Our 12 Most Popular Articles of 2022

We had another banner year at BIKEPACKING.com in 2022, publishing more than 1,200 original stories, reviews, route guides, and dispatches. We’re proud to have accomplished all this as an independent platform with a very small team at the helm. We’re also stoked to have worked with a variety of contributors from across the bikepacking community, representing a broad range of topics, themes, and voices. That total doesn’t even include the essays and stories we published offline in The Bikepacking Journal or the countless events we listed in our bikepacking events calendar.

As always, we want to thank our readers for all of the comments, clicks, shares, and feedback on all of our posts this year. And we owe a special thanks to our Bikepacking Collective members who make all of our work possible here on the site, on YouTube, and in print. Your support means a lot to us, and this resource wouldn’t exist without you. If you’re a regular reader of this site and you’re not yet a supporting member, please consider joining to help ensure our future.

Without further delay, here are our 12 most popular posts of the year, based on the total number of views:

1. Surly Grappler Review

After months of rumors and spy shots popping off on various forums, the highly anticipated Surly [Ghost] Grappler was finally released this year. It was Surly’s first real disruptor bike in a while, and it was clear they had something special on their hands after two of our editor’s gave it rave reviews. The Grappler ultimately earned a spot in our Gear of the Year Awards. The website traffic backs our claims with the review, receiving more traffic than any other new post in 2022.

2. Rigs of the Tour Divide (Parts 1 and 2), etc

Our original Bikepacking Race Rigs series remains one of the most popular on the site. We published a record number of 17 “rigs of” roundups this year, with editor Miles Arbour steering the ship. Several landed in the top 20 for website traffic, including Rigs of the Transcontinental Race, Rigs of the 2022 Badlands, and Rigs of the 2022 Silk Road Mountain Race. But none were more popular than the Rigs of the Tour Divide. Don’t miss part one and part two.

3. Decade in Review: Best Saddles for Bikepacking

In our new Decade in Review series, we commemorated the site’s 10-year history and took a deep dive into all the gear we’ve tried along the way, choosing our all-time top picks in a broad range of categories. In the first of the series, we shared 10 of our favorite time-tested saddles for bikepacking. We’re excited about this ongoing series, with more to come in 2023.

4. All-Terrain Bicycling: An ATB Manifesto

Somehow, off-road cycling enthusiasts got stuck with two terms to describe a broad range of bicycles that cover a variety of disciplines: mountain bikes and gravel bikes. We’ve been wondering about this for a while, and in an open letter, we prompted the bicycle industry to use the term ATB—All Terrain Bicycle—to describe some of them. In this opinion piece, we asked why and examined the history and future of the term. It was quite popular, and we were excited to see several bikes released afterward using ATB as a descriptor.

5. Eastern Divide Trail

We were proud to finally unveil phase one of the Eastern Divide Trail, the longest purpose-built bikepacking route in the world. It’s exciting to see it come to life and even more exciting to receive such a warm welcome from the community. We’ll be adding, updating and organizing around this monumental route in the years to come, so stay tuned.

6. 12-speed Shimano XT Review

While it was a little late to the party, we finally gave Shimano’s 12-speed M8100 series XT drivetrain a proper, in-depth review after 2,500 miles of use. This atypical Shimano XT review shed light on 10 things we learned about it and compared it to SRAM Eagle and SLX groups.

7. State 4130 All-road Review

For just $900, the State 4130 All-Road held a lot of promise. It’s a drop-bar steel gravel bike with clearance for big tires, lots of mounting options, and a choice of 650b or 700c wheels. We were curious how such an affordable bike would hold up in the real world and so were all of you.

8. 2022 Bikepacking Gear of the Year

We’re proud to have amassed seven years’ worth of Bikepacking Gear of the Year Awards. Each one is an extremely time-consuming endeavor that requires analysis of all the products we try throughout the year, nominations, discussion, and voting. We think it’s well worth the effort, and we’re glad to see that our reader’s think so too.

9. Bikepacking Hacks: Budget & DIY Handlebar Bags

DIY and #MYOBG (Make Your Own Bikepacking Gear) has been a cornerstone of this website since day one. In Neil’s bikepacking hacks series, he took a look at a few options for making your own handlebar bag, which proved to be a popular video and post.

10. Decade in Review: Best Handlebars for Bikepacking

In our third installment of the Decade in Review series, we asked the team of editors to identify their favorite handlebars that they like for multi-day bikepacking. After reflecting on hundreds of options they’ve tested over countless kilometers, eight editors shared their all-time favorites in this detailed roundup.

11. Hammerhead Karoo 2 Review

Both Cass and Neil put the Hammerhead Karoo 2 to a long-term test this year. The unit promised a gorgeously detailed display and a host of training features, but they wanted to uncover whether it’s suitable for bikepackers riding on and off the grid. Cass tried it out on extended bikepacking trips and day rides and Neil shared nine things he learned about the device after riding with it for countless miles.

12. Logan and VA’s Summer Editor’s Dozen

We’re particularly proud of our ongoing Editor’s Dozen series, where each of our editors rounds up 12 of their favorite products of the year. Occasionally, we’ll publish mid-season ones. Logan and Virginia posted a dozen products that have become some of their summer favorites back in July. They included a rack hack, shorts and apparel, some rad new handlebars, and more.

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