 Perusing the Forums for a few gear recommendations, I took a wild trip through the mysterious "curmudgeon zone". Bike-Packing is theoretically fun, and can be a blast with proper preparation, But it's possible to age out of this sport without knowing the lexicon of why. Preparedness to go it alone into the wilderness, or merely rural America, doesn't require the Prep a "Prepper" may do in anticipation for the next apocalyptical MAGA revolution. ...But proper preparations will verify one has Just what is needed, and nothing more, for this adventure. This process assures Comfort (and every practical chance of survival), while counting ounces, to prevent becoming a soggy "Pack-Tard". When you have everything laid out, you'll again begin to purge back all the sundry shit that definitely wont get used, and is for sure not needed. These tableaus of sundry shit are way popular so I thought I'd quantify just what you will not need, once you delve into the rabbit-hole of 'Bike-Packing'. There is always room to reduce your pack volume. This is where you may decide, (for example), That the Saw, The Axe, Air-conditioner, Bug-zapper, Camp-Chair, and your neglected pack-raft, need to stay behind.  REALIZING THAT THE COOL KIDS AIR OUT THEIR JUNK... 'Bikepacking' would like to remind you that this is No country for old men. But these are smug fucks from Berkley, and The Outer Sunset, and not practitioners from enchanted tribes of indigenous American bush-craft. Just pot-heads slinging Instagram moments on radically ordinary geri-bikes. The Bike-Packing Curmudgeon Zone reminds me of a few college bike co-ops, where I would become a "member" to access a work-stand, a truing-stand, or a few spendy tools I didn't have the money to buy. These primitive peoples were never "My Crowd" and they were not genuinely life affirming, nor very welcoming -- Any more than a crabby bike shop Mechanic is today. In fact it is proven that basically every Bike shop mechanic is genetically linked to this prehistoric Co-op's ancient DNA, which formed the silent resentful tribe of the first Curmudgeon Peoples from what is now The Franco-Italian Monegasque Riviera. (A Border area between current Italy and France, where banners still wave for Pantani, and Merckx. People like to sugar coat things while evoking the Term "Birth-Channel" -- As in, "I came into adulthood fully formed through the "Birth-Channel" of perhaps the world's most dysfunctional Bike Shop. Mick Jaggar, famously used the endearment "Toothless Bearded Hag"... But whatever your right of passage, it's fair to tell you that I know a few things about what I speak. It is also bad form to diminish any mother with such a grotesque idiom. I know, Right?  Anyway, I have been immersed in the back-bile of the bike shop ooze, and have formed views from the walls of that passage. Perhaps I'd tagged those walls myself. Today, as a veteran, I can say that Mechanically speaking -- Bike shops are a sort of galactic incubator for Odd Fuckers. Each one with an ankle bracelet made by KMC. Which has a lot to do with why they struggle so much. Smart ones come and go, but lifers become the wrench. Much like your favorite coffee shop -- Where else can you regularly be insulted, berated, and flat out loathed before Noon? All while a smug fuck side-eyes you for a 28% tip on your parents debit card? And so back to History 102: At the last half of the 19th century; starting perhaps with Wilbur Wright, in America's pursuit of a bike that can fly -- Wacky creations were coming hot and fast. Perhaps as rapidly as the primitive glottal stops born from shop mechanic failures and frustration the Franco-Sussex language tilted into full-monty-expletives, such as "What the fuck do you think this bike needs Ma'am?" to, "Just Don't Talk, I'm the F.N. Mechanic here, Emkay Brah?" This is how the modern Brand "Muc-Off" adapted their kitschy lube brand from the ancient Latin Noun: "Velo Mech" whose etymology stems from the Proto-French Phrase: "Va te faire foutre, which is the Old franco-anglo term for "Fuck-Off" So 'Fuck Off', is where bike-packing gear searches will lead you. This slippery slope may be similar to searches for P.C.T., and A.T. Adventure gear. To come of age in a millieu where D-Bags pretend to own the master recording, and are not selling any records, is a headache of inclusive High-fives. Fun Fact... There is no secret sauce to Bike-Packing. One need only bring a sense of adventure, on a normal bike, sporting a bag and tent, to get into the club. It turns out that you don't have to lean toward wacky, not tilt toward the lycra skin-suit. You can have it all as soon as you step out that door. Fast forward three decades where I now own basically every imaginable tool, and bike