(fire crackling)
(owl hooting)
- It's adventure week and we couldn't do this,
without going on our own mini adventure.
- Yes, Neil, we're going to go bike packing again.
- Love it, can't wait to do this again.
Got my Canyon Lux Cross Country bike fully loaded up!
What bike you riding Blake?
(exasperated moan)
- He's done it again Neil.
I'll be back in a bit.
He's new.
I knew it.
I've told him before.
He's going to get fat if he keeps eating here.
That's it.
Enough eating burgers, you.
I know.
I know you're hungry, you're always hungry.
Constantly eating.
I'm surprised you're not fat.
There he is!
- Wow!
- It's the dude.
- I hope we're not riding on any single track
because that is approximately four foot wide.
- Well you know he is full fat
and I just went into the Topeak catalog
and pulled everything I wanted.
- [Neil] Everything.
- I'm carrying everything.
- I hope you've got everything.
- The kitchen sink as well.
Neil?
- Have you got the hip flask?
- The hip flask?
No that was your job. - 'Cause I have.
- Hey, tell you what, you won't lose me.
You'll hear me coming.
(Neil laughs)
(Hard hitting electronic beat)
All right, the trail, well...
Our backpacking experience starts in Merthyr Tydfil.
We're in South Wales, and it's an old
railway line that we're following.
- Yeah, this is the Brecons Bash.
It starts to go up onto the Brecons and to an open place,
but we've driven through here.
We've never actually been and stopped,
and ridden the bike route here, so.
I can't wait to see what it entails.
(bass strumming)
- My bike smells very fresh, like a horse.
- [Neil] Like a horse?
I can smell it from here.
(moody rock music playing)
- So it's quite...
- Steep. - Steep.
(rock music playing)
(birds chirping)
(rock music playing)
- Blake's molesting cows.
- [Blake] Oh I love Highland cows.
I don't want to mess with that one though.
Look at that one.
That's Daddy.
Don't mess with Daddy.
(rock music)
(gate creaks loudly)
- I'm starving Neil.
- Well it's a good time of year
to come for blackberries I suppose.
(beep)
- Ten Kilometers in, I'm ravenous.
- Loads of them! (exclaiming in disgust)
(beep)
Are we going to have forage our way
all the way over that hill to get to camp?
- I hope not.
But you know, I smelled something really burgery.
- Something greasy.
- I think Fatty didn't leave empty handed
when I went and found him at the flippin' Burger place, man.
- The Dude abides.
- It's coming from...
Oh my goodness, me!
Look Neil.
Two burgers!
That's literally fast food.
- I don't like chicken.
I don't like mayo.
- You don't like chicken?
I'll have it.
(cheers)
- [Neil] I think my cheese sandwich is way better.
- Cheers.
- [Blake] Refueled with some questionable nutrition,
we checked our routes on the Garmin
which appeared to lead us into, well, apparently nothing.
- [Blake] Neil.
- [Neil] Straight that way, where there isn't a trail.
- [Blake] Where there's nothing?
- Well, there's only one way to find out!
(upbeat rock music)
- [Blake] That is a beautiful view.
Wow.
And we're going that way.
And you'd think the ultimate all-terrain bicycle
is the fat bike.
Let us know in the comments down below.
(rock music playing)
- [Blake] Neil.
- [Neil] Yeah?
- Don't you think the fat bike's
the ultimate all-terrain bike?
- Well, it depends how you look at it.
I mean, they are, but that is pretty unique to look at.
- I think it looks sexy.
Don't you?
- No.
- All right Neil, we're at the top of our first ascent.
- Yeah, a bit of a headwind, but it's not so bad.
It's been quite dry recently, so the moor rolls all right,
especially with the big fatties I suppose.
- I'm all right, I'm rolling super quick.
We're on, uh, we're on top of this climb.
There's a quarry, and on the map...
'Cause we used bike-packing.com?
- Yep.
- To find this map and it says
"Get your Danny MacAskill on",
so we might just roll down some stuff.
- More like Chris Akrigg, right?
- Or Chris Akrigg.
Kind of more Chris Akrigg.
