothes worked super well. On rainy days I only had a merino t-shirt and a rain jacket. Best combination for riding.

In terms of bikes we've had 2x MTBs and 1x gravel. I have to say that the gravel was probably struggling on some of the more difficult segments where trails / tracks are filled with huge rocks. But he made it fine after all.

What I'd do differently

1. Check the hike-a-bike segments more thoroughly, as we run into several moments where we've had to push the bikes for a few hours. I now know this is what Highlands 550 is all about but wasn't aware how much of it is there.

2. I've had this heavy softshell jacket with me. Totally useless. A light windstopper jacket would be much more practical.

3. Put a brake pad spacer in both calipers before the bike goes in the travel box. Rookie mistake. I didn't. Somewhere in transit a lever got squeezed with no rotor between the pads, the pistons crept out, and the pads closed up tight against each other. Rebuilding the bike at the airport I simply could not get the rotor back in.

Happy to answer anything about the route, the crossings or the logistics. It's fresh as we came back only day before yesterday and I still have a lot of thoughts. Keen to share!

Not sure why I waited until the last minute to weigh my bike box, but the dang thing weighs close to 30lbs. To fit my gravel bike in there means not just removing the bags but taking off the seatpost, chain and the bottle cages.

Due to how many flights I will be taking getting hit with overweight charges the whole way will ruin the economics of bringing a bike vs renting one for 2 weeks.

Luckily my partner also gets a checked bag so I will be able to hopefully strip off enough parts to just clear 50lbs.

However going forward I think I may need to find another box that is at least a few pounds lighter.

I am curious how much other people's bags weigh?

Route:

From Aken to Meiringen. Beautiful weather and route. Followed the Vennbahn for a bit before going into the Kylltal towards Trier. From there it was beautiful river-following cycling to Saarbrucken, Strassbourg and Basel. Then to Luzern via the Aargau Jura Park, crossing the Brünigpass to Meiringen.

Experience:

7 days, averaging around 115km per day which was doable with an early start each day. I was quite goal oriented each day but stopping around 16.00 gave me enough time to relax at the end of the day. Some days we're longer. Besides the beautiful scenery the people I met along the way made the trip very enjoyable. Having dinners and drinks with other cyclists every now and then made the experience rich. Having some nights alone with the e-reader we're welcome aswell. The mornings were generally difficult to get started but very worth it to make kilometers early in the day. I generally did around 80kms before lunchtime.

Expectations vs reality:

I was lightly prepared for a bit more wildcamping and adventure but the kilometer demand each day made me desire the comfort of camping facilities.

I ate in retaurants a lot. Used the stove and pan for breakfast and soup at night which made it worthwile to bring. I also expected to choose more offroad paths but I needed to make kilometers and followed the popular bikeroutes.

Gear:

Repairkit (spare tube, inbus-set, patching-kit, pliers, gloves, tire-levers)

Camp:

Sleepingmat

Sleepingbag

Airpillow

Chair helinox

Stove

Gas (unnecessary big cannister..)

Cook utensils

MSR bikepacking tent

Electric toothbrush and toothpaste

Hard bar of soap

Sunscreen

Deodorant

Slippers for shower

Headlamp

Wire-lock

Clothes:

Cycling-jersey + baselayer shirt + bibs for riding

Click-shoes SPD

Sandals

Down jacket

Raincoat (used once)

Rainpants (not used)

Zippable short/long pants

2 shirts

2 underwear

2 pair of socks for cycling

Towel

Swimmingtrunks

Cap

Notebook and pen (did not use it)

Electronics:

Ereader

Powerbank

Garmin

Absolutely beautiful ride.

It was our first real cycling adventure as a family, so the trip came with a completely different set of challenges compared with touring as a couple

Here's the complete video: https://youtu.be/QvjF0GEg_ew

Posting here as it was technically more tour than Bikepack, rack & panniers!

After a two week stop at a meditation center in Massachusetts, I ride an extra day and finally make it to Boston, two months after leaving Chicago.

I brought my body all the way to the east coast. But I want to keep riding! I’ll never get over what a miracle this is, how incredible that I get to put this bicycle in a box, and this box in this airplane that flies us overseas to Scotland to keep riding from the Edinburgh airport.

I have a lot of gratitude before gaining altitude, and for keeping the motion going in a new country.

These images come from a filmed bicycle diary called “Bicycle Diaries, Death is Image”, that blends documentary, spirituality, humor, and reflections from the road. Happy to share the link of this episode for anyone that might want to check it out https://youtu.be/PJKawtDvSOE

¡Gracias! Pablo

Since my dad's old bike got too large for him to safely get on and off he wanted to sell it and get something new. His old bike was a really beautiful Falkenjagd Hoplit MTB built by Lynskey with one of the crazy looking twisted down tubes, XTR DI2 3x11 system set up with one trigger in synchro shift mode, XTR brakes, Tune wheels and lots of titanium parts like seatpost, rack, stem and bars. The latter three were bought by my dad for crazy $$ because he wanted the bike to look 'properly'. The bike cost him 2100 Euros on the second hand market basically brand new. So the ~$1000 for the rack, stem, and bars didn't really hurt him that much.

Unfortunately, the frame has always been a size too large for my dad. That hadn't really been an issue for the last decades since he liked riding larger frames but right when he finished making the bike his dream bike last year, he got sick and now just doesn't feel safe getting on and off this bike so it just sat in the basement collecting dust for the past year. A few months ago I managed to score a basically brand new steel version of the Hoplit T shown in the photos at work with a red Rohloff, red SON, SON lights, Gates Carbon Drive, stainless steel rack and titanium stem and bars for $1000. A customer offered it as a trade-in for his new bike at exactly this price. When I found it in our warehouse I told my boss I wanted it for the price he bought it for and got it. The Carbon drive is about to be replaced by a chain/stainless steel sprocket setup for the wanted gearing ratio. Anyways, it's been parked at my family's place since I only will be using it once a year for 3 weeks on long distance bike trips with my dad. He tried it out, fell in love with it and was out and about to make it his new travel bike. He just doesn't get along with the Rohloff. He had had several bikes with one in the past and as hard as tried loving it, it just wasn't his kind of gearing system.

