Conor: Bikepacking, I love it. If you haven't tried it already or you're looking to plan your
own adventure and it may be a little bit daunted. Well, I thought I'd share with you some of my own
top tips on how you can plan epic routes like this into your next
bikepacking trip. [music]
Conor: A good place to be in when planning any route or bikepacking trip is to try and narrow
things down as to what is important to you. Points of interest, a certain landmark, rivers, forests,
a mountain, or hill range, or maybe you just want to go after a certain climb and conquer it on your
trip. Personally, I like to figure out my start point and maybe my endpoint, but keep that a bit
vague and then just get lost in the whole planning process of thinking about where I can go in
between. If I see a road with a load of hairpins on the map that's potentially on my route,
then I know I'm going to have to try that because that looks like it's going to be an epic road.
[music] Conor:
Personally, I love to go on Google Maps for this part. Turn on terrain view so you can see the
lovely contours of the elevation and see if there's any interesting uphills or exciting
downhills you might like to tackle. Also, look if there's any kind of smaller roads at high altitude
which might throw up some really, really beautiful views. I think the key to this bit is just to keep
researching, keep getting inspiration, and keep dreaming about your potential adventure
and where it might take you. Practically though, pay careful attention to your route's chosen time,
distance, and perhaps most importantly, elevation and terrain type. Can you complete the route
in your chosen time frame? You don't want to bite off too much more than you can chew because well,
a bikepacking trip is there to be enjoyed. You want to take it a slow pace. You can't be rushing
from point to point. You want to give yourself time to slow down and enjoy the adventure.
For me, my favorite bikepacking trips are the ones which I really took at a slow pace.
I don't think it should be a race. I think if you end up racing, you could perhaps
detract from the whole experience of it. That's just my personal opinion anyway.
Also, decide whether you're going to opt for a one-way trip or a round trip. For instance, you
could get a shuttle bus or public transport out to a start point and then ride home or you could
start at home, ride out to the middle of nowhere and maybe persuade your partner to pick you up.
I always live in hope of that one happening, but we'll see, maybe some of you are more lucky than
me. I think the key part to this bit is just to stay creative, adventurous, and keep your mind
open because at the moment, the possibilities are endless and that's the most exciting part.
[music] Conor:
Once you've got a rough idea of where your route might head,
well, it's time to start planning that route in a bit more detail. A great way to do this is
to create a GPX file which you can download and send over to your head unit, making it
really easy to follow a route on the go without having to constantly stop at the side of the road
and check your map or maybe your phone to see which direction you need to go in next.
If you don't have a head unit with mapping capabilities, creating a GPX file is still a great
idea because then you can have the route saved on your phone or you can print it off on a bit
of paper as a PDF file and then it's quite easy to put it in your pocket. You can laminate it,
put it in a plastic sandwich bag to keep the rain out. Just a great idea to create your route
as you can customize it as you go along as well as you might change your mind.
Now, there are plenty of routing applications out there but we at GCN like to use Komoot. Now,
routing applications like Komoot make it really easy to design your own routes taking into account
points of interest or places to stay, for example. With Komoot,
I always loved the maps on the platform. They're just super clear and easy to read with detailed
elevation data making it really easy to know if the road you're looking at is a flat 10 kilometers
or perhaps a hilly 10 kilometers at 2,000 meters altitude. If you look here,
when you zoom in to Komoot, it's just so easy to see detailed elevation data on it's free-to-use
online mapping functions. I think the best thing about creating a GPX file on any platform
is the really easy ability to customize that route. What I would recommend is
creating that initial GPX file. Then as your understanding of knowledge grows of an area,
don't be afraid to chop and change that route and adapt it based on your preferences.
[music] Conor: Don't forget to factor in where
you will stay or your accommodation during your bikepacking trip. If you're going anywhere remote,
you're going to want to finish each day's ride in a town or at least know where you're going to
stay at a hotel at the end of the day. You don't want to be really tired and hungry,
finish up your ride in beautiful scenery but well haven't got the foggiest idea where you're
going to stay. Excuse me. Do you know if there's anywhere to stay around here? Seeing any hotels?
Travel method search engines like booking.com or trivago.com make it really easy to search
for accommodation if you go into map view on their site and look at a specific area.
The accommodation can be booked fairly last minute too. I booked accommodation on the morning of each
day's ride during my last bikepacking adventure, but if you are going to adopt a tactic like this,
just make sure to factor it in when you're planning your route. Make sure that there
aren't limited accommodation options in your chosen area at the time when you're traveling.
Now, if you are going on a longer bikepacking trip and you're doing it on a budget, then
warmshowers.org dog is a really great resource. It connects bikepackers who are looking for
free accommodation with potential accommodation options. If you're going to use the resource,
you just have to remember that one day you're expected to return the favor to provide free
accommodation to other bikepackers who may find themselves in similar circumstances in the future.
If you're camping, look out for designated camping sites
on-route when you are planning your adventure. At the same time, don't be afraid to wild camp.
Just check with your local authority if this is permitted first but in many places, it is. Simply
put up a bivvy bag or a small tent in a quiet spot, out of sight and off the road. [yawns]
That was a lovely night's sleep. I should sleep out here more often.
