I’ve been planning on gathering some gear together in the sales for next season. Inspired by the millets tent sale, what else do I need / do you recommend. So far I only go “car camping” so kit is heavy and cheap so reckon I need a full setup. Not expecting to be epic journeys to start with out and backs so 1 night, maybe expanding to 2. Won’t be doing it in terrible weather either, unless accidentally caught in it.

Think I need:
Lightweight 1 man tent – possibly the blacks octane 1
Bike rack that could fit both on road or mtb, one of those seat post ones?
Small bag for the rack to hold tent and some kit
Lightweight cooking stuff.
Sleeping bag
Maybe a floormat?
Daypack (use my trusty Dakine apex)

Anything else?

Bikepacking is more about what you leave at home rather than what you need to take.

What you’ll need to start is something to sleep in, something to sleep on, something to sleep under and some means of carrying it.

Then it depends on where you want to compromise. More comfort on the bike or more comfort off the bike.

Sleeping bag – look for something which has a comfort rating of 0c, down and weighs less than a kg. If you look out for sales theres some good bags out there around the £100-150 mark. Dont scrimp on your bag.

Sleeping mats. You’ll lose more heat due to the ground via conduction than to the air via convection, so look at something which has a high ‘R’ rating. Anything over 2 is good.

Tents/Bivis/Tarps….depends on what you want. That Blacks tent is heavy.

For carrying stuff i’d go with a medium sized backpack to start with until you get some luggage options. Plenty of MYOG options around. Avoid the seat post racks. To many stories of them cracking when used off road.

Cooking stuff i’d leave for now. You can always stop for a pub lunch or raid the local Spar while passing civilisation.

Alpkit do a lot of reasonably priced gear bike luggage wise I am a fanboi!
Riding is mainly lakeland riding so I try and keep it as low weight as possibly and just use a tarp and bivi bag with a low weight sleeping bag.
I do use a mule camelbak
http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/pages/contact.html
https://www.alpkit.com
[url=https://flic.kr/p/pfd2zs]10455699_10152764655621474_5129287090542803515_n[/url] by Richard Munro, on Flickr

What’s MYOG?

I thought at £75 for 1.6kg that tent was pretty decent deal. Never camped in anything other than a tent so not sure id like a tarp or bivi (if that makes sense)

Any recommendations on brands for the mat and bag I should look at? Will be popping to go outdoors tomorrow

Good call on food and rack. Though if I’m going for a pub meal I may as we’ll find a pub that does accommodation too!

Make Your Own Gear

I cannot recommend Wildcat bike luggage highly enough. Really well designed kit, I especially love the Ocelot frame bag

Gelert do the Solo tent for about £25-30 weighs ~1.5kg. I managed to pick one up second hand cheap, still got to try my first bike packing trip though.

It can depend a lot on how much money you can afford to throw at it.
What Chew says is based on a lot of experience. As Rich says, Alpkit make excellent value for money kit and as David says, Wildcat Gear make great quality kit.
You could get away with strapping a sleeping bag in a drybag to your bars and strapping your tent to your saddle but you’ll soon want to improve on that once you start riding remotely off-road.
Start with Alpkit if money is tight, look at Wildcat for a bit more, look at Rich’s links for more info 8)

Mat wise you’ll not go wrong with a Neoair
http://www.gooutdoors.co.uk/therm-a-rest-neoair-venture-sleeping-mat-p292551
Over 50 nights out on mine so far, plenty of abuse and cant fault it. Avoid anything ‘self inflating’ as the foam inside which helps the self inflating takes up extra space and weight.

The Blacks Octane 1 is a good tent for the money, but not light by modern standards. You could just take the outer?

1.6kg is not light now!?! It might not be “untralit(tm)” but its not a bad place to start for a full on tent, espcialy if it is reasonbly durable. He could go with a trap ad be a bit lighter but from my personal experience tarp effectivness seems to depend on the condidtion in which you’re camping. Fully admit not an expert but that is what I’ve found.

GO had some Rab synthetic (Ignite?) bags cheap. Not as light / packable as down but will get you underway.

Also have a look at Field + Trek. They do a blow up mat (Gelert) for under a tenner. It’s robust, packs fairly small but is obviously a little heavy … but again it’ll get you going cheaply.