And then we're going that way.
- [Blake] Running into an old abandoned quarry
Neil was consumed by a sense of deja vu,
adamant that he'd been here before.
Turns out he'd ridden here over 14 years ago
on a photo shoot for a mountain bike magazine.
Check this out!
(rock music)
- Uh, so I've ridden out like, 360 views
and rocked this sort of gnarly, old disused quarry.
And Blake has found something he wants to ride down.
I don't want to ride down that.
(Blake laughs)
(rock music)
- [Blake] Bike-packing is amazing.
This is the third time I've done it, and I'm hooked.
I wish I could do a lot more.
It's amazing because you get to
explore places that you wouldn't even go.
Well, you wouldn't even think of it.
Like, I wouldn't think of coming up here.
Oh, the bog bashing, yes.
It was quite wet right at the top.
We kind of descended from this old quarry and then there was
just bog, after bog, after bog and we got a bit muddy.
It was a bit stinking because that place is full of sheep,
and there are so many landmines coming out this one place.
Landmines, as in, cow poo everywhere.
- [Blake] Riding in the middle of nowhere is great
but you've certainly got to be cautious
because if anything goes wrong
you've only got yourselves to fix it.
(loud tire thudding)
- [Blake] Oh my (beep)!
Oh my goodness me!
I thought I was going over the bars!
(rock music)
- [Neil] Watch out.
- Definitely have to sort of relax
a little bit on the descents.
I mean, just sort of the whole day really.
But try to preserve your bike a bit.
It's not really about bombing down hills.
- Big old rock.
- It's done, there's no plugging that.
- How are the scales going to get a puncture?
Can you imagine the puncture?
Do you reckon if my tire burst, do you reckon
it'd be like a cartoon bubble?
You know, when they burst and go...
(bursting sound)
(rock music)
- [Neil] It's funny that Blake's riding a Fat Bike,
and I'm riding a Super-light cross country bike,
but it feels like we kind of roll the same.
It's weird.
(chill music)
(laughing)
So we're settling in now for the biggest climb of day one.
To go up on the ridge of Pen Y Fan,
and then drop down to Brecon.
We're starting off on the road,
and then it must go off-road at some point.
It's been good so far.
(gentle groove playing)
- [Blake] The great thing about bike-packing
is you get out into nature.
You get to see wildlife and to be honest,
in Wales there's a lot of sheep.
It's not wild, but there's some
wild-ish horses around here in the moors.
Um, scared the bejesus out of Neil.
(calm acoustic music)
- [Neil] These glacially formed valleys
have a long history dating back to the ice-age.
- [Blake] What, the movie?
- [Neil] Shut up Scrat.
- [Blake] All right Sid.
- [Neil] They've seen all kinds of
human industry, and have survived it all.
It's one of the most beautiful areas in the United Kingdom.
We're lucky to have it so close to our doorsteps.
As day one drew to a close, we dropped into
our final descent below Pen Y Fan.
- [Blake] It's been good shots coming down here, eh, huh?
- [Neil] There's something about bike-packing
it just does make it feel like an adventure
just taking a tent with you, and all your kit.
With your food and all your supplies for the day
and just getting out, and we're not
that far in the middle of nowhere,
like I do know this area a little bit.
I used to race downhill all around here.
But sort of like Blake said, I would never
get out into these wilds a little bit more, and see stuff.
(calm acoustic music)
- Neil, the sun is just about to go down over those hills.
- By Pen Y Fan
- Pen Y Fan.
We just descended through that place just over there.
That valley through there.
We come and, introduced to this gate.
Gate.
Open the gate.
And we're going to descend all the way into Brecon.
(laughing)
- [Blake] It's two kilometers of this?
We're going to go to a campsite,
where we're going to stay the night,
potentially walk into town.
Have some dinner.
(tap pouring)
(high pitched tin whistle)
And then, go to bed.
Surprisingly my big fat tires did not get any poo on 'em.
Neil, you got?
- Fresh.
Sheep poo stinks.
- [Blake] Look at that bit.
Look at that.
Look.
Disgusting, Neil.
Disgusting.