What's the plan for the day? Another ride, let's go. If you do decide to do this, please abide by
the Leave No Trace guidelines. That means leave the spot in the exact same state you found it in.
Those Leave No Trace guidelines are minimise campfires, respect animals and vegetation,
camp on surfaces absent of vegetation, respect trails and take your rubbish home.
[music] Conor:
Now, bikepacking by its nature is a multi-day affair normally. I mean,
you're going to be taking a lot of stuff with you aren't you? Well, I normally tend to do anyway. If
you are doing a multi-day trip, Komoot Premium's Multi-day trip planner is a great tool which packs
all the features I've been talking about into one. If you are planning a big multi-day trip,
say a European adventure on your bike, for example, then on Komoot you simply enter
in your start point and your endpoint, and then Komoot will tell you an estimate of how long it
thinks it will take to complete the trip, how many days you'll be riding for based on an estimate
of your average speed. It will also give you a breakdown of some simple status such as your
elevation, distance, and the surface type of each day's riding. You can make a really good guess
about whether you can actually complete your bikepacking trip that you've planned
and also you know how long you'll actually be in the saddle for each day whilst you're riding.
Komoot will create a GPX file which is editable for each day's riding. Meaning it's quite easy to
change your plans and adapt your route on specific points in your bikepacking trip. You could change
day two, for example, go up a different climb, but you can leave day one exactly as it is and it's
really simple to do this. You can really easily change your routing options and you can also
search for accommodation options towards the end of each day's ride and you can tailor your route
so that you stop where you want to sleep. Think of it as one big master plan which
you can make as detailed as you like. Your whole trip will be broken down
into each day's riding ready to be downloaded onto your head unit and you'll have the stats all ready
to view on the Komoot platform so you know what's ahead of you and what you have to conquer on each
day's riding. Best of all, you can customize it as you go. If you do want to make any changes, well,
you can. \ [music]
If you are planning a multi-day trip, then it's definitely recommended that you check the health
and travel advice of the country you're riding through. Now, this could be something like visas
or health advice, for example. It's recommended that you do this through your own authority
which will have information which is specific for you. Fit For Travel is a great resource
which gives country-specific health advice to the UK public. If you're not from the UK, you can use
it too. It's a free, easy-to-use resource, which will let you know things such as what vaccines you
might expect to get before you travel to a certain country and the specific health advice for the
country you're traveling to. It's a resource I use myself and will definitely recommend.
Similarly, check what visa you may need in the country of traveling to before you go and also
specific travel advice within that country. Now, it's recommended that you do this via your own
government's information. However, if you're from the UK or anywhere else for that matter,
you can find specific foreign travel advice on the UK government's website, gov.uk.
You want to think about where you can refill your bottles on a route and where you can get
more food. If you're riding in remote areas like this, well, food and water is few and far between.
Maybe think about bringing bigger bottles with you or potentially taking a third bottle
which you can fit to your bike. Now, if this isn't possible, maybe plan into your route where you
can stop and refill your bottles or take on extra food during the ride. Look out for free places to
refill your bottles on-route. Refillmybottle.com is a really useful resource if you want to find
out where it's possible to do this. Also, in my home country of Ireland,
for instance, you have refill.ie, another great, great resource. If you're going to France,
riding in the mountains, or maybe across the Massif Central in the center of the country,
eau-cyclisme.com is another brilliant resource, which lists all the free water fountains
in the entire country. That is just a priceless bit of information to have, especially if you're
going into remote areas. If you're riding in the really hot summer in the French Alps,
I think you're going to be really, really grateful if you know where those free water fountains are.
[music] Conor: You also want to take into account the
weather during your bikepacking route planning. Those mountain passes may look amazing in the
summer at the Tour de France, but I tell you in the winter, it's a different story with many of
them are actually unpassable due to snow and ice. You really want to bear in mind the seasons during
your bikepacking trip. Plan towards your chosen destination and what the weather will be like
at the time you are going, if you want to stay away from putting the rain cape on quite a lot.
Another cool feature of Komoot's Premium function is its weather forecasting ability. You can choose
a time and see the weather forecast on really specific points on your route. You can decide
if it's raining at the start and dry at the end of your ride or if the wind direction is a solid
headwind for the whole day. [music]
Conor: Don't be afraid to be flexible as well and I'm contradicting myself here.
If you've done plenty of research and you've planned your route really well,
chances are you're going to be able to rectify things. If you do go off course a bit hand,
it's worth it because that's how you make the memories. Don't be too rigid. Allow yourself to
be a bit creative and go with the flow when you're out on the trip. Also, if you are looking to take
the road less traveled, you have a gravel bike or a chunkier tired bike, forest service roads like
this are a great place to start if you do want to factor in a bit more remote routing options.
[music] Conor: Those are some of my tips on bikepacking
route plan. I really hope they helped you if you're thinking about taking on a bikepacking trip
or maybe you just need that final push to give it a go. Thanks for watching so much, folks. Please
let me know, in the comments section below, if I missed anything so we can share the information
and inspire as many people to get out there and try bikepacking because well,
it really is just the best thing ever. I love it so much. I guess I better get down from here, but
I'd rather stay up here all day to be honest. [00:14:49] [END OF AUDIO]