If you don’t like the idea of a tarp then look for a tent that can be pitched outer only … you’ll convince yourself you’re in a tent but really it’ll be a shaped tarp 😉

As above … remember that it’s not about taking ‘this’ and ‘that’ it’s about leaving ‘this’ and ‘that’ at home without suffering. As Matt Lee said – “Don’t pack for your fears”.

Just got back from my first night out in the wilds. I took the flysheet and poles from a small two man tent we had as there was a chance of a thunderstorm but slept under the tarp one of the others brought.

Got to say it was much better than a tent, you felt outside and you could look up through the trees at the stars, see the lightning in the clouds out over the Channel, chat to your bivvy mates without being hidden, and even though we were in cloud by the morning, my sleeping bag was only very slightly damp on the surface.

We had some light drizzle and a bit slight breeze came with it but I just put a wooly hat on and all was fine.

Really enjoyed it…next time I will get some lightweight drybags so I can have clothing in one, food in another as I was using plastic bags to keep things dry and it all got a bit mixed up in my rucksack and they are not strong enough.

I took an orange survival bag which I put under the sleeping mat, so that if it rained under the side of the tarp I could easily get my sleeping bag inside it without getting too wet.

SportPursuit has sea to summit drybags on sale at the moment.

sleeping bag wise i cant recommend the mountain hardware lamina 35 enough ts almost as light packable and warm as a down bag but its synthetic so it dosent matter to much if it gets wet. as for drybags go for the alpkit airloks

Thanks for the advice so far.

The alpkit dry bags look good. What sizes would you recommend for kit?

Re how much I want to spend, not loads hence looking at the cheaper tents, I reckon I should be able to get a decent enough set up for £200-250 to get started and see if I enjoy it. I’ll be solo so it might suck big time!

Not quite the same, but I asked about backpacking not so long ago and got a load of good advice. Might be worth a look?

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/cougar-grylls

I’ve got an Octane 1 and it’s a pretty nice tent, especially for the discounted price. It’s based on a Macpac Microlite, so it’s a good design.

I haven’t used mine much, but from what I remember the main downsides are:

I find it tricky to peg out. There’s probably a knack to it, but I find it hard to get the oddly-shaped floor pegged and the pole vertical. It usually takes a bit of re-pegging once it’s up to sort out the shape. However, once up, it’s as tight as a drum, and extremely secure. I once stayed in a field with a load of other tents of all shapes and sizes, and after a really stormy night mine was one of the few which was unharmed – it barely flinched, and was still as tight as a drum in the morning (I used beefy anchors).

The zip on mine is one-way, and opens from the bottom, so it’s not possible to crack it open at the top for ventilation. I think lack of ventilation is probably it’s biggest fault, but a lot of small tents suffer similarly.

On the first one I bought, one of the buckles securing the inner to the outer snapped – I think it might be incorrectly sewn. My replacement tent was similar, but knowing of the problem I’ve avoided snapping anything.

I think the 1.6kg is over-stated. I seem to recall that it was possible to reduce the weight quite a bit by leaving all the ‘extras’ behind.

I’d say it’s as good as much more expensive tents, and well worth buying at £75.

Just a tip for keeping warm. Silver foil car sunshades to sleep on. In between the mat and you.

.next time I will get some lightweight drybags so I can have clothing in one, food in another as I was using plastic bags to keep things dry and it all got a bit mixed up in my rucksack and they are not strong enough.

I’ve got some of those alpkit light weight dry bags and although they are ok they are not the most durable IME. Even a relatively new one of mine has leaked a little when placed on wet (very) grass for a while. This is probably due to the increased hydrostatics experienced as the bag was quite heavy. As an alternative to plastic bags I use small rubble sacks. Some times I cut them down in size if they are too big. Cheap, waterproof and if they do develop a hole I use them as rubble sack afterwards!

There is a cheap deal on Rab module sleeping bags for £69 on sportpursuit, perfect for good weather bike packing with a suitable mat – there’s no down on the bottom of this sleeping bag as you are meant to insert the mat inside.

I’ve got an old rab neutrino (100/200?) that’s years old but quite similar and still brilliant for summer trips as it packs to the size of a 500ml water bottle.

no down on the bottom of this sleeping bag as you are meant to insert the mat inside.

Sounds like an excellent idea. Made a double down duvet for touring with my girlfriend this summer and although it ended up a little heavy due to using a cheap down duvet as the starting point it was not terrible adn could easily be made lighter when compared to two sleeping bags. I’m personally sold on duvet / empty bottom sleeping arrangement.