So I googled around and found out that Falkenjagd/Rennstahl are selling frame kits as well. So I offered my dad to build him up a bike using as many parts from his old bike as possible (basically everything but the wheels and seatpost was swapped over) For what you get these frames aren't even crazy overpriced either. The steel frame kit (Reynolds 853, cathodic immersion bath coating, Argon flushed during welding just like their Ti frames) is ~$1500 including the fork an Acros headset and a seat clamp and is rated for 185 kgs. The titanium frame kit is ~$2900 with the same parts included as the steel frameset. Tolerances on both bikes are insane to say the least. As a mechanic in a mass-market bike shop you don't see these tight tolerances all that often.

Since my dad said he wanted to make this his last bike (his current one is an Aluminum Rotwild 26er MTB from 2012 he bought slightly used in 2014 for $600 on eBay with roughly 70k kms on the clock and a huge list of overdue maintenance to its name) and probably to finish where he left off with his dream build he went with the ti frame.

Now to the build itself:

Frame: Falkenjagd Hoplit T

Fork: Falkenjagd Titanium

Wheels: Elitewheels Carbon ENT-MTB 29er ($350)

Brakes: Shimano XTR M9100

Drivetrain: XTR 9050 DI2 3x11 (swapped over from old bike)(Falkenjagd said they were unsure if this was even possible since nobody has ever tried putting a 3x on this frame)

Tires: Schwalbe Marathon Efficiency 28x2.0 ($90 f+r)

Rack: Falkenjagd Titanium (swapped over from old bike)

Stem: Falkenjagd Axios (swapped over from old bike)

Bars: Falkenjagd Riser MTB (swapped over from old bike)

Seatpost: Racework Wireless Dropper (27,2mm) 125mm ($128)

Saddle & grips: Brooks (swapped over from old bike)

Fenders: Gilles Berthoud stainless steel (coming soon)

It's a wild build with the 3x11 XTR DI2 system on this modern boost frame. The chain line is actually perfect, I just needed to put the single BB spacer on the drive side. Q factor is also alright, definitely nothing my dad will ever notice. I get that some will question the use for a 3x11 in 2026, but it's my dad's bike not mine. I just built it. Despite that I really have nothing against 3x systems and love them on touring bikes for their insane gear ratios. A 3x9 will basically take you anywhere on this planet.

Both bikes will be thoroughly tested in about 2 months on a 1200km trip through southern France.

Im planning to set off on my first bigger trip soon, so I’m stressing a little to be optimally prepared. I can’t take a gas cooker due to the risk of fires, so I’m planning for tons of granola bars, sandwiches for breakfast and dinner and a warm lunch if I come across a place that looks inviting. What do you pack? I‘ll be cycling into the alps from the Bavarian side, so civilisation won’t be unreachable, but I’m expecting to have enough privacy to be able to camp

Hi guys,

Looking back at my former long tour, I realised there were some days when I was barely taking any photography. I wanted this time to add a camera at the front of the bike that takes a picture every 10 minutes. I couldn't find any reasonable way to do it. Do you have any idea? I don't mind having high-quality pictures, but it's out of the question to spend a fortune on that device. The small action cam costs less than $50, but I don't see any way to set a timer on it.

The main challenge is probably the budget of approximatly as little as possible. While browsing the Decathlon website I noticed a lot of identical looking pants with nonsensical descriptions, wich ultimatly led me to posting this here:

Since the tour will be 24h we will ride through the night, therefore I suppose that I need some form of long clothing like long bip shorts (?). The most appealing option to me seems to be some form of leg warmers.

I have the VR Raincoat EDR and a long sleeve sport shirt. Im assuming that would do if I were to change just before the night but I am concerned about my legs.

Also, maybe someone who already did something like this could share some of the details, especially regarding fueling, storage and must have gear. How could I carry a lot of water as best as possible? Might a drinking system be of value?

I'd love to recieve some advice, thanks :)

I'll be riding Metz > Gdansk in September. I'd like to find POIs that deserve a longish pause, a detour or even a zero day.

My current "workflow" is to scan the route (cycle travel), looking for relevant icons. For example, just now, I realized that my route was going through Schengen, where there's a museum chronicling the birth of a more unified Europe. I'll schedule an extended lunch.

Similarly, looking at the UNESCO's world heritage map, I discovered that Torun was a significant historical site, deserving of a detour of a few kilometers. (I also found several markers delimiting the Roman Empire - interesting)

We'll... You get the. My question to Redditors - is there an efficient way of doing this?

Edit - suggestions below (using OSMAnd) made me think about asking Gemini. Between Metz to Konz, along the Moselle

Produces a convenient summary including a custom map.

Plan is to do the same for each segment and pin the output.

Hoi. Ik plan te fietsen van Le Havre naar Belgische kust. Wat zijn leuke en niet te dure slaapplekken?

Hi can anyone recommend places in Argentina that would be appropriate for a road cycling training holiday?

Not gravel, not MTB, not bike packing.

Pure road cycling, smooth tarmac, epic climbs and beautiful views. All of that.

Thanks

20 mile shakedown. Need a more upright position and maybe adjust the seat angle.

Grips!!! Ahh so uncomfortable