Fargo and Away

Bikepacking the GDMBR requires that you be prepared for everything, because when you’re 100 miles from the nearest town, you won’t find a hotel, you can’t order food delivery, and no is going to fix your bike if something goes wrong. That means you have to carry a lot of gear. So, you have to have a lot of gear and you have to have a bike that can carry a lot of gear. This is of course why bikepacking is so attractive to someone like me, who loves gear.

In an earlier post, I mentioned how the Fargo was designed for bikepacking. The front fork alone has nine gear mounting points — on each side!!

Just how much gear does one need to bring on an extended bikepacking trip? First, just to stay alone, you’ll need to carry water, several liters, in fact. So, you need several bottles, cages to hold them, and you’ll also need some way to purify that water, which will often be sourced from lakes and streams with all kinds of not-fun-for-your-tummy microscopic critters.

You’ll need food, sometimes enough for several days travel between services, and you will need to be able to keep that food away from furry creatures big and small that want to eat it while you are sleeping. Of course, you need to be able to deal with the delayed consequences of consuming food. You won’t be passing many gas stations.

You need clothing to keep you warm and dry and in the mountains and also cool in the desert. You need sleeping bags and pads and a tent and a rain fly unless you don’t mind rain and mosquito bites on your face at night.

You need practical tools like a headlamps and a pocket knife and a bunch of bike tools and spare parts to fix your bike shouldn’t something go wrong.

You’ll have aches and pains and scrapes and cuts to handle and so you need some basic first aid stuff.

And of course you need a GPS and a phone and an emergency satellite phone and maybe a GoPro, and cords and spare batteries to keep everything working.

All that stuff has to go somewhere, and so, you need bikepacking bags.

My bag system consists of the following:

– Rockgeist frame bag, which will hold most of my food, bike tools, and cooking gear

– Rockgeist top tube bag, for my phone and spare batteries

– Rockgeist honeypot bags for holding snacks and a water bottle

– Rockgeist Mr Fusion seat bag to hold my sleeping gear

– Salsa Top Load dry bag on and EXP front pouch an Salsa Anything handlebar cradle for my tent, warm jacket, and various personal items

– Salsa Anything Dry Bags and cages for front forks, holding my extra clothes, water filter, and various other supplies

– Revelate designs too tub bag for hydration tablets

I also have three Klean Kanteen water bottles mounted to my two front forks and my down tube

After multiple test rides I think I have just the right amount of gear and just enough bag space to hold it all. Of course, I’ll know for sure only after I get out to Wyoming and start down the GDMBR!