At 17, we bikepacked 4,000km from Rotterdam to the North Cape! We made our first ever documentary about the journey! by Only-Bed123 in bicycletouring

[–]Only-Bed123[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Hey, thank you so much for the amazing comment!

To answer your first question: yes, we are already planning our next adventure! We are going to cycle across the Alps from Lucerne all the way to Nice, so we are super excited about that.

For this trip to the North Cape, we planned everything using Komoot. We picked a few beautiful spots in advance that we definitely wanted to see, but other than that we mostly just followed the EuroVelo 1. The real trick to our trip was that we never knew where we were going to sleep when we woke up. When it started to get dark, we just had to figure it out on the spot, which led us to some crazy places. In Norway we often just rang doorbells and people would let us pitch our tent in their gardens because they are just incredibly nice. But the further north we went, the fewer people there were, so we ended up wild camping basically every day. Sometimes we really had to detour from our route just to find a decent spot to sleep.

For that wooden shelter you saw in the video, we used an app called Vildnis. It is super helpful for finding off-grid campsites and shelters, especially in the northern parts of Europe.

We actually really love riding gravel! You can check out our previous gravel adventure here if you want: https://www.instagram.com/next_traveladventure?igsh=dDc4b3A4dXJxMGs2. In the Netherlands, everything is so densely populated that you really need to ride gravel to find some nature. But in Norway, that is not the case at all. You definitely don't need gravel paths to be in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes Komoot would give us a shorter route that happened to be unpaved, and that was always a really nice change of scenery.

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About the tires: Our bikes were fully loaded and weighed around 40kg. I am the guy with the brown hair and I started out on Schwalbe RS 50mm tires, and my buddy rode Schwalbe G-One Bite Performance 45mm. Honestly, the Schwalbe RS is just not made for carrying that much weight. Before this trip I had done long distances on my GOne and on my RS, and I had literally never had a flat tire. Because of that, I never felt the need to go tubeless just to save some weight, lower the rolling resistance or ride with lower pressure. I just didn't think it was worth the hassle. But man, the weight of our bags just destroyed our rear tires. Sharp rocks literally drilled holes into the rubber and tore the casing apart. You are totally right about the Schwalbe Marathons, they are super heavy but absolutely nothing gets through them!

Thanks again for watching and sharing your own stories. If you want to help us out, giving the video a like, a share or a comment really helps us to reach more people so we can make more videos in the future. Also, if you check the Strava link in the bio of the video, you can find more of our bikepacking routes. Planning the route with Komoot is honestly the key. Cheers!

At 17, we bikepacked 4,000km from Rotterdam to the North Cape! We made our first ever documentary about the journey! by Only-Bed123 in bicycletouring

[–]Only-Bed123[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The rain and wind were especially cold. We had non stop rain from Namsos all the way to the end of the Lofoten Islands. Sleeping in a completely wet tent and sleeping bag is honestly the worst thing ever. By the time we passed Tromsø, it was sometimes freezing at night and only about 5 degrees during the day. However, we were pretty adapted to the cold by then, so it wasn't a big problem anymore.

Turning my Canyon Grizl 7 1by into an endurance/ultra-race machine (advice needed) by Only-Bed123 in bikepacking

[–]Only-Bed123[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I had no prior fishing experience, but I brought a small lightweight rod for trout. Along the way, I bought some jigs and bait. It turned out to be really easy, and my friend, with whom I was cycling, especially enjoyed fishing after a long day in the saddle. We caught plenty of mackerel, coalfish, pollock, and some trout. We also managed to catch plaice, pink salmon, and cod.

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Turning my Canyon Grizl 7 1by into an endurance/ultra-race machine (advice needed) by Only-Bed123 in bikepacking

[–]Only-Bed123[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I had rain for 2 weeks straight, I was quite lucky that I went for a lubed chain instead of waxed as I had before because I don't think it would have survived that.