gadget -- The trick becomes to pare down all these "necessities" like the axe, and the bar end mirror, back to "the essentials". Today, forums such as BikePacking Dot Com lean heavily into that gothic rock genre of sporting Flannel, Waxed-Cotton, Tarp-Camping and some strange-ass bespoke cargo-bikes; Most with small front wheels. What you may not find there, is a modern gravel bike, a drop bar bike, or a self styled bike-packing bike. What you will discover is a lot of gear recommendations adorning hard-tail mountain bikes. Here comes the fairy-tale overlap with that 'One High-school guy' who'd alleged to be listening to vinyl from bands who, "hadn't yet been formed". Later he would become your neighborhood Bike Mechanic. Obscure bike Brands, "...you couldn't possibly know of", peddled for obscurity's-sake. Once you enter this coven, resentment rears for riding any more "main-stream rig" on actual road-ways. Bike Packing needn't bend so far into the Brooks zone, as it has -- However there is definitely a deep damp musky Birkenstock scent which pervades this subculture. As for popular websites, which masquerade as Granola-Grungy, while taking huge sponsor dollars and paid click-ads to send people deep into odd-ball remote bleakness -- BikePacking is at the apex of it's curmudgeon game -- Balancing the canvas Circus tent with Dyneema.  Sure, Why not travel in luxury. I remember a river guide once who smelled so foul while hosting an intestinal parasite, for a few years, while she lied to herself that she was "fine", while starving herself to get clean of the worm, because she either didn't trust doctors, or didn't have the money for medicine. This lesson presents in the context of BikePackingDotCom, as there is a clever balance between gore-tex, Flannel, wool, and wet sneakers -- Exchanging cool Modern clipless Wizardry and bleeding edge fly-weight fabrics for edgy Co-op styled low-tech natural fiber stuff. It seems that what is in constant tension is to be "that river guide" -- Where a pride in being a dead-head, precludes one from exchanging real currency for comfort -- Health for Life-style, and not wanting to align with modernism (whatever that may be). It is in this spirit of obstinance that I sought entry into the dark art of gear lists, and I came out the other side unscathed, but perhaps enlightened. It turns out I would end up using Clipless pedals on a carbon bike, with electronic shifting, and even a 3D printed saddle -- Gasp!, without feeling excluded from the club. So it is no surprise that some of Bike-Packing's edgy Garage-builds are adorned with a combination of kitschy Lo-Fi Bags, Bells, Stainless Racks, Canvas Camping gear and waxed lap-tarps, as though Thru-hiking and biking strolled in kilts into the sunset betwixt in a romantic "Fuck-You" to the Big Three Bike Brands. Try as you may, to seek out home-made shit -- MSR, MontBell, Patagonia, and Enlightened are still pedigreed makers of solid gear, with an outdoor avantgarde ethos. While ArcTeryx, CotoPaxi, & NorthFace are just Fashion Houses these days to the die-hard D-Bag.  Absolutely Not allowed to be used for BikePacking.dot.com. But does membership matter?, And does this primitive "exclusive club" mean we should all suffer to have a good time? Absolutely, Yes? One has to be pelted by Baseball hail, and icy gales to garner bragging rights. This Careful slack-line dance, gives credence to Gore-Tex, and Pertex, and Polartec, while trying to protect that ditsy-hippie vibe that Made "Topo" and Cotopaxi" so reprehensible today. To Be Filthy, and damp seem to be baked into the Bike-Pack & Pack-Raft, sales-pitch. To do it in the most obscure way, wearing that record from that band which hasn't even formed yet, gets you on the podium. Bike-Packers want you to ride a margin of insecure suffrage, to get you out of your comfort zone, but they don't want you to share any of your high-tech shit or practical advice with them. Nor can you talk about your High-tech Carbon Gravel Bike, unless it's fibers are made of Reynolds 753, 531, or something from Columbus. What bad things could happen when you left -- All you sported was a rain slicker, a packed puffy and an AMEX Card? Who knows? It's simply uncharted luxury to not go in wet sneakers. Remember when every through hiker got fitted for Donners, Vasques, or Sportivas at the REI?... Now they all depart in Sneakers. Bike-Packers do not want to hear about your Single Origin nor your Titanium Flask with single malt whiskey, Because they are busy selling, Ramen, Straining tea through a sock and downing the occasional Kwik-Trip Stroh's. Damp mornings are for unmixed Matcha, and a heady Black Tea. Are we all supposed to wear duct-taped sandals, or Crocks? Who are we anyway? So it goes that Bike-Packing has some devilish pact with the scent of a splintered 32 year old Brook's-Saddle from the (fuck-off) Grunge Gods. We present as Rivendell Curmudgeon, while endeavoring to keep sponsors on the payroll. Sure... Ride high and dry and sleep in a hydrophobic Big Agnes. Drag your stickered OG toxic Nalgene all over God's Green Earth but Don't talk about it; and never present as comfortable. We are selling the softened-rough-edge of a fuck-off exposure.  