Travelling by bike can be done with any bike. Essentially the bike choice is determined by the ground surface you like and/or expect on your trip. There is a continuum between rocky terrain and smooth asphalt, and bike types correspond with that. From rocky terrain to asphalt:

1. Suspension mountain bike: preparing for the most rocky terrain.

2. Hardtail mountain bike: still solid for rocky terrain, but faster on the road.

3. Gravel bike: most allround, tires of a mountain bike, handlebars and geometry of a road bike.

4. Endurance road bike: tweaked for comfort.

5. Lightweight or aero road bike: speed and/or low weight is all that matters.

Choosing any bike can be seen as a trade-off between comfort and speed/weight. As I like road bikes and asphalt, but do occasionally encounter gravel, I use an endurance road bike.

Endurance vs other road bikes

Road bikes generally come in three versions per brand: focused on comfort, lightweight or aerodynamics. The ones focused on comfort are called endurance bikes and are meant for long days in the saddle. When bikepacking with a road bike this is generally a good option.

Typically endurance bikes feature an inclined top tube, giving more sway to the seat tube. It's geometry allows for a more upright, comfortable position, and the tire clearance allows for relatively wide tires. At the same time it keeps a lot of the stiffness and speed that we like about road bikes.

Tubeless?

Personally, I'd always choose a tubeless setup, while bringing one spare inner tube for an easy repair. Advantages are lesser weight, but more importantly: you hardly ever get flatties. My setup has gone through nearly 11.000 km (since buying the bike) without a single flat tire.

Electronic shifting?

The butterly smooth shifting sure is tempting and probably worth the added expense today. When biking in desolate areas however, you might have more confidence in fixing an issue with mechanical shifting (by yourself or the local bikeshop). This was my consideration when buying my bike.

Handlebars?

Attaching aero handlebars (you have them for 50€) might be worth considering. The main reason is to have yet another hand position available to relax other muscles, and to have an even faster setup. For some it's also a comfortable position, especially when the bars are raised and inclined. For me it's not however, and for next trips I'll gladly drop the added 400 grams.

Bike I use

• Model: Giant Defy Endurance 2023

• Group: Shimano Ultegra, disc brakes, mechanical shifting

• Tyres: 30mm, clearance for 35mm, tubeless

Considerations

Packing your bike is a trade-off between comfort while riding (light setups) and comfort while not riding (heavier setups). This sweet spot could well be different for everyone, so there is no single best setup.

Generally there are 2 main considerations when packing stuff on the bike.

• Pack heavier stuff lower on the bike (such as the frame pack) to keep the center of gravity low and increase stability.

• Keep stuff that you might need frequently throughout the day accessible (water, food, rain jacket). The frame and top tube bag tend to be more accessible.

No (big) backpack

Wearing a backpack on a bike might be tempting, but is generally not a great idea. On a back that is already in a naturally bent position for hours, wearing a backpack results in back ache easily. I found an exception to be something like a camelbag, or any small bag that sits high on the back.

Four bags

Personally I use a pretty fast and light setup, allowing for a single saddle pack (rather than heavy paniers on the side). A setup like this includes:

• A handlebar pack: here you would store somewhat light stuff that you don't need all to often, like spare clothing.

• A frame pack: here you would store heavier things (low center of gravity), as well as things you need to have accessible. Examples are: electronics, sunblock, rain/wind jacket, snacks.

• A top tube pack: obviously here you would store small things you need often: phone, wallet, airpods, etc. When stopping at supermarkets, this is the only bag I detach and bring with me.

• A saddle pack: here go the lighter stuff that you don't need all to often. For me it's the sleeping system (tent, mattress and sleeping bag) and chair.

Brands

On a budget, the handlebar pack and saddle pack could well be a simple dry bag, strapped to the handlebars and saddle rails respectively. Today many brands offer dedicated packs, such as Apidura, Ortlieb and Restrap.

Setup I use

• Apidura Expedition Handlebar Pack (14L) - 275g

• Apidura Backcountry Full Frame Pack (6L) - 315g

• Apidura Expedition Top Tube Pack (1L) - 90g

• Apidura Expedition Saddle Pack (17L) - 425g

Considerations

Also here, choosing gear is a trade-off between comfort while riding (if choosing light) or comfort while sleeping. The lightest tents are rather tarps and don't provide you with the most comfortable sleeping conditions.

