About a week ago I got to meet Alpenzorro, a bikepacker from Germany who posts here on bikepacking.net. He flew into Tucson to start a ~4 month trip, generally heading north and using pieces of the AZT, TU, CT, GDMBR, CDT, then on into Canada towards BC.
It was interesting to exchange ideas of bikepacking and hear some different approaches. In Europe, of course, there are many more opportunities for resupply and places to stay. Things are a little more wild and remote here in the western US.
One idea I found particularly interesting was his pack carrying system. He chopped off the 'rack' part of a seatpost rack, leaving only the stub:
That forms a pretty solid base to hold the weight of the pack, then he used the clip from a (relatively small) detachable seat bag to attach the pack to the back of his seat. The clip part is sewn/taped into the back of his pack, kind of between the shoulder straps. Here it is attached:
I really like this idea because inevitably many of the bikepacking routes end up on long stretches of road, where bike handling doesn't matter and getting weight off the shoulders/back is ideal. Once you're back on trail, put the pack back on. The downside is that you can't use a big seat bag with this system, and that works so well to distribute weight and keep bulky things out of your pack. So I'm not sure I'll try a similar system just yet.
Anyway, Alpenzorro (Stefan) is nearing the Grand Canyon's south rim right now, and he is posting some nice photos and a lot of text. It's all "live" from his front-hub-dynamo-powered palm PC. It took him a while to figure out a phone combo that gets the palm PC online, but he's now in business and should be posting updates regularly.
They are in Germain, but I've found babelfish's translation to be enough to understand what he's talking about and even get some of the jokes. Here's the link to the babelfish translated version, when his ride started from Tucson:
http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_url?doit=done&tt=url&intl=1&fr=bf-home&trurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mtb-news.de%2Fforum%2Fshowthread.php%3Ft%3D460366%26page%3D7&lp=de_en&btnTrUrl=TranslateIf you click on the subsequent pages on the forum thread they should continue to be translated by babelfish. It's been fun to follow along so far.