WE ARE ALL EATING NUTS AND BERRIES.  I now have a list of shit you wont ever need, and a clever drone shot of bike-packing bag-filler bull-shit, which you could leave at home. None of which is needed if you simply wish to ride your bike for days and days from Hotel to Hotel. If interested in a "BikePacking" Adventure... And you have the fortitude to converse with an actual Bike Mechanic -- Well then, we can help outfit you... But you will have to stand bare before the curmudgeon bike-packing troll, who now runs this blog, to be told that you are doing it all wrong. All Fucking Wrong. A Bike-Packing Bicycle starts with a 3x throwback mechanical, cable actuated mech shifted at the bar-ends, using CNC'd deraileur technology from an Santa Barbara Brand you may never have heard of. Your frame began as a forest green 531 frame that is now adorned with vintage kit. This is basically a stretched clown version of a 26'r Mountain Bike, with a 20" front wheel, a flat bar, and a recumbent seat. The Panniers are riding low as balls on a rack which was [Naturally] hand-jigged and fillet-brazed in Portland. While the waxed fabric Bags are spun on a Loom by Amish Widows in Massachusetts, [Wherever the fuck that is]. The Water Bottles and cages are Stainless steel Bidons c. 1906, while The paint and solution Dyed fabrics are made from foraged berries, Flax, and bees wax. Your Chain is braided from a blonde Mennonite virgin's pigtails. The rest of your shit comes from (carbon-neutral) Brooklyn, by bike messengers, Naturally... without the use of deisel, or BPA's (you fucking jag-off!). What the Velominati are to Road Cycling, the Bike Mechanic is to Bike-Packing, so prepare for the tongue-lashing, and beware that you do not actually ask a question you don't already know the answer to. ...And, Hey! Fuck the fuck off". In full due respect to "BikePacking Dot Com" many noteworthy Bike Mechanics, and Those interesting fuckers who sprinkle color over gobs of black carbon sameness -- It is fair to say that these resources, are useful, enriching, and entertaining and not without merit. For the rest of us, this list could suffice to get you there on a real bike. stuffing all of this in Apidura Bags, and using the most magical of all corporate accessories, which is linked here: Topeak Backloader (anti-sway attachment). Unless you have a credit card, and then you could choose to hotel hop. (You Fascist Cunt!) Please Enjoy! This is my "Bike Packing" Kit. Tent: Big Agnes Pitch Pine 1.5 VST poles packed separately in TT Bag Bag: Sea to Summit Spark 7c Stakes: BA Alum Spare Stakes: ZPacks Carbon UL Tent Footprint: BA PitchPine Tent Bag and Pillow: Dyneema ZPacks UL Polartech UL fleece reversible Straps: By Voile Straps Complete Dry Meal Nutrition: Huel Thai Green Curry etc. Eyewear: Cheap Tifosi Photochromic Cap: Rapha or Any basic Rain coat: Santini Magic Pocketable Lights: Trek Zion 200 2x Front and Rear EM Poncho: SOL reflective Gels and Powders: SIS Go Electrolye Isotonic Liquid IV Windbreaker: Rapha Pack Light Tiny Jersey Pocketable Gloves: REI GoreTex Mitten, Rapha High Reglective Light, Santini Polartech Alpha Sleep Pad: ThermaRest NeoAir Uberlite Pad Pump: Flextail 2.0 1 oz EM blanket/ Tarp: Space Blanket Gold Battery Pack Flextail Carbon, SRAM Battery knock-off By FaceRide Mini Waterproof Bag: by ZPacks Dyneema Locks: Abus Boris Lite Mini 6055c, Retractable Cable Lock 4 digit Bike Pump: CycPlus Ultra 2.0 Headlamp: Fenix NM50R 2.0 Navi Computer: Coros Dura Axe: Gransfors Bruk Pocket. Stove: MSR Windburner w JetBoil Micro Mo Burner, and Tank. Cup: Snow Peak Ti handle w Hot Lips Coffee Dripper: GSI Pakable no filter needed EM Kit: Adventure Medical Ultralite .5 w Extra Bandages. Pocket Knife: Kershaw Leek Sandvik 1660CBBW Smiths Sharpener FireStarter: SOL Flint Sparker Dry Lube: Gemini Fluid Spare Tubes: WTB and Schwalbe Aerothane Wipes: Off Full DEET and Botanicals, NeoSporin, Flents ISO Pocket Tool: WolfTooth Complete Compact Bad Guy Repellant: CN TearGas and Pepper by Byrna Helmet: Giro Spherical, Illumination by Trek ION 200 light  SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES. OR SIMPLY THE CIRCUS NO LONGER RIDES THE RAILS. Sure, But... Make Space for the Axe!
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