I like to store the whole sleeping system in the saddle pack at the back. Reason is, the sleeping system is relatively bulky but light weight, and it doesn't need to be accessible during the day.

Sleep setup I use

This setup is relatively light, while still having an actual tent, a relatively thick mattress and even a pillow (by some considered a luxury item).

• Tent: Nemo Hornet Elite Osmo 1P - 840g

• Mattress: Themarest Neoair - 430g

• Sleeping Bag: MLD Spirit Quilt - 650g

• Pillow: Sea to summit Aeros - 80g

• Chair: Helinox zero - 530g

Two features of the sleeping system I like:

• A tent with inner musquito net and outer rain shell. When forecasts are not rainy at all, I like stargazing and setup only the inner musquito net.

• A quilt that can become a sleeping bag with velcro, to be a bit more adaptive to night temperatures.

Finding and enjoying a good cycling route comes down to finding a GPX file, and downloading it on your GPS device or smartphone for navigation. Resources for GPX routes are plentiful. Essentially there are two options: using existing and established routes, or building them from scratch.

Using Existing routes

When cycling multiple days in places that are not very familiar to you, it makes sense draw on the experience of cycling communities and use existing routes. For many areas worldwide long distance routes exist that are often the result of years of incremental improvements. These would be maintained and updated by cycling communities that think ahead for you, and consider needs to restock on food and water, to be scenic and safe, and to include countless places that might be overlooked when building a route from scratch. Even though I like to plan myself, I will gladly rely on the communities' experience to make up excellent routes, especially in areas I haven't been before.

Valuable resources for long distances routes are Eurovelo and Adventure cycling (more focused on bike touring, with mostly asphalt and compacted gravel), and bikepacking.com (more focused on gravel and mountain biking).

Building new routes

If you plan a short ride or just want to connect two places where an established route doesn't seem available, then building one yourself can be a good solution. Today this is made very easy with plenty of route builders available. Personally I like the one of Strava and Komoot - see the dedicated articles below.

Loop or A to B?

Of course a loop will generally have a practical advantage over routes from A to B. Maybe you took a car, train, or plane to a given starting place and it sure is convenient to end at the same place for the return. The alternative would mean relying on some kind of (public) transport to get back, which sure can be a hassle.

Regardless, I have a strong inclination to choose routes from A to B over those that do a loop. There is something about cycling to a new destination that makes it mentally way easier. It probably has to do with covering new ground each day. Not only will you not encounter the same roads and places (this could be avoided on loops as well obviously), but also the weather, the vegetation, the culture, the architecture, etc. are likely to change. It's as if you are pushing a frontier to an area that is totally different compared to where you started, which makes A to B riding far more exciting to me. Part of the fun is the anticipation about the journey and destination ahead.

For this reason I am very drawn to the routes of Eurovelo or Adventure Cycling (see below), like those that connect Norway with Portugal or East with West coast. Or, starting from the home door on familiar roads, and gradually notice the shifts in views, climate, culture, etc., to end up in a totally new, remote place. It's just so much fun.

Eurovelo is a network of long distance bicycle routes across Europe. These are generally well-established routes, combining bike lanes, nice quiet roads, mostly on asphalt and occasionaly on compacted gravel. They offer GPX routes for you to download, making them a great source for navigation on long distance bike travels.

The routes come in varying degrees of development. Some are well developed and signed all the way through, others are under development or are currently merely a proposal route. A lot of the routes are updated over time, benefitting from updated infrastructure and generally improving safety.

Of the Eurovelo network I personally did good chunks of routes 1 (Belgium to North Cape) and 7 (Alps to Rome), together between 6000 and 7000 km. The bulk of it I found to be very enjoyable, making it easy to recommend. Arguably the biggest advantage of these routes is that they are well established and somewhat known in the bikepacking community. This means that if you encounter bikepackers or tourers, chances are high they are doing the very same route making them a potential fellow rider for multiple days. Especially on route 1 to the north, bikepackers tend to flock together as the road is so popular (for good reason!).

Adventure Cycling seems to be the Eurovelo equivalent for the US. Similarly, these are well-established long distance routes including several cost-to-coast options. Probably one of the most popular and established ones is the TransAmerica trail, from Astoria to Yorktown.

