How Not to Prepare for Your Next Bikepacking Adventure

Two weeks ago, my boyfriend, Dad and I set off on a bikepacking trip. Our goal is to ride from Banff down to Whitefish on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, before heading west and joining the Western Wildlands Route then turning north in order to loop back to Fernie.

Despite two of us having ridden parts of this route before and all of us with a few bike trips under our belts, we still managed to botch our preparation.

Consider this list the opposite of those cheery ‘How to’ articles you find in outdoor magazines and websites. There’s millions of them, but as far as I know there’s only one what Not to do list.

How Not to Prepare for Your Next Bikepacking Adventure

1. Don’t leave all your high quality camping gear in a different country to the one you set off for your trip on

Currently all of Alex and my possessions that were not in our duffle bags when we left Aotearoa/NZ in July last year are sitting in our van at our ever obliging friends’ house. This includes handy items such as a Salsa Fargo – quite possibly the most perfect bike for this trip

Also in NZ are our sleeping bags, camp stove, pot, thermals, cutlery, bike helmets, bike tools. Basically all the useful things. Fortunately we had some gracious pals who managed to wade through the quagmire of our possessions in order to reunite us with our sleeping mats, tent and bikepacking bags so we didn’t have to completely start from scratch.

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2. Don’t smash your hands to pieces riding Whistler Bike Park for 8 straight hours a few days before your trip starts.

Especially not to the point where you wake up in the middle of the night with numb hands several nights in a row.

In my enthusiasm to enjoy every metre of gondola fed descent Whistler Mountain Bike park could offer me, I threw myself down trail after trail on the rented Norco, my handlebars juddering violently over the rutted sections despite the 200mm of full squish fork. By the end of the day I was death gripping for dear life, my hands reduced to bar grasping claws.

Anyone who has traveled a long distance on a bike will appreciate how disabling hand numbness can be. It can literally feel like an electric shock going up your arm every time you change gears. Anyway next time you’re planning on biking for a long time ensure you avoid giving yourself carpal tunnel a couple of days beforehand.

This leads quite nicely onto point three

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3. Don’t buy a brand new handlebar just before the trip and try it on your bike for the first time while you are putting it into the bike box for the flight

I had known for months that riding my downhill oriented hard tail – the Kona Honzo ESD pictured above – on the flat for more than an hour gave me numb hands. (Yes it is not exactly the ideal bike for a trip like this but for an explanation refer to point 1.) For some unfathomable reason I waited until the last possible moment to order a new handlebar – the awesome Moto Bar from Andy at Stooge Cycles. I thought I’d quickly chuck it on my bike while taking the the thing apart to pack into the bike box a few hours before leaving for my flight. To my dismay, I realised the handlebar did not fit inside my stem – the 31.8mm bar was too slim and hung limply inside the 35mm stem clamp. Alex, thanks to his bike mechanic background, was kind enough to educate me on the fact that downhill bikes have 35mm handlebars and apparently so do downhill oriented hardtails. A frantic search through the spares bin resulted in a stem which seemed to fit.

It wasn’t until we were literally about to roll out of Banff that I showed Alex the amount of play in my front fork – a result of a slightly ill fitting stem – leading him to begrudgingly fiddle with it on the side of the road – a place I have now learnt is not ideal when you are trying to fix a bike. Thanks again to the legends at Snowtips Bactrax in Banff for gifting me the spacer that made the repair possible!

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4. Don’t spend 6 hours the night before you are due to depart crushing pints at various bars around town instead of doing laundry

To be honest this one is fairly self explanatory but take it from me that starting your trip with both a hangover and no clean socks or underwear is not an ideal move. Especially when your next laundromat is five days ride away.

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5. Don’t leave your perfectly good Patagonia thermal leggings and shell pants on the couch at your parents home in Perth when you are due to cross 2000m mountain passes in the Canadian Rockies

I wish I could say that I forgot these items however leaving them behind was no accident. As I was packing I started worrying about how I would fit everything – due to the fact that I had never put the whole set up on my bike, which in retrospect was yet another oversight. During my last trip bikepacking in Canada I had been snowed on, but that was in May and I was going in June this time, full summer! What were the chances that I would encounter freezing conditions?

And that’s how I ended up riding for several days in hail, sleet and snow with only a dry pair of shorts to put on at the end of the day. Nothing quite like having to buy marigolds and plastic ponchos at the corner store before ascending Elk Pass in the bucketing snow, because you left your perfectly good cold weather gear at home. Deliberately!

Fortunately we did not freeze to death that night thanks to Tobermory Hut and whatever kind soul left some firewood there. But let’s just say those items are not getting left behind again. The weather has subsequently improved and the poncho and marigolds have not reappeared.

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5 somewhat niche tips I hope may alleviate some future bike adventurers’ suffering. If you’d like to keep up with our trip, you can follow @whitinthe.wild on Instagram. I post pics and videos from the trail whenever we have service!