Luggage, It’s All About Lugging. You kids these days have it easy! Back when I started bikepacking, there were few options for bags. I tried panniers a few times, and while they were fine on gravel roads, they sucked a lot once the trail closed in and they started grabbing on rocks and trees. In…
Author: Doug
MYOG Prologue and Cooking Gear
There’s all kinds of inexpensive custom bikepacking gear on the market, so why would you make your own? Bikepacking styles vary greatly, and making your own gear can allow you to customize to your particular style without paying for custom or small scale production. The small boutique brands are not out to rip you off,…
MYOG part 3: You Can Make Pogies (or Buy Them)
Prologue: Pogies are giant mittens that go on the handlebars of bikes to allow the user to wear light gloves but still work the controls and not freeze their hands. They are a not necessity for winter cycling but they sure are a great way to keep hands warm. If you know how to sew,…
MYOG Part 4: Sleep System
[Editor’s note, I know this is technically the first published, but I wrote it as the 4th in the series. Read them in any order and they should still make sense. Also, I get asked a lot of questions about my tarp.] MYOG Sleep Systems, introduction Canada can get cold. The Canadian Rockies can get…
Castle Wilderness – New to Us Route
I tried to talk Tadhg into bikepacking the Alberta Rockies 700 but he thought that sounded like a 2 week rather than 2 day ride. So, in the tradition of compromise, I scaled back. I may have to do it solo next year. I did want to do a new and hopefully a bit challenging…
Mud, Sweat, and Tears: Family Bikepacking in Marginal Conditions
Jeremy loves to take his family on bikepacking weekends. That’s mostly because he loves his family, but also because he loves riding bikes and sleeping outside. He was kind enough to invite me on a weekend ride to celebrate his birthday and to have fun with the kids. For bikepacking with kids, it is very…
Spring Family Bikepacking Indoctrination Weekend.
When you get outside with your family as much as I do, you start to want to get other families hooked (or maybe that’s just me). With that in mind, I convinced This Mom Bikes that we should do another family bikepacking weekend on the Elbow Loop, this time as a two night trip. We…
Long Weekend Bikepacking With Tadhg
He started his bikepack negotiation with, “I’m not riding 100km days unless you carry all my stuff. I’ll ride 20km total [5km days] if I have to carry anything.” Both proud and appalled, I planned out a 90km/day route. Unfortunately, I heard from a friend that the route included a pass with “impassable snow” and…
Late Winter Bikepack
Mid March, my friend Katrina organized a very fun overnight bikepack to Lake Minnewanka. The original plan was to get up early on Saturday, bike from Goat Creek trailhead through Banff (town) and then ride up to the Lake Minnewanka trailhead and proceed to the LM8 campground. The year previous, this is exactly what an…
Why?
I get asked, like most winter cyclists, “why?” The situation varies between riding with my kids a couple of blocks, to riding in extreme cold, to riding and pushing through snow to go sleep outside somewhere. The implication is that it’s too hard to be worth it. Some of the questioning comes from a mistaken…