Bikepacking.com is yet another great option for routes. This is really the mecca for those seeking to go off-road, with many routes that offer 70+% unpaved surfaces. Arguably the most famous and challenging route is the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, over the Rocky mountains from Canada to Mexico.

When not resorting to established long-distance bicycle routes such as the Eurovelo ones, the route builders of Strava or Komoot are great choices. Both allow you to export GPX files for use on a navigation device.

Strava

The route builder in Strava is part of its subscription, and in my opinion one of its most valuable features. Its user interface is relatively simple, not offering a whole lot of options, but because of that it's fairly intuitive. I found the parameters that they allow for - elevation, surface, directness - to be just enough overall.

In general, routing tools have to find a balance between directness and pretty scenery, factoring in some other considerations such as elevation. This means that often there is no single best route, as one person would detour way longer for some nice scenery than another. Having used Strava routing a lot, I feel they are inclined to choose routes which are a bit more direct and efficient, even when opting for the popular routes. That's not a bad thing, it's just that it's a bit more pragmatical and maybe skipping on some nice viewpoint which just lays way off route. It does has the advantage of not risking to get stranded on some questionable or plainly unridable roads.

The desktop version of the route builder is the most convenient and offers all its features. When travelling however, I would often create routes for the next day on my smartphone. And while they do have a mobile version it doesn't show some of the parameter settings that the desktop version has. This is why I would still use the desktop version route builder on my phone's browser, rather than the app.

Komoot

The route builder on Komoot is another excellent route builder, with the big advantage that it's free to use. One great feature is that their map is overlaid with various popular bike routes, which are labeled and easy to include on your route. On Strava there would be a heatmap overlay, but I found this Komoot feature to be a bit more useful in general. Adding to this, their options to tweak the route to your style (whether it is road biking, gravelbiking, mountain biking, or bike touring) are also very impressive.

However, to my personal taste, I found that Komoot sometimes goes a long way (sometimes a bit too long) to include some particular road or place. 'To be komooted' is an expression often used, when one is stranded and full of regrets. Overall though, it's still a great route builder and very much in the balance with the Strava one.

In summary, the easiest way to navigate is to collect one or multiple GPX files somewhere (such as on Eurovelo, Strava or Komoot) and make them available on a dedicated GPS device for turn-by-turn navigation.

Bike GPS?

Many options exist, with Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead as popular brands. I have been living in the Garmin space with little reason to change. Its app - Garmin Connect - allows for automatic synchronisation to Strava and Komoot, meaning that whenever I make a new route in one of them the route is transferred automatically into Garmin connect, and - upon connection with bluetooth - also on the GPS device. It all happens automatically and it turns out very easy to make routes on the go.

Whenever the GPX file is obtained elsewhere (like Eurovelo), I would import it in the Komoot route builder to start this automatic synchronization just the same.

Phone navigation?

It sounds tempting to ditch the GPS device and just mount the smartphone on the handlebars - a brand like Quadlock offers great mounting pieces to achieve this. However, there are a few considerations why a dedicated GPS device might still be preferred. First, as preserving battery of all electronics is a general concern on longer bike trips, the net battery consumption just works out lower with a GPS. Navigating with a smartphone (especially with the screen always on) very much drains the battery, making it only a viable option on short single day rides in my view. Secondly there are smaller inconveniences: smartphone screens don't do very well in whet conditions, plus using a phone for other use cases (such as taking pictures) becomes slightly more of a hassle.

Some people don't really care, others like to see how long and where they've ridden and dig into other statistics such as heart rate and pace. In the former case, the GPS device can be just about navigation and ditch any tracking features. In case you do want to track as well, I would say there are two options.

• Either you have a single GPS device for both navigation and tracking. Just like the automatic synchronization of routes unto the device, the completed activities can be synced automatically back into Strava or Komoot. Of course a heart rate band would be needed as well for heart rate tracking. The Garmin Edge models are great choices here.

• Or you can go for a GPS dedicated for navigation, and wear any kind of fitness watch for tracking. This is my preferred solution, as the way of tracking is consistent and usable across all sports, not just for biking only. Going with this method, the Garmin Explore looks to be a great option for navigation only (my next buy for sure, currently still stuck with an old Edge model). As a tracker I have an Apple Watch but Garmin watches or the Whoop band are also great options here.