Bicycle Touring and Bikepacking

Further to the post (Here) I thought I would give more information about our entire journey for the people who might find it useful.

The Beginning

It started when we watched Ed Pratt's videos on unicycling around the world and it gave me the idea to also do a long cycle tour. My girlfriend is from Poland so the idea of cycling to Warsaw over the summer seemed like a fun idea and much to my amazement, she agreed to it aswell.

Preparations

I volunteer at a charity in Aberdeen called BeCycle. (Also the Instagram We fix bikes that were donated then loan them out to people who want one, like refugees, kids and anyone else. It's a mix of people who just want to get around the city and people who want to get into the sport but might not have the money. From there I was able to get both my, and my girlfriend's bikes and fixed them up during the rare quiet moments in the workshop and spare evenings that we had.

My bike is a Shogun trailbreaker (blue /green one) (picture of me working on it below) .

I think from 1992, the gears had previously been upgraded to a 2x10 drive train with a normal front chain ring (42 tooth) and a tiny granny gear for the steep hills (23 tooth).I swapped the handle bars for a set of 46cm gravel bars and some foam bar tape. I also rebuilt the bottom bracket, headset, both front and back wheels and anything else mechanical with new grease and new bearings for one wheel. I added a front and back pannier rack with some slight modifications to the bike as it didn't have the place on the frame to bolt them on.

My girlfriend's bike is a Specialised Hardrock (red one) also from the early 90s. We changed it to have a 2x7 drive train (brilliant find in the parts bin to get nearly matching shifters) with a slightly smaller front chainring (38 tooth?) And a granny gear aswell. We swapped the straight bars for some butterfly bars as they gave more hand positions. We also rebuilt the headset, wheels and bottom bracket. And swapped the seat to a really old brooks saddle.

With the exception of my handlebars both bikes were made with parts that were around the workshop so some might not be the newest or the lightest, but they work and I know how to fix them if they break.

My front bag was a donation to the workshop, it is made by trek and sits on top of the rack with 2 fold out pockets and was brilliant (would have been even better if it was waterproof). I made the green bags at the local library. They have a roll access and are secured with some straps and buckles. They bolt onto the frame at the water bottle cage mounts and are secured other places with double sided velcro loops. One mistake I made with them was making them slightly too big, this caused the sides to bulge out too much and they would rub against the cranks and the chainrings, causing holes. Also while I tried to make them waterproof, they did let some water in if it rained all day. The rear bags are just 30l dry bags with rucksack straps, ment for paddleboarding. Cheapest place to get them is go outdoors. The pink bag on the Shogun has tools, tape and other usefull bits in it. The waterbottle stem bags were really useful for carrying our bottles in easy reach, also sometimes put snacks in them too. It was difficult to put them on the Hardrock as the bars and cables got in the way of the stem, one thing I would change would be how they were attached to the bike so they were easier to get bottles in and out of. The fuel for our stove was carried in the red bottle you can see in some of the pictures. It's difficult to find a bottle cage big enough as I don't think they are made anymore. Originally we used a bottle cage that could stretch over the bottle but it broke near Berwick upon Tweed and I just tied the bottle on. Eventually we bought a side loading cage that held it allot better, it had to be moved to the Shogun as it no longer fit where it was on the Hardrock before. There were no cage mounts on the bottom of the hardrock (or on the pannier rack of the Shogun) so to attach it I cut a bottle cage down so only the Frame mounts were left, then bolted it to the other waterbottle cage with some washers imbertween, this left a gap to put 2 hose clamps around it and hold it to the frame (with some tape to protect it).

Equipment

These pictures are of the stuff we started with. We did add to the things we carried throughout the trip. Main ones were changing from foam mats to self inflating ones (OEX 3/4 length) as they were more comfortable and easier to carry. We got new pots that replaced the mess tins, not by choice, they got stolen at a camp site. Once we left Scotland we found that we were carrying too many clothes so we left some at our parents. I got a packable bag so that when we are off the bike I have a bag to carry things. Lost the first one in Amsterdam so had to buy another one. I had an old GoPro hero 3 that I took with us, while it was really good the battery is 10 years old so doesn't last that long. It was attached to the bars of the hardrock most of the time, a way to quickly detach it would have been good to take pictures with as our phones were difficult to get at as they had headphones and charging wires coming from them most of the time. Speaking of technology, I had a big power bank in my green bag and a cable that ran from inside out the top of the bag and to the phone, had to buy an adaptor so I could listen to music and charge at the same time as apple stole my phone's headphone jack. Wired headphones are the best as they are dirt cheap if they break and can't fall out and get lost. Having a big powerbank was very nice as we could go 2-3 days without power easily without caring about how much we used our phones. A problem we had was not being able to charge everything when we did have electricity, a second plug would have been very useful for this.

