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OUTDOORS
A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO BIKEPACKING BIKEPACKING: LEARN ABOUT REVELSTOKE LOCAL ROUTES TO GET YOUR WARMED UP FOR POST-COVID INTERNATIONAL ADVENTURES. By Alex Cooper.
The first person to bicycle around the world was Thomas Stevens, in the mid-'80s. On April 22, 1884, he strapped some clothes and a bed-roll to his penny-farthing (those bikes with the giant front wheels), holstered up his pocket revolver, and headed east from San Francisco. He crossed the United States, took a steamship to England, biked across Europe to Constantinople (now Istanbul), made his way to Iran, and then pedalled through India, China, and Japan. He caught a ship home in January 1887. When you look at pictures of his gear and consider the roads at the time, Stevens is the world’s first bikepacker. Of course, people didn’t call it that at the time, or really any time until recently.
Today, bikepacking has become a buzzword, a way for companies to sell more bikes and specialized gear. It’s also a way of exploring, it’s “go light, go anywhere” ethos adopted by thousands of hardy cyclists to reach remote regions no matter the condition of the road or trail. Some even bring packrafts along to extend their adventures onto rivers, lakes, and seas. Bikepacking has supplanted bicycle touring as the terminology of choice for travelling by bicycle. You’ve probably encountered the term somewhere. You may have dove in, or you might have wondered what’s wrong with your Surly Long Haul Trucker, rack, and panniers.
