Bikepacking - a viable alternative to racks & panniers

This is good thinking. I like that, cheers.

Nido full cream milk powder

Going to investigate, thanks.

Jeez, if some oats and milk powder was the highlight I'd love to know what the worst moments were!?

I've used these before - they are a vision of single use plastic hell, but must be better than powder.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/173022069022?hash=item2848eb411e:g:3mQAAOSwgyZcErEg&var=472347131286

I will just copy something I wrote previously -

I was met with my first river crossing of the day, I had thought my feet were cold before, but several crossings barefoot through a knee-deep glacial river with my bike and belongings held above my head thoroughly froze them. The cold and (hurricane force?) wind made sure my feet didn't warm up, but just as I was starting to get used to it the rain started falling. Sideways.

No matter what the salesman tells you about your jacket, horizontal rain will always find its way in somehow. I found myself soaked to the bone, despite my waterproof jacket and trousers, and seriously regretting not having brought water- or windproof gloves. The terrain wasn’t helping; the road surface, gradient and wind were so extreme that cycling became impossible and I was forced to get off and push over the loose ground. It took all my strength to drive my bike up the steep inclines, six inches at a time.

By mid-afternoon I came across multiple cold water crossings: the runoff from a nearby glacier. At this point I was so cold and wet that I decided to just plough through it on my bike.

The trail I had been following was no longer clearly visible. It had been completely washed away by the run off, and the only indications of where it had been were regularly spaced 3-foot-tall yellow poles, which would have run along the side of the road. Ordinarily, spotting these would have been easy, but the rain had reduced visibility to 10m.

I was aiming for an emergency mountain hut, about 80 miles from my starting point. After a few false alarms where, in the fog, I mistook large boulders for the hut, I managed to find it. 30 vertical metres up the side of a hill.

As soon as I got into the shelter of the hut I completely stripped to crawl into the warmth of my sleeping bag, hoping to restore circulation to my extremities. Standing naked, with frost-bitten hands, in my mountain chateau, I simply couldn’t understand why all those mums keep going to Iceland. (and why Peter Andre kept lying about how cheap things were there.)

Both photos were the morning after. I thought I would wait out the weather for a couple of nights in this hut, but woke up and the sky was clear so went for it. Wind was still ferocious

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Amazing, do you have a blog or anything I can read a bit more?

As above, been thinking about doing this for a few years now.. but maybe not :D

Sounds utter shit but I’m still very jealous.

Type 2 fun!

I took it down because work was quiet and I wanted to re-do it.

Not all cycling trips to Iceland are like this... I think the middle F35 and F26 are relatively gravel bike friendly, I think at the start of each summer they give them a refurb. But once you leave those routes you are on either unmaintained roads or walking tracks and you are on fatbike/mountain bike/pushing territory. I came back wanting a Surly ECR which I think would have been great for it. I've occasionally thought about going back in winter, but have concentrated on the ultra races for the last few years.*

I was out of season so everything had closed in the middle except the mountain rescue stations who would send messages ahead with my route/timings to make sure I got to the next place. I was really on my own.

*If anyone would like to do a winter trip to Iceland and has the connections to get some fat bikes I'm all ears!

This is really insightful, thanks. It was crossed this winter, haven't read but saw the headline and glancing at the images, they are on some faaaat tyres. It says unsupported, though I'm wondering how the photographer got around...!
https://bikepacking.com/plog/iceland-crossing/

Reading your excerpt further up, I'm fairly sure I would have perished if I was that cold and wet for that long!

I've been toying with doing this without buying or building up a new frameset. Limits me to 650b x 47c , the biggest they go on an Arkose and would be following this route (since I'm fairly sure that you can't legally go off the f-roads for the most part).
https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28795901

@hollow__legs late summer LFGSS trip...!

later summer LFGSS trip...!

in.

(since I'm fairly sure that you can't legally go off the f-roads for the most part).

Some of this I've done. They also did a write up on backpacking.com and say you can't leave the f-roads but I think that at least 60km of that route isn't on a road :)

Ah fair enough. If you ever rewrite it would love to read it.

Whats the best Dyno lights lads n lassies? Front to be fork mounted.

There's a whole Dynamo Light thread.

Yaaaaay

Has anyone on here used one of those elephant's foot half bag sleeping bag things, or found a good very packable smaller quilt? I'm looking to reduce my sleeping kit pack size by using the down jacket I'll have anyway as my top half sleeping bag. Another option I'm considering is a merino bag liner instead of a sleeping bag (plus jacket on)

Ideally I'll end up with something good for use in a small tent as well as a bivvy, but mostly I've got some events coming up and I'm getting scared about both not being able to carry stuff and getting cold. First event I think is definitely a bivvy job

Yeah. https://www.phdesigns.co.uk/half-bags

I did once try just a synthetic silk liner and down jacket in a bivvy bag. My top half was OK, but my legs really suffered with the wind blowing across the bag. I'd suggest getting something with a decent degree of loft, be that quilt, elephant's foot, down trousers or similar.

Do you find it is actually pretty practical and not just a silly weight weenie thing? I'd eyed those up, and found the OMM Raid PA which is half the price but probably many magnitudes worse, but as it's pretty niche theres not much out there.

Someone I know is working on an upcycling program and Ive suggested making half quilts from old fucked up down jackets, but I don't think we'll see one come into existence very soon

I wouldn't pay £300 for one now but I didn't mind using the PHD one. It's long enough so I don't recall any air gap. It smaller so better for my road bike where space is limited (especially as I was already carrying down jacket). I sleep cold or at least, since I only ever take a bivvy I sleep cold but going into the mountains and/or racing earlier in the year I wanted warmer/better sleep so it worked for that. I do wish I'd kept my full PHD bag though since now I want to do more touring stuff with the missus and now I won't pay the premium for PHD bags.

I'm certainly not doing anything as extreme as you tend to go in for, N/S Downs Escapade is my dry run of kit before AMR. In theory those shouldn't be Alps cold, but I don't know if I'll manage either if I fail to sleep. I did a test overnighter recently and my down bag entirely filled my seatpack which is far from ideal. Losing the tent for a bivvy will give me back most of a fork leg, and then even if jacket and quilt/half bag is the same pack size as a full bag it can be split across luggage and saves me a jacket shrugs I have no idea what I'm doing, this may go badly.

At least my test set up the other week rode really well.

my down bag entirely filled my seatpack

Was it in a stuff sack first?

The supplied one isn't that small (pipedream 400) but I am going to try really going nuts on it in a smaller dry bag. The seatpack this time wasnt a v big one, I have one of the OG medium apidura back country things I'll use for AMR, but it's still 7L. Bag went in there loose, kneeling on it etc, and could barely get the thing closed