One of the blue bags had the tent and the self inflating mats in it, the other had our clothes and sleeping bags in it, this ment that we would only have to open the bag inside the tent when it was raining which help keep stuff dry. The green bags had things that we would only need less often, like bulk food and heavy things like the the power bank. The front bags had most of our food and other things we needed to get to regularly. It made the front quite heavy but overall worked ok. We carried about 1.5 l of water each then I carried another 1.5 l in my green bag.

The Journey It took us 2 months in total. Here is how our bikes looked when we left.

We cycled about 40 miles in the first day and wild camped near a place called inverbervie. From then, weather wasn't brilliant and it was really windy, that combined with the worry about the trip made that first night really stressful, we both had a good long cry about how worried we were that we wouldn't make it more than a few days and that that night we would get soaked. We made it to Dundee the next day and stayed in a hostel, it was a welcome break from being outside.

The next day we managed to find our first warm showers host. The wind for the past few days had been a 30mph head wind, if felt like cycling up hill wherever we went, it also rained allot during that time. Our host drove out to find us, I have never been so happy to see the face of a total stranger. They were truly incredible and gave us so much advice on cycling through Europe. We felt so welcome with them and were refreshed with a new plan on how to continue.

The next day we cycled to stay with a friend near Edinburgh where we stayed a day, it was nice to refresh after the last couple of days and to see a familiar face.

Over the next few days we cycled down the east coast of the UK (upon the advice of our first host), to try and avoid the major hills although there were still many. We stayed with many brilliant warm showers hosts in that time as we worked our way to Newcastle, we stayed with some family friends who I hadn't met in years, it was so nice to see them again. I wanted to ride the metro while we were there (cuz I'm a huge nerd) the only time we had the chance was when we had our bikes, the times and places worked out that we didn't get the chance, but only got told after we purchased the tickets. Once again we stayed there for a few days.

We next cycled to York, again following the coast for the first bit, before cutting inland. We cycled through allot of very deprived towns during this time. And stayed with some fantastic people, also managed to get a really cheap room in a pub for the night, which was nice as it pissed it down outside then. By this time we had fallen into a routine, we would wake up and start cycling about 9:30am, cycle until about 1pm, have lunch for half an hour, then cycle again until about 5pm. In the UK it was easiest to find warm showers hosts, which made it much easier as this was our first bike tour ever . We stayed in York for a few days to see the city, we went for a tour around the city centre and saw a few museums (highly recommend the national railway museum).

From there we cycled to Warwickshire to see my girlfriends parents and stay with them for a while. I had to go back to Aberdeen to re-sit an exam so it was a good place to stop for a bit. And a good chance to get some bike parts from the workshop in Aberdeen. And to relax for a bit (at least for my girlfriend, I was stressed revising for an exam). When I got back we spent a few days getting ready and I replaced the chain on my bike as it was stretched so much that I was having trouble with my gears. I also changed serviced the breaks on both the Shogun and Hardrock, replacing most of them at that time.

From Warwickshire we wanted to cycle along the grand union canal through Milton Keynes. Once we got on it we found it to be mostly uncycleable. The grass on the banks had just been cut so there was no clear path, and cycling through the cut grass was slow, bumpy and difficult. We decided to change the route to go on the roads for a while until the path along the canal became passable, which it eventually did. Our next big challenge was getting through London, to my parents who live in Kent. The route we took lead us around the north of the city, then along the river lea as there is a nice bike path that takes you right into the city centre with no cars. We stayed the night with our last warm showers host in the UK. It was difficult to find anyone as it was the day of the world cup final so not many people were free. We didn't plan to stay in London, my parents live close to it so I have visited lots of times before. We decided to get the Thames clipper boat to Greenwich to try and skip the centre of the city, both for time and safety reasons as it let us cycle from London to my parents in a day. We stayed at my parents for a day to recover and so I could swap some of our kit with some stuff I had stored there. I also booked the ferry tickets then, unfortunately the website didn't work on my phone for some reason so I couldn't do it early. As it later turned out, I booked them for the wrong day.

We cycled from there to Dover, staying with a family friend half way. At Dover we stayed in a hostel called "Dover Adventure Backpackers" it was next to the harbour. It was cheap and got the job done but really run down, there were holes in the floor in places but the people running it were really nice.

