On the modern origins of bikepacking

[JackT]

I wrote this for R@pha's Mondial magazine a while ago and now they've put it online. Might interest anyone with an interest in the modern origins of bikepacking:

https://tinyurl.com/y8ccta2q

And you can read the whole of the Journey to the Centre of the Earth here:

https://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/pag ... _id=134003

(or pick up a second hand copy cheap at Abebooks)

[Bearbonesnorm]

Enjoyed that Jack, ta.

I think it's fair to say that the Crane's approach was very similar to that employed by 'cycle campers' of the late 1800's through to the mid-20th century but taken to near the absolute extreme. It was only really in the late 60's that things took a heavier, bulkier path and bikepackers are simply rediscovering what came before. It always makes me smile when people say, "bikepacking's just a new (trendy) word for touring" when touring in the modern sense is actually quite a recent 'invention'

Anyway, good work

[ZeroDarkBivi]

A really interesting little article, once I got over my initial reaction (based on the headline); not another tedious story inferring real cycling/adventure is all about suffering and being miserable the whole time...!

Seriously, does anybody else go riding to enjoy themselves? Are you all disappointed if a trip on the bike doesn’t involve multiple mishaps? I understand the buzz of surviving a close shave, but I must confess, good weather, nice trails, gourmet food, mechanical and injury avoidance are all positive aspects of a ride to me. Overcoming adversity is great, when necessary (and the mind cleverly only recalls the achievement, rather than the misery of the moment), but is it compulsory for a ride to be worthy the title Adventure?

Clearly I am getting softer as I grow old...Sorry!

[JackT]

I'd disagree that touring is a modern term in cycling.

'Tour' is just another word for a journey, but one made with the intention of seeing something interesting along the way. As in the 18th century "Grand Tours" made by the English upper classes to see the relics of Greece and Rome, or the centuries old "tour de France" by young apprentice craftsmen that was the inspiration for the famous bike race.

Touring only became a dirty word with the advent of mass tourism in the 1930s and accelerating in the post war era with charabancs, works outings, package tours, the tourist trail, tourist traps etc. Go back to the adventurous cycling travelogues of the 1870s and 1880s and people are happy to describe themselves as 'cycle touring'. Cycle travel innit.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Seriously, does anybody else go riding to enjoy themselves?

I always enjoy myself but I don't tend to pay much attention to the perceptions of good / bad, hard / easy ... I just try and embrace the experience.

Overcoming adversity is great, when necessary (and the mind cleverly only recalls the achievement, rather than the misery of the moment), but is it compulsory for a ride to be worthy the title Adventure?

I don't think 'advenure' requires suffering but it probably does require an element of the unknown, an outcome which isn't 100% certain and maybe a dash of risk.

I'd disagree that touring is a modern term in cycling.

'Tour' is just another word for a journey, but one made with the intention of seeing something interesting along the way. As in the 18th century "Grand Tours" made by the English upper classes to see the relics of Greece and Rome, or the centuries old "tour de France" by young apprentice craftsmen that was the inspiration for the famous bike race.

Which is why I wrote - when touring in the modern sense

[JackT]

Which is why I wrote - when touring in the modern sense

Well obviously touring in the modern sense is a relatively recent thing. That's what the word modern means.

[JackT]

Seriously, does anybody else go riding to enjoy themselves? Are you all disappointed if a trip on the bike doesn’t involve multiple mishaps?

It's a good question. Clearly the Cranes were interested in seeking out adversity and pushing things to their limits:

Before they set of the Cranes considered what they wanted from their adventure. It boiled it down to “problems we couldn’t predict yet which we could survive”. They believed a good adventure should be “difficult without being agonising, dangerous without being suicidal, exotic without being obscure and awkward without being impossible”.

I tend to agree with you and don't seek out mishaps on my rides. When things go wrong for me on rides it's usually the result of my own bad planning and I curse myself for it. What I like about the Cranes is their inventiveness in setting themselves a challenge. Today far too much 'adventure cycling' is just about seeing how fast you can ride or how far you can ride. Lacks imagination if you ask me.

[whitestone]

Craig, the last three weekends have just been "riding" for the simple pleasure of it (WRT, JennRide and a massive 20km pottering around new to me bridleways near home last Saturday). Some bits were easy, some hard but there was no hardship for the sake of it, I deliberately didn't do the JennRide in one for example.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Well obviously touring in the modern sense is a relatively recent thing. That's what the word modern means.

Perhaps I should have said 'accepted sense amongst cyclists and the general populace' but I'm sure most people understood

Craig, the last three weekends have just been "riding" for the simple pleasure of it (WRT, JennRide and a massive 20km pottering around new to me bridleways near home last Saturday). Some bits were easy, some hard but there was no hardship for the sake of it, I deliberately didn't do the JennRide in one for example.

That's right - not every ride has to be an adventure. Personally, I'm in favour of more 'pottering', 'pootling' and 'meandering' as they tend to be short on detail but big on possibility which in itself can quite easily lead to adventure.

[psling]

Seriously, does anybody else go riding to enjoy themselves? Are you all disappointed if a trip on the bike doesn’t involve multiple mishaps? I understand the buzz of surviving a close shave, but I must confess, good weather, nice trails, gourmet food, mechanical and injury avoidance are all positive aspects of a ride to me. Overcoming adversity is great, when necessary (and the mind cleverly only recalls the achievement, rather than the misery of the moment), but is it compulsory for a ride to be worthy the title Adventure?

