Everything Starts Somewhere - Part 1

It might seem like the Bikepacking Buds team have everything nailed and are super professional bikepackers - haha, we’re really not! But even the experience we do have has developed over time, we were all complete newbies once. We decided to share the stories of our first ever adventures. Town bikes and borrowed bikes, backpacks, baskets, paper maps or no maps. There are so many different ways to discover the (hopefully lifelong) joy that is bikepacking, we hope you enjoy reading about them!

Ellie

I spent the summer of 2017 working on a campsite/caravan park in southern France. Because of the shifts I hadn't really been able to leave the bubble of the park so I was going a bit crazy. I persuaded my boss to give me two consecutive days off, spontaneously borrowed a helmet and a road bike after asking around, put some food, clothes and camera in a big 40L backpack (all I had!) and set my sights on cycling to the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, 100 miles away. I hadn't ever ridden that far but – in hindsight maybe recklessly – I thought it would be fine. 

The first 70 miles were quite flat and easy-going along the coast, and I remember feeling totally free and loving life! I got to the beautiful mountains with only a few mishaps (lack of water being the main problem), stayed in a hostel, then the next day had to ride 100 miles back! I had some dramas including a very dumb injury that left me with a scar I still have, a thunderstorm, and me realising with 15km to go that I'd set out with no pump or puncture kit or anything to sort any mechanicals! Anyway, I got back having had the best time on my first big solo adventure, and definitely found me the taste for adventure! Safe to say every trip I've done after that has been a bit more thought out! 

Liv

My first bikepacking trip, in 2019, was a very humbling experience. I didn’t go far from home or fast (it’s all relative anyway!)...I just went! At my own pace, into the unknown. It was a relatively new concept for me despite the fact that bikepacking has been around as long as people have been riding bikes. Social media allowed me to connect with this amazing cycling and bikepacking community I didn’t know existed and it opened my eyes and made me think “this could be me.”  I was sitting on the idea of my own micro-adventure for a long time until one day when I woke up and decided IT’S TIME. It was Tuesday morning, I think, and I was so excited to get out that I planned my mini adventure in three days.

I set out carrying all my essentials plus more (as you do on your first trip) and I was very content with my extremely heavy bike and views for miles. Back then I was living in Derby, East Midlands and my plan was to head to High Peak, around 70km away from my home. I really took my time with this (read: it took me ALL day) and I had to stop and hike-a-bike lots. Because back then I didn’t think about elevation (in my head it was just a hill or five haha) and I didn’t think about different terrain paths that might take longer to cycle than tarmac. It was a very mindful journey. Because when do we ever truly switch off from our day-to-day hustle? Cycling all day and pushing a very heavy bike up the hill certainly gives you a good amount of headspace.

I chose a lovely little campsite in the middle of nowhere. I wasn’t comfortable with wild camping and I wanted to have some comfort after a long day (ie: a good shower). I arrived at the campsite late evening, set up my tent away from other people, made myself a drink, cooked my food and ate some more snacks... simple. It was so joyful. I was sitting there, with no distractions, heavy legs, a happy mind and smiling, because I knew this was only a beginning! It turns out there are no rules when it comes to bikepacking – you don’t have to go on big adventures abroad or go on multi-day adventures in the middle of nowhere to enjoy/try bikepacking. Micro-adventures are actually great. I knew that before, but that first trip really reminded me of that.

Kelly

My first bikepacking trip was in Atlanta, Georgia in December 2019 with a group of friends I had made through my wonderful cycling community in the city. At this point, I had a vintage, too-big-for-me road bike that was passed down to me from my grandfather and no bags to carry kit on my bike at all. I used a small backpacking backpack and made sure my friend who had bikepacking bags had a tent I could share. 

We took off on a cold December day and we camped in a field about 45 miles down the very flat and paved Silver Comet trail that leaves from the edge of Atlanta. Although we barely left the city, stayed on paved paths, and my gear was very limited and not at all bike-specific, I was hooked. It felt revolutionary that I could just grab some supplies and my bike and then ride off from my apartment to go camp somewhere, especially from a city like Atlanta that is very car dependent. 

By the time I moved to the UK in 2021, I hadn’t yet gone on another bikepacking trip but had accumulated some Ortleib panniers for commuting. I knew I wanted to buy myself a gravel bike so I could take my next adventure off-road. A few weeks after moving, my partner Vincent and I did the C2C from Whitehaven to Newcastle!

Jessie

Photo: James Robertson

My first bikepacking trip was cycling nearly 600 miles from my home in Devon to Scotland, to arrive at COP26 with the movement People Pedal Power. It definitely wasn't the most conventional way to start! 

When I think back to that time, I can’t quite remember whether I actually wanted to get into cycling, or if my love of the sport was a by-product of the preparations for the journey. Either way, after months of trundling around my local area, puffing my way up hills and being knackered after ten miles in the saddle, my brain and body slowly got ready for the big journey ahead. Over the eleven days we took to get to Glasgow, my love of cycling grew and grew as I was constantly astounded by the joy of traveling on two wheels and the awesome people I met along the way. 

While the journey to Scotland became a transformational adventure, the weeks beforehand were full of intense nerves and anxiety. I’d done the odd back-to-back ride in my training, but I had no idea how my body would cope over the long miles ahead of me. I was also oddly fearful that my bottom bracket would fall off somewhere in the wilds of Somerset - don’t ask me why! Overall my first trip was a pretty special way to start my hopefully lifelong love of bikepacking. However, if I could do it all again, I would probably start with a ‘tester adventure’ before I set off for Scotland, instead of chucking myself into the very deep end!

Thank you Ellie, Liv, Kelly, and Jessie! If you want to read more about their adventures follow the links to each Instagram account. What was your first time like?? Share in the comments below, or come visit our socials and tell us there!

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