Introduction Thread

[EricB]

Hi all. Awesome site, thanks Scott!

My name is Eric. I'm a mountain biker and a bike tourer and recently I've found myself merging the two a lot. Hoping to do the GDMBR next summer but excited for some shorter trips in the local (Southern California) area in the next couple months. If anyone wants to do some weekend trips down here, hit me up.

Here I am back when the LHT was only used on roads and before I wore a helmet (before my first crash):

[egear]

New member here.  I have been a dedicated cyclist for 30+ years and have spent the last 3 years riding a touring bike I built.  I have a Origin-8 700CX frame with Salsa rims on 105 36 spoke hubs.  The dammed thing has seen many miles and it just keeps going and going.  If you can afford them have a wheelset built.  The rims on the O8 have been bombproof.  This year I was fortunate enough to be able to build up a Salsa Fargo.  I love this bike and the guys at Tree Fort bikes were great.  I bought the frame and fork and built from there.  Not real pleased with the Velocity Blunt-SL rims but they are growing on me.  I have two over nighters under my belt on this thing and it is really the do it all bike.  I am still learning the ropes of lightweight on trail bikepacking.  I am also a huge fan of Arkel bags these things are completly indestructable.  So here I am.  I am heading out to one of my favorite spots tomorrow so I will shoot a few pics and post them.

Ekh.

[DIabetic Adventurer]

My name is Forest Ray I was born in, raised in and live in Michigan a great place for bikepacking.  :headbang:I have been on bikes since I can remember and am 47 years old. I am a D.I.Y kind of guy, My bike is a old GT all Terra I rescued and put back into working order. The bike is My favorite form of transportation. I am making My own panniers and plan to do some other gear over the winter. As my online name implies I am a type 2 diabetic Adventurer, not much stops me.

[Choog]

Greetings from NJ
I'm a total noob to bikepacking but not to mtbing or backpacking.  I've hiked some of the AT and I bike throughout NJ and some of NC.  I recently read an article on bikepacking and I am so damn interested in it.  I thought I'd register to make some connections and find out more.
About me:
34, married with 2 girls.  Love anything outdoors-kayaking, snowboarding, camping, biking, sports-everything but fishing (it's just to boring).  In my stable I have 3 hardtails (2 build ups), my newest love is my Misfit-I'd say don't tell my wife but she knows.
I'm always looking to meet up with other riders anywhere.  I'm hoping to start collecting gear and start after the winter-anyone doing long rides on the east coast?
-JC

[stuffx]

Hey guys and girls!

My name is SX. Just registered here! I was reading this forum for a while, now i wanna to participate.

I'm Russian currently living in Barcelona, Spain. It's an awesome place to ride MTB and Road bikes. All year around. Coz here's no real winter. So I'm enjoying my stay here.

I live in a squat with my girlfriend, we travel a lot on bikes. Once in a while going bikepacking  - investigating sourrounding natural parks also Pyrenees are not too far from us. That's a lot of trails!

As we live in a squat, okupa as it's called here, we don't really have any work and/or money. We try to make everything DIY or recycle.

We have our blog dedicated ot travelling around Europe and recycling stuff - food, clothes, bike related stuff. It's in latvian/russian, but in the future we wanna work on ENG version. For now you can use google translate function buit in blog. Once in a while we upload som new adventures with pics and stories!

Thats all for intro! 

Cheers!

[Nico_SB]

Hey there, the name's Nico. 

I finally bought my first mountain bike a little over a year ago.  The original impetus for the bike was to use to access remote parts of my local national forest that are seasonally (or in some cases permanently) closed to vehicles.  Mostly ride old fire roads, abandoned double tracks and the occasional stretch of single track.  In recent years, the FS has just left a lot of the access roads gated and locked all year for lack of funds to do any upkeep; the bike has been a great tool to maintain access to some of these otherwise out of the way spots.

I'm an avid and long time UL hiker and have recently become interested in the idea of combining my love for camping and backpacking with my newfound interest in riding a mountain bike around the backcountry.  My camping kit is pretty dialed (~6-7 lb base weight), so now I'm putting together a rackless carry system for my bike and looking forward to putting it to good use.

I most ride and hike in the Los Padres National Forest behind Santa Barbara and Ojai, CA with occasional forays a little farther north toward Big Sur or inland to the Sierra to go see my brother.

Looking forward to learning more about bikepacking here.  Cheers.

[Ogre]

Hi, my name's Andrew and I'm a recent bikepacking convert...been lurking and researching for quite a while now. I grew up on the east coast roadbiking but relocated to Ca about 20 years ago and picked up mountain biking. A couple years ago I started racing cx and soon found myself taking the cx bike on long epic day rides in the local mountains and desert, kinda like road biking without the traffic or pavement. Picked up an Ogre to experiment with and soon found myself lurking here. I recently outfitted myself with a full line of revelate bags and some decent camping equipment and have gotten in quite a few trips in the last couple months. Loving how quickly the horizons expand as you figure this game out.

Scott, and all contributing members, thanks for providing such a great site with such great information. Hopefully I will be able to pay some back as I gain more experience.

[buldoseur]

Hello,

My name is Bruno, I'm from France (Britanny in the north  west), I had done trips with my MTB following trails in France (Massif Central  , Jura and Vosges ), next year I will go in swiszerland  following the panorama bike.

My current bike is based on a titanium frame Van Nicholas Zion

[tjshantz]

Good Day eh
I'm Troy - from Sarnia, Ontario, Canada - right on the border of Ontario and Michigan.
I've been bike touring for about 2 years, but am slowly transitioning to bikepacking. I've gotten out of loaded-touring just because I like the idea of short and exciting off-road trips with interesting trails and minimal equipment.
Im in the midst of building up a Surly Ogre and loving the process! Will post photos as the build comes together...