I think a lot of what you say is in the 'telling of the story'. A pleasant ride free of mishap does not generally make what is considered a good story.
"I rode up this nice path, saw a great view and had a wonderful time" is not as good reading as "we battled up a challenging path with bikes thrown over our shoulders, bending forwards into the fierce wind as we reached the pass. A momentary glimpse of the view before the cloud closed in again then we pedalled downhill over tyre-shredding rocks before taking shelter in a tumble down sheep shelter. The smell of sheep excrement was overpowering but to get out of the weather for a well-earned brew just made for another memorable moment".

So, I think we all go out to enjoy ourselves but the best stories told are the ones of adversity

[jameso]

What I like about the Cranes is their inventiveness in setting themselves a challenge. Today far too much 'adventure cycling' is just about seeing how fast you can ride or how far you can ride. Lacks imagination if you ask me.

*applause* and "hear, hear"

A race like the TCR 'could' be inventive or innovative - use a map rather GPS and see how you fare.

[Bearbonesnorm]

I've just collected two fold up shopping bikes and checked my dinghy for leaks

[ScotRoutes]

Have you checked that your hovercraft isn't full of eels?

[Bearbonesnorm]

your hovercraft isn't full of eels?

I'm taking them - I think the slippery buggers will add to the adventure

[ScotRoutes]

Some of you might enjoy this
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b ... ake-a-hike

It's ostensibly about the history of hillwalking in Scotland but there's a nice bit on gear and TLS features.....

[benp1]

I've just collected two fold up shopping bikes and checked my dinghy for leaks

You been watching Alastair Humphreys haven't you?

[Bearbonesnorm]

You been watching Alastair Humphreys haven't you?

Have I bollox.

[Dave Barter]

You been watching Alastair Humphreys haven't you?

Have I bollox.

Was that a micro-rant?

[jameso]

A race like the TCR 'could' be inventive or innovative

Er, I should add, the TCR is an innovative race format in the first place ... what I mean is 'a rider's approach to any race'.

[ZeroDarkBivi]

Today far too much 'adventure cycling' is just about seeing how fast you can ride or how far you can ride. Lacks imagination if you ask me.

Absolutely - perhaps Strava, and the associated ego-centric obsession with our 'numbers' is a big factor in that.

[benconnolli]

Loved the article and the iPlayer link too. That video gives me some more ideas for my any bike is a bikepacking bike two-wheeled tramp trip next time I find myself stuck in London

[Alpinum]

Having read the posts here first I was going to go on about discussions the late Ueli Steck and I had about going fast in challenging terrain. About the lovely feeling when you feel efficient moving across a landscape (or up and over a mountain or a few). Being efficient traversing multiple horizons asks for going with nature's rhythm. Moving with nature more then fighting it, thus obliterating adversity and rather seeing chances in the challenge.
Clearly I wasn't surprised to see Messners name show up in the report about the Cranes.

Every time I observe wild animals move through nature I am awestruck by the beauty of it; the polarbear moving closer to you over huge boulderfields, seemingly effortless but closing the gap to you frighteningly fast, the caribou, heads up as if they where too proud, flying across the tundra and the lone white wolf following them as if he was out for a stroll, the moose stomping across a fast running, hip deep glacial river with grace, the chamois dancing above and in precipices as if the mountains where flat, the seagull that floats effortlessly just above the waves for days, the blue whale, that glides through the water like a swallow plays with the skies. Blahblahblah...

It's pure beauty.
I want to be like that too. And I'm not alone.

And speed is a factor in it.

Diving into this challenge connects you with a certain amount of speed and the boarder to giving your trip stravaesque character is quickly crossed, no matter how innovative your style of travel is. Ueli was innovative (as much as you can nowadays - obviously Erhart Loretan, Anatoli Bukreev, Reinhold Messner, Jerzy Kukuczka etc. had done similar before, but not nearly so fast in so diffucult terrain) by taking fast Alpine ascents of hard routes to the highest mountains. And he saw himself as an athlete, adding much of this stravaesce property to his way of climbing... to his way of living actually. In this wake also taking minimalism beyond it preconceived limits.

To me too there's always been this goal; sketch a superbly challenging route (be it a not too difficult route at the 'wrong' time of year or 'right' time of year but utterly challenging route choice) and try to cross it efficiently. Dance with what nature has in store for you.
Be one of those wonderful wild animals you encountered. Obliterate adversity by taking what you're given.

No matter how innovative your adventure is, time (speed) will mostly be a part of it I think.
I have a trip (well... three actually) in mind and loose planing where speed in a first instance seems completely negligible, but as soon as you calculate in food for the duration of your self sufficient route segment, you must factor in speed no matter how slow you plan to go. This too connects fairly well with adversity as by reckoning eg how much food to take you're trying to limit adversity. By choosing what shelter/bivy to take on a HT550 you're trying to limit a certain amount of adversity and of course choosing to give in to some amount of it.
An adventure doesn't go without adversity, no matter how much you're trying to avoid it or accept it, you always have it in mind calculating it, just like speed. Some call it risk management. Ueli was ready to take big risks, a better friend of mine, Mathias Roten (google him), lived this way too and also died very young. Despite their death, I salute to them much as they seeked to be this beauty of moving effortless to it fullest. They died young, not something to work towards to, but the inspiration remains huge.

[psling]

Good words there Alpinium ^^^ I enjoyed reading your post.

Puts me in mind of those occasional but rare moments when you slip into "the zone", that period when everything just seems effortless, almost surreal, when you find yourself at one with your bike and your surroundings.

[Alpinum]

Puts me in mind of those occasional but rare moments when you slip into "the zone", that period when everything just seems effortless, almost surreal, when you find yourself at one with your bike and your surroundings.

Exaclty, well put. I didn't even go into that, but you couldn't have hit the nail better.

I like to remember my Iceland double traverse, when not even a mechanical (flat tyre) or photography would take my out of that state.

[Wilkyboy]

Top post, Alpinium