More Aurora sightings in 2025. Quantum navigation. Car brain. In the third installment of our video roundup series, Logan checks in with the team to curate a diverse mix of entertaining and informative bikepacking-adjacent videos that have been lingering in various browser tabs for far too long. Featuring a blend of new discoveries and predictions, this collection is a little different…

At the time of this writing, I have two browsers open with over 70 tabs. I’m honestly not sure how my laptop is still functioning. To help clear out a few, this edition of Too Many Tabs includes some odd ones I stumbled on recently and left open in tabs for future watching (and can now comfortably close) plus a few others from our team. Dig in below.

Solar Maximum

Logan: The fact that we were able to see the Aurora in North Carolina last year was pretty wild, but I didn’t know the full story at the time. In this video I stumbled on a couple of weeks ago, Dianna Cowern explains how the sun will be at the peak in its 11-year cycle in 2025, officially entering the maximum period of heightened solar activity. In short, it sounds like there’s a chance we could all get very disrupted by a solar storm this year, or at best, have more opportunities to see the Aurora in unexpected places while bikepacking. It’s worth a watch.

Burundi’s Banana Bicycles

Nic: Amid a sea of information about new bike tech and all the thought that goes into the perfect weight distribution of a bikepacking setup, it’s always good to remind yourself that people make do with far less. In fact, “far less” would be an understatement. As I discovered in a YouTube hole in the wee hours of the night, many citizens of Burundi pay no mind to weight limits or forums debating the merits of a rear load on a mid-trail bike versus a front load on a low-trail bike—they simply get to it. Transporting what could very well be over 100 pounds of bananas down gradients I might fret at on an unloaded bike, this fascinating documentary dives into the banana bicycles of Burundi.

Car Brain? Thoughts on Motonormativity

Lucas: Drawing parallels to the way society once viewed and accepted smoking (more doctors smoke Camels that any other brand!), Tom Albin’s latest Shifter video examines the way we’ve normalized cars as a built-in part of our lives today, despite their clogging our streets, causing many tens of thousands of annual deaths, and generally decreasing the quality of urban life. It’s offers some interesting insights into “car brain” and how deeply ingrained it has become.

Quantum Navigation

Logan: If the Kessler Effect (look it up) doesn’t destroy civilization, we might have another option for navigating bikepacking routes. Quantum Navigation could be the next big thing. “Quantum Navigation measures motion and location with extraordinary precision by cooling atoms with lasers to create a unique state of matter called a Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC). These atoms act like a ‘super-atom,’ allowing for precise calculations of position, acceleration, and direction without relying on satellite signals.” A lot to chew on, but interesting, nonetheless.

Carrying Stuff on a Bike?

Lucas: In a recent video, Gary from Gary’s Projects in Melbourne, Australia, experimented with various ways of hauling stuff on a bike to help determine his ideal setup. He compares a backpack, stem bags, front basket, rear panniers, a cargo fork, and a couple of cargo bikes, ultimately landing on the same setup I’ve come to enjoy using most, too. As usual, he presents his findings in the approachable, informative, and easygoing way that makes him one of my favorite YouTubers in the bike space.

Further Reading

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