First outing
Diving into the world of bikepacking equipment can soon make you both drool and have your bank manager on the phone. I have learnt along the way that trying to buy cheap things and then build up is sometimes more expensive than saving a bit and buying something of real quality. Like my boss often says: "Only rich people can buy cheap things". With this in mind I decided to use what I have and simply get out with what I have from hiking and trips and an old bike I use for gravel and messing around in winter. The one thing I did decide to invest in is bags that will last. I did research and went back and forth between various great bag makers and due to the fact I didn't want a custom framebag I went with the Apidura equipment. They were lightweight and more importantly waterproof so an trips in the rain will also be covered.
The rest of the equipment, sleeping wise and clothing wise I'm just sticking with what I have. It's heavy but as we do more and more trips I'll get an idea of what works and what doesn't and in that way replace the most critical stuff with new quality equipment. The tent we currently use is a heavy 2.5kg so that may be the first place to look into. I will post full gear weights so that in the future I will be able to compare what I started with and how things evolve. So the test trip we went on to check how things fit on the bike was without sleeping out. We just fill the bags with equipment we might be taking along with us for weight and fill and set out for the whole day. I was pretty good to see how things worked out and looking forward to actually getting out for a full trip which will be the Sea of Galilee.