Bikepacking Gear List V2.0
A downloadable list of all my bikepacking gear can be found in this post, first some background information.
Clothes and personal items
If you’re riding as I did, taking your time, enjoying exploring the remote sierras, towns and pueblos and staying a few days, you will want more clothes than if you’re on a mission to finish a route as fast as you can. You don’t have to be dirty and smelly all the time! After having a shower, it was so good to be able to put clean clothes on. I washed my dirty gear in the hostal bathrooms and dried them where I could.
I had packed for warm to hot weather in the day, with chilly mornings and evenings (above freezing temperatures) I would swap out some items if I was riding in colder weather. My clothes were packed in a vacuum bag, to keep the volume down.
Sleep System and camping
My preference was to have a completely free-standing tent. I really can’t be doing with staking out the guy ropes every time I put it up. I was generally happy with my choice of tent, although in strong winds it felt quite unstable. It’s tall and thin and must be pitched with the thinner end facing the direction the wind is coming from, which isn’t always easy to establish. It survived, was roomy enough for me and all my gear, except my bike, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time in it. It's very good at keeping the bugs out!
Bike
Standard, out of the showroom Specialized Camber FSR 2017 except for tubeless tyres
Upgrade. Standard tyres - Ground Control and Purgatory.
My only criticism of it would be that a full suspension bike is obviously heavier than a gravel bike, but not to a point where I wanted to throw it down a mountain, unless I was on it of course!
I’d love to get some quick release pedals for it, but that’s for when I’m rich! **Update I now have some QR pedals, see the blog**
Bike Luggage
I chose the Arkel Rollpacker luggage as they looked the most suitable for a full suspension bike. At 25 litres they are some of the largest bags around. When I fell off my bike riding down from the Puerta de la Ragua, the luggage took a hard hit. On my final day of the ride, the front Rollpacker bracket snapped, I managed to fudge a repair to continue. I can only think I may have cracked it in the aforementioned shunt. I also think I put excessive stress on it by strapping my tent to it, now I don’t do that. After contacting Arkel, they promptly sent me a new front bracket free of charge, I did have to pay the postage though.
My fork luggage bags are Gorilla Cages, I bought new ones after I had my accident, which was caused by one of the bags falling into the