The ONE Mistake Every New Adventure Cyclist is Making!

With bicycle touring and bikepacking getting popular, more people are getting into the great adventure of traveling the world by bike. With that comes a lot of skill and knowledge to be gained and the biggest mistake everybody makes is to overcomplicate many aspects to have a successful and enjoyable adventure. In this video I will unpack how overcomplication creeps into the process of preparation and how to take the right steps to master the incredible art of bicycle travel. To start off, every new endeavor has by nature a learning curve. Our goal is to minimize the amount of time it takes to learn and gain knowledge and skill in a productive manner with an emphasis on keeping safe in the backcountry. With a big project like a long bicycle-driven adventure, there are many moving parts that together are not necessarily a straightforward skill and knowledge base to try and acquaint yourself with. To prevent overcomplication, we want to create an overview of all the key areas and their components and how to best progress through the various steps we need to learn about in the most efficient way. The first thing to acknowledge that there are major areas of expertise that make up a bicycle adventure. For example, camping, navigation, bicycle repairs and maintenance to name a few. Each of these are quite specialized and have their own specific learning curve. I've made mistakes in all of these areas by winging things on the fly or making bad gear choices, by being complacent about my skills or even more often by the simple lack of knowledge and experience. It's natural to learn and gain knowledge from outside sources to be able to progress and grow. No one can become a master in a vacuum. The key thing to take away is that knowledge gained from others doesn't translate into personal experience. I sure have been guilty of that by taking other people's words for gospel and suffer the consequences. Always learn skills in a safe environment before relying on them when it matters. Let me give you an example to illustrate. There are many parts you are trying to replicate as close to home or comfort four as possible. Sleeping is an excellent choice to set as an example as getting it wrong is in my experience the single biggest detrimental factor to short and long-term enjoyment while being out on an adventure. I've been punished in the past by shivering under a wool blanket, by reading a blog post about the incredible experiences of sleeping in the outdoors using wool. At that time it was biting off more than I could chew by selecting an advanced sleeping technique for myself as a beginner. At the start we should keep things simple easy and with a high chance for success even when it translates to a bit more bog and a less trendy outdoor appearance. The thing here is that it's better to overcompensate a bit with a potentially heavier warmer and a more comfortable sleeping setup as a means to succeed and enjoy than it is to overcomplicate the skill set with an advanced sleeping technique that could end in failure and possible discouragement to try again. A key insight is to be able to break down the different areas with the components to their essence. What is it you're fundamentally trying to achieve? I believe it's a very important and primary skill to learn and understand. When assessing the essence of a particular area, try and see where the failure point lies and focus to remedy that aspect in the first place. Being wet, hungry, cold, tired, etc. are important to prevent as they can escalate into more serious situations but are in and on themselves not directly critical. You can spend and lose a lot of time on tackling these issues by researching the countless posts and videos on how to deal with them. All these things are going to happen sooner or later and are an integral part of going on an outdoor adventure and building your skill level. With the common sense preparation in most instances you will have a relatively straightforward solution to deal with those inconveniences. Try and see that as secondary action points and come to grips with the critical issues first. To go further into the example, we'll also use sleeping as a guideline for how to find the essence. What is it you're trying to accomplish while sleeping outdoors? Is it sleep alone or is there something more important at stake? The body loses heat and could eventually lead to hypothermia, which is a severe undercooling of the body's core, which can lead to the worst-case scenario. Not all cases will be the same, but for argument's sake let's assume that most nights are quite a bit colder than the daytime temperatures. To be able to control your body's core temperature by manipulating the layers of insulation, your sleeping system, you learn to create a personal microclimate for you to have a safe night's sleep in the first place before having a good night's To understand how your sleeping system should work to keep you safe is critical. This knowledge will give you insights into how to deal with adversity when it arises. To be clear in this case about sleeping in the outdoors especially, I would highly suggest to commit and prioritize this learning curve and progress from a safe to a good night's sleep. Realize that at the same time it can be a long process to master. Don't be discouraged, you will get better at it. The essence is body core temperature control as that is the failure point you can't bounce back from when crossing the threshold of severe hypothermia. It is essential to stay away from such an event when in the backcountry where there is no direct access to help. A possibility that's all too real for people who are not well prepared. When developing your sleeping system, body core temperature control should be number one on your list of priorities and start further development from there. This specific essential insight can be directly translated to how to build up your clothing system as you are trying to manage the same principle of body core temperature control. You certainly don't need the latest and greatest gear and there are plenty of other options out there to be had that are affordable and get the job done without breaking the bank. Let's look at another important example of finding the essence. Let's take an area like bike repairs and maintenance. Something that provides a completely different service to your adventure. Simply stated is that when you can't ride your bike because of a mechanical problem you or at least your bike is stuck with all your essential gear for life outdoors strapped to the frame. If you're able to fix basic problems then you will tackle most of your repairs. The question here is what is most likely to fail and what can I fix myself in an outdoor scenario. Flat tires are perhaps the most common failure and should therefore be an obvious skill to learn and master. This also goes for brake repair and maintenance including changing and calibrating brake pads. Also the maintenance of the drivetrain and basic repairs and calibration of the derailleurs if the bike is equipped that way. I definitely recommend to test out these skills in the backyard first instead of relying on a belief that you will manage from an instruction text or video while out in the backcountry. If you encounter a disastrous failure such as a serious bend or broken wheel no amount of tools and skills will fix that problem. It's not likely to happen but when it does it's essential to have a backup plan. Solutions in that situation are calling for help possibly with a satellite communication device depending on your location and available services or hiking out yourself. The key thing is to know what to do in such a situation and therefore a basic understanding of survival skills pertaining to that situation will be highly valuable to overcome this obstacle. With many pieces of gear to get familiar with there is a multitude of choices to make. It may seem daunting to make the right choice in a sea of endless possibilities. On top of that the fear of missing out is a real thing with all the fantastic gear you're able to buy nowadays. We are literally spoiled for choice. If you're anything like me and you like to tweak things to a certain degree of perfection finding the right gear probably will be a work in progress. It is a journey in and upon itself. There will always be new and better things to make life outdoors more comfortable. I try and buy the gear that I need in incremental steps and try and steer away from the gear I want because it is advertised as the greatest thing I'm currently not using. All the things should have a high degree of functionality and value to be part of my overall kit. That way I'm keeping my goals clear and don't lose myself in the muddy waters of gear hype. I love hearing from people who are still using gear from way back and are thriving outdoors. In the end it's not about gear but about the skills you acquire over time. Bicycle travel is all about having fun and to dive a little deeper into the complexities of the world around us. If you're able to identify all the key failure points in the specific areas and have an answer for all of them you are able to relax and count on your personal experience and skills to keep you out of harm's way. Start with small successes and build up to grand adventures. It's important to take every step and enjoy the process even when the steps feel tiny. The old cliche that it's about the journey and not the destination is pretty much true. The destination is just the excuse to get out there. Check out this video right here where I show you all the key areas you need to know about when going on a bicycle adventure.