Finally Neil. - Oh.
Showers.
It's been a long day.
- [Neil] It has been.
The sun is down.
- [Blake] Hang on a minute.
It's shut.
It says it's shut Neil.
- [Neil] I'm sticking my tent wherever.
I don't care.
- Oh, (beep).
(beep)
All right, run time-lapse.
(upbeat orchestral music)
- [Blake] If only we were as good at setting up our tents
as we were at riding our bikes.
- I can't remember which end it goes if you put...
- Hey Neil, do you know what you do?
- Uh, I can't remember, really.
But, you know, here goes nothing.
- Look at the size of that thing.
Whoa.
Solid as a rock mate.
Big fatty.
Ain't going nowhere.
- [Blake] Step two.
- Better get this up quick 'cause it's getting dark.
- It is getting dark.
Aw, did you break it?
Mine just fell over.
It's good when you get a campsite
and the ground is perfect as this.
- Yeah, it's really soft. - Push in pegs.
- What are these clippy bits for?
- Those clippy bits are for your rain shield thing.
- [Blake] You done yours yet, Neil?
- No.
- You got all these crazy humans out here
with their crazy expensive, like, camper vans.
All you need is a bike.
Easy.
I bloody love this tent setup.
It's freaking good.
- It's still not very taut is it?
- No, 'cause this peg's come out.
It's really dark now.
We're in Brecon, in the Brecon Beacons.
Huh, funny that.
I think we're going to have a shower
and then go straight to bed 'cause tomorrow is even longer.
Night-Night.
(calm classical music)
- [Blake] After a quite long, slightly cold,
and a bit uncomfortable night in a tent,
dawn broke on another beautiful day in Wales.
- Beautiful morning Neil.
It's beautiful.
Hell of a sight.
We're going to go find some breakfast
'cause we don't have anything.
And it's down this way, on a horrible road.
(upbeat rock music)
- [Blake] So, we ran out of inner tubes.
So we're going to come to this
local bike shop to get some inner tubes.
'Cause we don't want to get a puncture
far away, deep inside somewhere.
Look at the size of my inner tube.
(laughing)
- Some stay in the middle.
Oh wow, that's a big guy.
(both laughing)
- It's gone from a morning, well, a chilly Sunday morning
to a quite sweaty Sunday morning, eh?
- We've just, uh, cycled from Brecon, which is over there
beyond that tree, all the way through and up this climb.
You can see the hills that we went over, yesterday.
- [Neil] Yup.
- [Blake] But, we're going up there.
(energetic electronic music)
- [Neil] Yeah, amazing view up here.
I think now we're heading down and around
and back over there somewhere.
(energetic electronic music)
(bike gear sounds)
(water splashing)
- [Blake] It's quite nice descending through here.
(heavy breathing)
- [Blake] With all those big climbs behind us
and those rolling grassy meadows in front of us,
we could sense the end was near.
With blackberries eaten, muddy bogs crossed,
and 108 kilometers with our tracks stamped into the dirt,
we were ready to hit our final few miles ahead of us.
(electronic music)
- [Blake] It'd been a great couple days on the bike
and of course you can't finish a bike-packing trip
without going to the pub for some refreshments.
- [Blake] Hell yeah!
- Lovely!
Done it.
We've just gone and done it, Neil.
Two days.
- Two good days.
- Two amazing days.
Today was quite hard. - It was.
- I'm not going to lie.
- Big day out.
- Yep.
- That's it.
I hope you've enjoyed Adventure Week.
Loads of good stuff.
Hopefully it's inspired you to go out
and do your own mini adventure of some sort.
- Yes, go plug in a route that you want to go and do.
Neil, if they want to stick around, where should they go?
- Uh, well, they should watch the video from Patagonia.
I'd recommend that one.
That's over here.
- Just over there, and if you want to see
another bike-packing one, click over here for--
- They're all from South Wales, yeah.
- Yep, yep.
- We need to broaden our horizons on bike-packing.
- I think a couple more days, Neil.
I think, like a whole week.
- Yeah, hit our subscribe button.
- Give us a thumbs up.
Like if you love adventure.