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Self Contained and Ultralight Bikepacking Comes of Age Thanks to gear breakthroughs and pioneering riders, there’s a new style of bicycle touring Story and photos by Aaron Teasdale “I’ve gotta get a photo of you guys with four days exploring remote backcountry your bikes,” said a man we’d just met on the trails and our last night was soon to take us trail high in the Canadian Rockies. Anyone into high, wild peaks on a trail navigable who’s traveled by bicycle has experienced only on mountain bikes with the lightest this: meeting people who are so blown away possible gear. by what you’re doing that they just have to This is bikepacking, bicycle touring’s take your picture. The difference with this new frontier. guy and his two friends was that they were Our trip had begun five days earlier traveling by bike themselves. They pulled when our group of four assembled in trailers stuffed with everything they could northern Montana at the end of June theoretically ever need, their pregnant as something of a bikepacking all-star cargo bags threatening to burst open in an team. There was Jeff Boatman, the adven- explosion of gear. Normally, people would ture mastermind from the backwoods of be asking to take pictures of them. But then California who’d created Carousel Design there was our group. Nearing the end of a Works (carouseldesignworks.com) and the five-day tour, we had no trailers, no racks, gear-carrying system that has taken ultra- and no panniers. light touring to new levels of efficiency. “Where’s the rest of your stuff?!” they’d Endurance cycling legend John Stamstad asked incredulously, looking at our lightly had come over from Washington to join us loaded rigs. for the first part of the trip. We’d met at “This is it,” we said with smiles. Todd Tanner’s place, a former World Cup- “Everything we need is on our bikes right winning professional downhill mountain- now.” bike racer turned guide and all-around After assuring us they needed all the uber rider who’d recently embraced tour- stuff they’d brought, they spent a minute ing with vigor. Then there was myself, the examining our bikes like they were mysti- least likely person in the group to set any cal objects from another world — fascinat- speed or endurance records, but an avid ing to view but impossible to understand. backcountry explorer who’s been at the “I’ve toured with trailers plenty of times forefront of publicizing ultralight bike- and they’re great,” I told them, “but over packing. the years, I’ve learned that riding light is We’d all come together to ride for a few a lot more fun. You’re trading a bit of com- days, compare notes, and celebrate the Twisted trails and twisted mountains. It’s hard to imagine a better place for bikepacking the K-Country. fort in camp for comfort on the bike, and it sport, which was benefiting from recent to find quality places to do it. In the opens up all kinds of riding terrain.” gear breakthroughs and burgeoning inter- U.S., large, non-motorized, backcountry us had ever seen. Jeff, who’d never been After topping out at the day’s second water in Canadian Rockies!) With their heavy loads, they planned est from the mainstream cycling media. areas with ample singletrack are all too in the Canadian Rockies before, was nearly pass, we made like water and flowed down As the day rolled on — and I intermit- to spend the rest of their trip muscling After years of existing in touring’s shadowy often closed to bicycles, leaving bikepack- dumbstruck as we followed old rock-rid- valley for a dozen miles, crisscrossing and tently stopped to look at flowers, animal along well-traveled valley-bottom roads. fringes, bikepacking had finally arrived. ers stuck on washboarded dirt roads with dled, four-wheel-drive roads (now closed fording the Sheep River and its tributaries tracks, and birds — it became clear that Oppositely, we had just spent the previous But that fact hasn’t made it any easier dust-spewing trucks and ATVs. This was to anything motorized) through sweeping a dozen times on our way into the deep I was used to riding at a more leisurely not the experience we sought, so we did subalpine valleys glowing emerald with forest of the mountain foothills to the east. pace than the rest of the group. This was what many sensible Americans would do: fresh spring growth. Lined on either side High-country snowmelt was juicing the no surprise — after all Stamstad launched we headed for Canada. by the Opal and Misty mountain ranges, waterways and impossibly cold creek cross- Great Divide Route-racing by time trialing