Cycling trip recap
Phew, home. Approx three weeks, and 1481.82km of cycling later, back in my comfy home, in sunny Helsinki <3 My first longer bikepacking trip is over.
During the trip I visited 7 countries (Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium, The Netherlands), with 3 of them being ones I'd never been to. I saw a lot of cool things every day. Especially a lot of fields and canals. I absolutely loved the mountains and my mind was overjoyed when I reached the ocean up north at the edge of The Netherlands. I did climbs I had never done before, both in absolute distance upwards during one single climb (614m in Switzerland and 793m going over the Vosges, in France) but also in daily total climb (1633m going over the Vosges, 1222m from Luxembourg to Belgium).
I spent most of my nights in a tent, which I had not done a lot of time before in my life. Afaicr, I've never been on a camping site before this trip. In total I spent 12 nights in a tent, 6 nights in a hotel, 1 day at a friends place and 3 nihts on a boat. I took on a godless amount of rain on myself, riding for hours in constant rain on many days and trying to figure out how to handle camping in wet conditions. I also met many cool people on the way and had some nice discussions especially related to bikepacking.
I spent more nights in hotels than I would have liked, but there was also a lot more rain than I had thought there would be. In fact, I think there were only 3-4 days without rain the whole time. I had to skip some sections I wanted to ride through in Switzerland to get away from the rain, using trains. I also changed my plans somewhat when in the Netherlands. My original plan was to ride along the EV 19, but tbh it was so poorly marked and I had ridden along so many canals and rivers already, I chose to cut directly towards Rotterdam and have an extra day there.
That is actually the one thing I would change if anything. I had put my focus perhaps too much on riding to the next place every day. I think for the next time I would budget in more days exploring some of the larger cities, staying multiple days in one place. Constantly packing up your tent or arranging a hotel does get a bit tiring. I also skipped a lot of things I would have liked to maybe see because I wanted to get onwards (or away from the rain).
I would also probably try to take less stuff with me next time. Due to having the two large panniers, I packed too much stuff with me. Too many t-shirts, especially. Too many things "just in case".
The biggest thing I found problematic (apart from the rain) was that camping site receptions close quite early, some as early as 5pm. At times I chose a hotel not because of the rain but because there were no camping sites available for my arrival time in the place I was riding to. I quickly learned you need to call through them during the afternoon. Some of them accepted arriving after reception closing time, some not.
As for gear, I'm quite happy on the setup I went with. The Ortlieb Vario pannier is awesome, the conversion to a backpack is just super useful when wanting to dismount for a bit but take your most important things with you. I had everything important in the main pannier, like medicine, documents, laptop, chargers, etc. My second pannier had tent poles, clothes, rain gear - and increasingly coming towards the end of the trip chocolate and other things to bring back, with more clothes being strapped onto the rack. Some extra waterproof bags for this kind of stuff were really good.
The front packs were also really good, one of them dedicated to camping stuff, one of them dedicated increasingly for things to bring back home. Initially it had like 20 protein bars that I bought for the trip. I can say they all got used, but I could have probably bought them along the way instead of bringing them from Finland.
Sanna (my bike!) performed really well. No major issues during the way. I think the bottom bracket may be gone based on the noise during the last week, also the rear break has been somewhat powerless for a while (since coming down from the Vosges?). The front tire also got a piece of glass go through it, but the tubeless sealant took care of it once I pushed the piece of glass through into the tire. I had my dry downhill sections in Belgium, being able to fully enjoy the speed, getting up to 50km/h. I averaged my days between about 30 to 120 kilometers in distance per day. I realized during the longer rides that the biggest restriction to the lenght of the ride is actually time, in getting to somewhere where you can spend the night. But at the same time, 80km seemed quite a nice distance per day, in terms of comfort.
All in all, a great experience, and a great three weeks with very little actual serious problems. Time to start planning the next trip :)
More photos available at https://photos.app.goo.gl/5ndNzMHr14hwin6u5 or https://cloud.jasonrobinson.me/s/CjD89No8ccYgtCC
Daily posts of the trip on my Facebook profile or at https://jasonrobinson.me/streams/tag/jasontravels/
#Travel #Bikepacking #JasonTravels #Cycling