[DallasW]

Fucking Troy above me got me into this as well.  Never owned a MTB or even a bike with gears before this showed up yesterday.


Planning on building up my bags with an old sewing machine I bought and joining him on some Manitoulin Island-Upper Peninsula-Lower Peninsula fun this summer.

[tjshantz]

You'll thank me on the UP this summer 

[marco_n]

hello everyone, I'm Marco from Italy, I love adventures and long distances.
after several years of endurance racing, I finally decided to take off the great divide tour in 2013. I saw that on this forum there are a lot of information that I hope to use for my adventure!

[bikeny]

Hi Everyone!

Mark from NY here. Brand new to the site, and to bikepacking as well. I am so glad I found this website, thanks Scott for getting this thing going! I am a total newbie to bikepacking, but have been mountain biking for like 24 years. Wow, has it really been that long? I started out buying a MTB before setting out for my freshman year of college to ride to and from class. I soon started exploring the local trails and having a blast, and have been mountain biking ever since. I dabbled in XC racing and then 24 hour races for bit, but then lost interest in those. Some of the newer endurance races have renewed my interest in racing, but also in longer self supported rides.

Unfortunately, my geographic location (NYC suburbs) puts me at a disadvantage concerning local routes, but that is not going to stop me! I am in the process of acquiring gear and will start with some local dirt road overnighters and go from there. I also plan to use the same gear for some fastpacking trips on the AT or Longtrail in VT. I am definitely drawn to the idea of 'doing more with less', thus the interests in SS MTBing, bikepacking, and fastpacking. Crappy picture from a singlespeed race years ago:

[BadKarma]

Howdy all. New member checking in.

I'm Lee and I turned 50 last December. In 2008 I was told I was Diabetic Type 2 and I needed to get rid of a lot of excess weight. I weighed 340 and am 6'4". So I looked around and found myself a older ATB and got busy. Today I weigh 270'ish and I'm about to get rid of the meds!!!! So to celebrate, I'm planning a 5 day trip on the Katy Trail here in Missouri.

Here's my current faithful steed:


Please be kind, she's an older ride, but she sure has been there when I really needed it. Univega Alpina 5.3!!
I'm a hammock camper so the bikepacking thing fits right in, but it's still a work in progress.

I also have a LeMond road bike in the works for Event rides later too.

Love the site folks. Thanks.

Karma

[Yoreskillz]

Congrats Karma on the weight loss and getting out riding! Was in a similar situation myself 315lbs and experiencing chest pains...bought a Surly, changed my diet drastically and pedaled off 80lbs in a year. Feels good but I still have another 30 I'd like to lose so will be enjoying many sights by bike again this year, enjoy your travels on the Katy Trail and best wishes to you for better health!

[BadKarma]

Congrats Karma on the weight loss and getting out riding! Was in a similar situation myself 315lbs and experiencing chest pains...bought a Surly, changed my diet drastically and pedaled off 80lbs in a year. Feels good but I still have another 30 I'd like to lose so will be enjoying many sights by bike again this year, enjoy your travels on the Katy Trail and best wishes to you for better health!

Thanks Yore. congrats on the health turn around too.

You really don't know how bad you were feeling until you start feeling better.(if that makes sense.)
I'm shooting for 250 and riding a century by October.

[MidSouth]

BadKarma, I ride the Frisco on lots of weekends and also plan to ride the Katy for 5-6 days in May.  My health issues and weight got me on a bike about 3 years ago.

[FatCloud]

Hi all,

My name is Patrick and last summer I did the cross country thang. I mostly stuck to roads on my Surly Cross-Check and was also a "take everything and the kitchen sink" tour, with a car-camping two person tent and cheap ass sleeping bag.

Surly Cross Check leaving camp by Patrick's Velolog, on Flickr

When I was in Yellowstone I met this fellow who had been touring around on his Surly LHT for over a year and had slowly been shrinking his kit into a bikepack. He showed me his brand new Porcelain framebag and talked about his Revelate rear bag and talked about how to store everything. By the time he made it to San Francisco where I finished my tour and moved to, his UL was complete with no racks and bags! This got me inspired to do the same. I recently went on a smaller lighter no camp tour of the Erie Canal in December, but unfortunately not having the freedom of camping, I quit halfway through (there was a plethora of reasons why).


Me with my lighter CrossCheck setup by Patrick's Velolog, on Flickr

Right now I'm working on getting my things together and save up some money to tour some more hopefully (I want to get to AK next). I think with my tax return I'm getting an Ultralight tent and then next is upgrading my rack/bag setup for a not quite bikepack rando-sport setup for short tours of the Bay Area and then start making bags to get going north! (then maybe south to the spine?)

That was a long introduction, but I love bike touring and am really into bike packing. So I expect to make some rounds on here. If anyone is in the Bay Area and wants to ride let me know!

-Patrick
www.patricksvelolog.com

[JRA]

JRA=Just Riding Along

Started riding the road in about 1980.  Bought my first mountain bike in 1985.  Been doing both ever since.  Did a bit of racing both on and off road - WAY back when.  I have also done a bit of touring on the road, but no more than a few days at a time.

I recently bought a Salsa Fargo to add to my herd.  I LOVE it!  It's a bit clunky and heavy but it's a kick to ride.  The idea of doing some touring off road is appealing and the bikepacking style of travel is also intriguing. 

I find this website interesting as there are experienced and knowledgable people contributing.  Glad to be here.

[hooverGiant]

Hey everyone!
I finally got my setup complete. I'm running a Topeak Tour handlebar bag, cheapo frame and top tube bags from Amazon, Revelate Pika seatbag, and Dakine Nomad pack on a Giant Talon 29er. First adventure is in a week!!