There, just west of Calgary and south their vaulting limestone spears and cliffs ings were abundant the first couple days. the entire 2,500 miles, self-supported, in 18 of Banff, where Alberta’s flaxen plains rise harboring a pearly lacework of snow, it was (Breaking news: coldest matter in Universe days back in 1998, while Todd and Jeff are up to the serrated summits of the Canadian a landscape that could convert atheists. discovered to be supernaturally frigid creek both considering racing the Tour Divide, Rockies, sprawls a spectacular wildland complex known as Kananaskis Country. Encompassing 20 contiguous provincial parks and recreation areas, and approxi- mately 1,500 square miles of mountains, rivers, and trails — almost all open for cycling — it’s one of the premier locales in North America for off-pavement bike tour- ing. The locals call it K-Country, after too many of them sprained their tongues say- ing Kananaskis, but we were soon calling it bikepacking paradise. As soon as we set out from the parking lot at the Elbow Pass trailhead on the trip’s first day, it was clear this was one of the The necessities. Traveling light is important but carrying the right first-aid kit is required. most beautiful mountain landscapes any of 12 ADVENTURE CYCLIST DECEMBER/JANUARY 2010 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG ADVENTURE CYCLIST DECEMBER/JANUARY 2010 ADVENTURECYCLING.ORG 13 one of the hardest bicycle races the world well behind the speeding pack when a “Guys!” I yelled, with significantly has ever known, and would no doubt do black bear suddenly appeared in the forest more gusto this time. “I’ve got an unhappy What is quite well. As for me, the last thing I want in front of me. The sun had just gone down bear here. Can you start walking back here, to do on a bike trip is hurry. Racing some- and I’d been scanning trail-side meadows all together, slowly and loudly?” bikepacking? thing like the Great Divide Route sounds for wildlife when there it was, rearing up “Is that bear still there?” a voice called about as much fun to me as doing my own on its hind legs not 30 feet up the trail back. Bikepacking is one of those great dental work — even if I could pedal 100- from me. It’s amazing how quickly you can “Yes, the bear is definitely still here.” words that makes sense as soon as you plus miles a day for three weeks without stop in these situations — in what felt like I heard murmuring as they confirmed hear it. A nifty amalgamation of “biking” dying — so it took a little while for our a fraction of a second, I took my pepper what I’d said. My thumb stayed tensed on and “backpacking” (or portmanteau, group to calibrate. spray out, popped the safety off (just like the bear-spray trigger, my eyes locked with as these things are called), the word While the other guys could have eas- I’d practiced countless times), and aimed it the bear’s. perfectly represents what bikepacking ily ridden much farther each day, I was squarely at the disgruntled beast. Finally, they started moving back toward is. Simple enough, right? Alas, like life, content (and tired!) after 25 miles or so. “It’s okay big guy,” I said in the most me in a yelling mass of bikepackers. Just as taxes, and trying to mount a new rack Fortunately, as the trip’s orchestrator, I gentle and reassuring voice I could muster. I’d hoped, this was enough to send the bear on your bike, it’s more complicated than it appears. was able to dictate things a bit and show “Let’s just leave each other alone.” loping into the forest, where it stopped While the term is seeing a surge the speedy endurance-junkies how to tour This caused it to start woofing. I was about 70 feet away and resumed snuffling in popularity right now, “bikepacking” Teasdale-style. After all, there were pic- clearly no bear whisperer. along the ground as if we weren’t there. means different things to different peo- tures to take, views to savor, and campfires “Uh, guys?” I called out. I could hear After re-holstering the pepper spray and ple. Most recently, the ultralight multi- to sprawl around each night (and morning). their voices ahead on the trail. “You might sharing a laugh with my saviors, we fol- day mountain-bike crowd has embraced Todd would later admit, “I didn’t expect not have noticed, but there’s a bear back lowed a trail through dimming light until the word as a name for their activity. If so much campfire time.” here … with me.” reaching the shadowy shores of Bluerock Where are the chestnuts? A couple of bikepackers wish they had more than toes to roast.

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