People who know me for a longer time may have heard me say "my dream is to do a bikepacking trip in central Europe" at once or more during the years. Well actually I always said "bike + train trip", ie taking the bike around Europe on trains and then riding around locally, instead of riding around Europe.
I started seriously thinking about this when I read Osmo Soininvaara's excellent "Fillarilla Nizzaan" book, where Osmo rides from Helsinki to Nizza in 30 days. Sometime around last summer when I realized I can do longer day rides, I set my first goal to get a bike (in addition to my mountain bike) that is nicer to ride for longer distances. I've since learned lots of people do bikepacking on mountain bikes, but hey I got a new bike, so yay. I bought my first gravel, a straight bar Marin DSX 1 ("Sanna"), lighter and better gearing for longer distances than my mountain bike ("Monty"). Next was to start thinking about buying some equipment, so I bought myself a 16L saddle bag and did a small two day trip around Tampere to get some feeling into riding with more weight. At this point the idea of actually skipping the trains part started to formulate and I started to plan for 3 weeks of riding in the spring.
Three weeks seemed like a good amount of time. Not too long that the kids and loved ones wont hopefully forget about me and enough time to warrant all the planning. Potentially possibly to arrange without going bankrupt. My initial plan was to do it the "credit card holiday" way, ie stick to hotels and hostels. While going through various plans during the end of 2023 and start of 2024, my savings account was giving me clear signals this will not happen. By this time I had joined all the possible bikepacking groups, read some books, incl "Fillarilla Nizzaan" a second time, Matti Rämö's "Polkupyörällä Ukrainan halki Istanbuliin" (recommend!) and a really poorly written "book" that I'll not mention as I don't like talking badly about people, let's say it deteriorated my Finnish language skills for a while. I also watched a ton of videos on the subject, both regarding gear and trip diaries.
It then hit me - if these people can do the camping thing, surely I can too? I've probably spent like 5 days of my life in a tent, so that's a good start, right? Buying all the camping gear is surely going to come up cheaper than hotels/hostels, even when staying at camping sites. In theory at least. I made the decision to start looking at gear and it soon became apparent there will be a large cost going into that, but hopefully it will still come out cheaper and I'll also be able to keep the gear!
Lots of gear reviews later I had some kind of idea what stuff I needed and wanted to buy. I spent some time trying to find the most expensive stuff second hand. Managed to land an MSR Hubba Hubba NX2 tent (1.5kg) second hand. Some of the other stuff I've needed to buy new, and I'm still looking for a light sleeping bag and sleeping mat. All in all quite a lot of stuff to lug around due to moving from hotels to camping, but then it does come up with some extra freedoms. And I'm still planning on a few nights at a hotel for a proper rest and fresh up.
Other gear I've decided to get is a bike computer. Initially I thought I would just navigate with my phone as I have done so far, and I'll probably do that when finding local places in a city for example. But for a full day of riding, I'd have to charge my phone multiple times during the day which feels a tad bit inconvenient. And to be honest, unsafe, needing to navigate longer distances during the day. So after spending some time looking at reviews, I got myself a Tamagotchi, I mean Garmin Edge Explore 2. It makes lots of beeping sounds, but most important handles tracking my rides and navigates me. I don't really care about all the sports metrics, thus the Explore seemed like a good model geared more for navigation. I did consider a Wahoo Elemnt (no, that's not a typo), but they don't have touchscreens. I also acquired two 5.8L fork-packs and in addition to those I'm planning on having my handlebar DSLR camera bag and my beloved Osprey Radial backpack with me. If this isn't enough, I'm considering a frame bag as that space will otherwise be used by only water bottles, which I can strap somewhere else.
So, if you've made it this far, you may be wondering where I'm actually heading? This was a nerve wrecking process of a few months of going through various options. The cheapest would be to drive through the Baltics into Germany, and then take the ferry from Travemünde back home. I wanted to explore the possibility of taking a train through Sweden and Denmark, but apparently Swedish rail wont take your bike on board without it being in a carry bag (shame on you!). A strong option constantly on my mind was the boat between Helsinki and Travemünde, and eventually it won. For the timeframe I chose a hopefully warm but not too hot end of May -> mid June.
From Travemünde my current plan (which changes every week) is to head towards Amsterdam (probably by using regional trains for a part of the way), Rotterdam, then down into Belgium, following the EuroVelo 19 "Meuse" route for a bit, peeking into to Luxembourg (haven't been) and then south through France to Basel in Switzerland, and if time up to Strasbourg, and eventually a train back into Travemünde for the ferry back home. It's a lot for 3 weeks, 1700km, but I'm hoping to either replace a part of it with trains or shorten the trip as it evolves. I'm aiming to keep the route more as a guideline, possibly when there I'll do something completely different or hang out for days at city. When traveling, there is nothing more I hate than strict timelines.
My main concerns for the trip are getting gear stolen while stopping for food and beer. How do people deal with bike bags and leaving the bike outside while stopping for a bit? My idea is some lightweight cable locks to at least make it harder to take the bags, but also obviously having everything valuable or critical in my backpack (like money, meds, etc). I'm also somewhat concerned of the length of the trip and the loneliness it will bring. However, it doesn't feel worth it going from Finland for any time less, the boat journey being the single biggest cost of the whole trip.
Another thing I'm concerned about is weight. While I'm trying to find some relatively good quality light weight camping gear I can afford, I'm not leaving home without my laptop and DSLR. Obviously this also means many power packs. But the way I see it, the trip is about creating experiences, and I can't formulate my experiences into blog posts without a laptop or take photos without a proper camera. I suppose some test runs with a fully packed Sanna some weeks before the trip will end up the deciding factors into what gear I'll end up going with.
Any thoughts and suggestions welcome! Holiday and boat rides are already booked so the trip is at least happening, unless something physically stops me. Kinda of excited about this whole thing, and hoping if it goes well it will become a new regular yearly hobby :)
Pics: Approx route as of now and Sanna at Tampere last October.
