In the summer of 2022, I was fortunate, after nine years of content creation, to take a sabbatical from BikeRadar and our sister magazine MBUK.
With bikes running through my veins, it should be no surprise that I spent the bulk of that time on two wheels, with the centrepiece being a six-week gravel riding and bikepacking trip.
I headed out from a small town, south of Barcelona, up to and through the French Alps, along the Jura in Switzerland, and into the Black Forest in Germany, before heading back into France via a traverse of the Vosges.
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Needless to say, there was no way I could afford six weeks worth of B&Bs or hotels, and so I strapped some bags to my old Lauf True Grit long-term bike, purchased some thoroughly researched camping kit, and started pedalling.
As such, my Gear of the Year picks consist of four items of kit I used on the trip that made a massive difference to my comfort and ability to carry on bikepacking across Europe.
Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Bikepack Tent
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It had been the best part of 15 years since I last purchased a tent, and so my mind was blown by the plethora of options when I was back in the market for a tent for my trip.
I had some specific requirements, of course.
Though I was travelling alone, I had hazy memories of a solo cycling trip in New Zealand 18 years previously, where I was hemmed into a one-person tent for five weeks, battling the competing spatial needs of my sleeping equipment, clothing, kit and myself.
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Thus, I decided I wanted to take a two-person tent, to give myself a little extra breathing room.
However, fast and light was my packing ethos, and so I wanted to keep the roof over my head to well under 2kg (including additional groundsheet).
I was keen to make sure there was suitable vestibule space, so that kit I didn’t want to drag into my tent (dirty shoes, unwashed pots) could stay outside.
I also wanted some smart bikepacking features (such as helmet storage loops and an on-bar stuff sack), decent interior pockets, and a subtle colour that would help stealthy wild camping.
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The (not snappily named) Big Agnes Copper Spur HV UL2 Bikepack ticked all those boxes.
It’s lightweight, has a multitude of pockets (including multi-media friendly roof pockets) and features short poles that contribute to a compact package that sits nicely between the drops. The two vestibules and internal architecture mean you can sit up inside without having to contort your body.
- £474.99 / $599.95
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Tailfin luggage system
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There’s no chance of schlepping around Europe on a bike with camping kit if there’s no way of carrying it.
In the past, I’ve ‘toured’ with panniers, and from an organisational and volumetric point of view, they are a very useful system.
Perhaps I’ve got myself caught up in the winds of change, though, and more bikepacking-type luggage, including a frame pack and bar bag, appealed to me.
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The main benefit of this more minimalist approach is that svelte bikepacking bags are simply more aerodynamic. More aero equals less effort – totally my bag.
Of course, looking at my bag leads you to realise I failed in my aero gains, because I used both front and rear mini panniers, mimicking the frontal area of a more traditional setup.
But hey ho, the Tailfin pannier system is great.
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At the back, the AeroPack Alloy with Pannier Mounts was a super-stable, completely rattle-free system, while the 10L Mini Panniers added useful carrying capacity. Their lever-operated attachment system proved stellar.
At the front, I had a pair of 5L Mini Panniers strapped to a pair of fork-mounted anything cages.
I then used a Downtube Pack under my, er, down tube, to carry my water filter bottle.
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Overall, I was very impressed. Everything worked well, nothing made annoying noises, and I didn’t drop anything along the way.
One point of note is the matt black finish makes everything rather warm in the back when it’s sunny. I occasionally found my blocks of cheese got just as sweaty as I did when dragged up prolonged sun-baked alpine cols.
- Pricing varies, see tailfin.cc for options and prices
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Helinox Chair Zero
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When you imagine a long bikepacking trip, you tend to visualise lengthy days in the saddle, followed by cosy nights in your tent, whiling away the hours reading some of the best cycling books around.
What one might not consider are the copious hours sat at either end of the day, either drumming up the energy to climb on the bike, or trying to digest as many calories as you can stuff in your face (a notable perk of bikepacking).
For this, I decided I didn’t want to sit on the ground.
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I also didn’t want to fold my sleeping mat into a contorted shape and hope it proved comfortable.
No, I wanted a seat. A real seat, but I didn’t want to carry around kilos of metal and fabric.
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This, then, was my real luxury. A camping chair, packed into my Tailfin, that weighs 500g (well, okay, 513g).
Five hundred grams is the same weight as a small water bottle, but by heck did that little stuff-sack of comfort repay every gram of effort it took to lug up each of the 45,000m of climbing I did on my trip.
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Unfold, clip into place, drape over and secure. And there you go, a camping chair fit for a king (or at least, a very tired Tom).
It was very expensive, but life’s too short to sit on the floor for six weeks.
- £124.99 / $130 / €129.95
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GSI Ultralight Java Drip
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I’m going to sound snobby for a second, here.
There’s no way I was going to drink instant coffee for the duration of my trip.
I wasn’t expecting the finest Peruvian beans, recently deposited via the internal pipework of a ground-hugging marsupial, freshly ground seconds before and brewed with the tears of unicorns, but yeah, instant is a no-no.
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As lovely as a Bialetti stove-top Mokka Pot might be, they’re too weighty for a trip of this nature. Likewise, an AeroPress arguably makes some of the best coffee around, but its bulk meant mine didn’t make the cut.
This 10g (yep, ten gram) pour-over might not give quite the depth of flavour of the two systems above, nor the beautiful clarity one can achieve with a proper V60 setup. However, it’s light, packed neatly into my titanium pot (natch) and clipped securely to my enamel mug (because, bikepacking).
Freshly brewed coffee every morning was worth rolling out from under my quilt for.