Your Stories

Wondering what 260 bikepackers did for the worldwide group Swift Solstice Campout? Here’s a roundup of photos and essays from the weekend closest to the solstice when hundreds of fellow bike campers spent a night (or several) under the stars…

In celebration of the Summer Solstice – and the Swift Campout that sees hundreds of bikepackers worldwide spend a night under the stars – Cass reports on his New Mexican camping trip with family and friends.

With little preparation, Gabriel Amadeus spent a month on the Baja Divide as part of the 100+ rider grand depart. Judging by this mesmerizing set of photos, he found far more than he expected along the way…

Lessons from a first time bikepacker on the Appalachian Beer Trail, a craft beer themed bike packing route in western North Carolina…

Marco King recently completed his first bikepacking trip, a 900km impromptu version of the Camino de Santiago through northern Portugal and Spain. With a DIY kit in tow, sticking as often as possible to dirt roads, goat paths and the infamous GR hiking trails that crisscross the countryside, his pilgrimage was a steep learning curve… but one that was most rewarding.

Mary shares a story about coming to grips with being the last one to camp on the 2016 Steamboat Ralleye, a 200 mile bikepacking trip from Fort Collins to Steamboat Springs, CO.

Deep in the canyon country of southern Utah, time is thin, and murders from 1935 are close to the surface. The Bedrock Bags crew set out to bikepack a bit of history.

From September 2015 to August 2016, Markus Stitz completed an around the world bike journey covering 34,097 kilometers through 26 countries… all on a singlespeed bike. Here’s the story, photos, stats, gear lists, and a map where you can see the GPS track for each of the seven legs of his trip.

Beth ‘Bryn’ Hodge planned her first mountain bikepacking trip along the southern border of Italy and France in the Mercantour Alps. Here’s what she learned alongside a collection of photos and some insight to plan a trip of your own in these magnificent mountains.

Drawn by the majesty of the Nepali Himalaya and its welcoming teahouses, Colt Felters sets out to pedal around the region’s infamous Annapurna Circuit. Once he’s found his bike…

Situated on the eastern slopes of the Bolivian Andes – between the barren, treeless altiplano and the vast swathes of the Amazon – lies the densely forested Yungas. Its deep, subtropical valleys and steep sided mountains are home to both the Death Road and the coca leaf. Within these crumpled folds are also some of the most challenging riding in the land…

Sometimes I think back to my childhood, when I returned hastily from school to board the USS Enterprise with Captain Kirk and “explore strange new worlds, to seek other forms of life and civilization… to go where no man has gone before.”