The next day we crossed the channel to Calais.The cycle from calais to where we stayed the night was my least favourite day, the cycle network had lots of closures and diversions which made the route much longer than planned. It was also so hot that day my phone overheated if i left it on my handle bars so i had it in a pocket, I hit a pot hole and it bounced out, cracking the screen despite the thick case and screen protector. We stayed with an amazing warm showers host and his family for that night, they get lots of cyclists through there so we were very appreciative of being hosted for the night. From there we slept in campsites and using another app called welcome to my garden as we made our way to Brugge. We found it was becoming harder and harder to find people to stay with. We stayed with a welcome to my garden host in Brugge for a weekend to rest and recover, it was starting go get very hot by this point.

There were lots of ferrys from Brugge to Amsterdam, they are very frequent and most are free, some cost a few euro. It was also mostly along busy canal paths, it was a steep learning curve being with other cyclists for the first time and hard keeping our bikes out the way of others as they handle like boats. It was also very flat by this point and with few trees of hedges it was difficult to find shelter or a spot for the toilet. This was made more difficult as you have to pay for everything like toilets and cash machines that we were not used to in the UK. The cash issue was made worse by the crowdstrike update that bricked all the atm's we could find.

We couldn't find a person to stay with in Amsterdam so we stayed at a campsite on the edge of the city, it was very nice however we had our cooking pots stolen while we left them out to dry.

From Amsterdam it started to get less enjoyable, the days were very hot and we were starting to encounter more hills again. Also now that we were passing through countries less quickly the feeling of progress was reduced. One of the most enjoyable things for us was meeting people along the way however there were not as many people to stay with along our route however the one or 2 people we were able to stay with were brilliant. Fortunately in Hamburg we were able to find a really amazing host who we were able to stay with for 2 days, really not enough for a city as big as Hamburg and we wish we could have stayed longer.

At Hamburg we decided that we wouldn't make it to Warsaw in time as we had to be back in Aberdeen for September, if we wanted to see any of my girlfriend's family we would have to get the train to Warsaw from Szczecin. I tried to book it on the website however every seat was taken on every train I looked at, I figured that this was a bug with the website and we would just have to buy it at the station.

From Hamburg we were able to find no warm showers, welcome to my garden, or 1nite tent's (another app for places to camp). We didn't want to wild camp as we were very tired and didn't need that additional stress. One night we were able to find a caravan that we could stay in. It was very nice to sleep in a proper bed for the first time in 5 days, not sure it was worth the 50 euro that we paid for it though.

It was a relief to finally cross the border into Poland as we both had had enough of being outside and wanted a rest. We missed talking to other people as that was one of our favourite parts of the trip. I think the light at the end of the tunnel made us more tired aswell as it was always in the back of our heads "just a few more days". Our final night was at a very nice campsite called "camp costa" the facilities were very good and they had food and beer that was cheap, only downside was the tent was on a bit of a slope.

I don't have that much to say about the later parts of our trip, as by the end it got a bit samey. We fell into a routine of cycling which made it a bit uneventful and also we met less people along the way which made it even less exciting. I think that the main conclusion that we got from this whole experience is that our future tours are going to be much shorter just to keep us motivated.

In szczecin my girlfriends mum got us a room so stay in for a few days. We found out that the trains were infact full so we had a panic while we tried to work out how we were going to leave. We were able to get the flixbus that carried our bikes overnight to Warsaw. In the morning we were very tired so it was difficult to feel happy about what we had accomplished, I think it will sink in over the coming days and weeks.

Advice for others As for advice for others it's probably best to devide into things that were good and things that were bad or that we would do differently.

I wish I had some shoes other than our cycling shoes to wear for when we are around campsites or in a lake/river. Also I think we carried too much food which weighed us down. We wish that we left earlier so we had more time to enjoy things along the way.

Some good things were that we had the perfect amount of water, we never ran out but didn't arrive anywhere with a huge excess. I experimented with carrying huel and having it for my lunch, this worked very well, only issue was the bags are big and quite heavy and I was too lazy to make it some days. We also carried spoke cards that we could write a message on with sharpie and give out to people we met, this was brilliant as it gave the people we stayed with a memory of us.

I'm happy to answer any questions people have, I probably have lots more stories to tell if people are able to dig them out of me. Il try and work out how to add more pictures once I have posted the story. Hope it is entertaining for those who read it!